WOMEN AND THE HOME

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18467, 19 May 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

WOMEN AND THE HOME

FROM A PARISIENNE’S NOTEBOOK.

Every other woman one meets along the boulevards seems to be following the line of least resistance. That is to say, she is making the easiest choice among the enembles for town wear; a frock of satin or of crepe de chine, with an accompanying coat, a fulllength or three-quarter, in similar fabric. And nearly every other coat is decorated with embroidery, stitchery de fantaisie, or fine soutache. Moreover, with monotonous but honest accuracy, it must once again be recorded that “ magpie ” smartness predominates. And that invariably these black and white ensembles are preeminently successful. Here, for instance, is a charming frock in printed black and white crepe de chine, ineffably chic with its jabot and cuffs of exquisitely fine-pleated white cambric and lace; it is worn under a full-length coat of black georgette that is lined with plain crepe de chine, bordered, however, with the printed black and white fancy fabric. The collections are still featuring green, in delicate lime and olive tints, as typical of the mode of the moment. Either shade is cool-looking and elegant, and can be well worn by both the blonde and the brunette. Essentially of the smart set is the new mouchoir notion. Handkerchiefs about half a yard square, made of lace or chiffon, or both, are worn in some stylish coquet'tish fashion that arrests the eye. Some women wear them caught through a bangle or a finger ring; and the mouchoir indubitably .makes a dainty finish to a smart afternoon or evening toilette. An easy rival to the soft felt is the quaint little hat of coarse and shiny straw that is finished with a tiny eye veil, the obvious object of which is to break the ra'ther harsh line of the straw next the face. This little chapeau is seen with the coat frock and afternoon dress, while the soft felt still holds its own in the realm of sports clothes. N There is a more and more decided feeling for coloured accessories, all en suite. Into this category come shoes in coloured leather or' kid, to match scarf, hat, bag or umbrella. In displays “ pour le sport,” there are numerous examples of shoes that are specially designed to wear with sports suits and are covered with material to match. TOILE DE SOIE. OTHERWISE SCHAPPE SILK. This year’s most favoured material for sports and “ tub ” frocks would seem to be toile de soie, as the French call it; or schappe silk, as it is more familiarly known on the English sijie of the Channel. It has several definite advantages, that doubtless account for its popularity. It gives no trouble to the home laundress; it has “ substance” enough to hang well, and is at once less expensive and “ dressed-up ” looking than is crepe de chine. Schappe tennis frocks were a feature, incidentally, of the Riviera tennis tournaments.

FOR SPORTS AND COUNTRY WEAR.

THE SPACE ABOVE THE CUPBOARD. If you like " amusing ” decorations, you will approve of the sea-green tinted glass tanks which some modernist designers have produced for filling in the spaces above cupboards, wardrobes and doors. The tanks are lighted by electric lamps hidden among the seaurchins, molluscs, jelly-fish and coral reefs which, developed in coloured glass, lend a certain liveliness to the ■whole. When the tank is filled with water and the hidden lamp is lighted up, there is no denying the interest it lends to the room. Another modernist idea for filling a space is the fitment made on the lines of a window-box. It is a long, narrow receptacle, either painted or fitted with lustrous tiles to tone with the colour scheme of the room. Sometimes the box is filled with glass or feather flowers; sometimes with growing ferns, the only objection of this latter scheme

being the necessity for a step-ladder when the ferns have to be watered. For collectors of china there are tiers of ledges, combined in apex form so that the pieces can be displayed out of harm’s way, yet making a very acceptable contribution to the decorative theme. This fitment is made exactly to fit the space concerned, and it tapers off till the last shelf is brought up to the wall at the back. One ingenius designer has invented a series of painted hat-boxes with fronts that make a continuous theme, and which fit neatly into the space above a painted wardrobe. There is no untidiness in keeping band-boxes displayed to view in this way.

A SLEEVE WHIMSY. At a recent dress show I noted a very smart black satin afternoon dress with something arrestingly new in sleeves. They were decorated with white kid diamond-shaped pieces round the cuff and lower part,—a marked decorative tendency of sleeves in general, by the way, at most of the representative displays. APRICOT GATEAU. This gateau can be made with practically any fresh or tinned fruit. For apricot gateau, place the fruit from a pound tin of apricots in a pan and add the juice which should be made up to half a pint with water. Add 2oz of sugar and the juice of half a lemon. Allow to boil until the fruit is soft, and then pass through a hair sieve. Melt an ounce of gelatine in a little water and add to the apricot mixture. Pour a little into a moistened mould, run round to form a lining and decorate with pieces of glace cherries. Now pour the remainder carefully into the mould and put in a cool place to set. VENUS PUDDING. Butter a quart mould and stick round it two ounces of candied ginger cut into thin strips. Mix together in a bowl the yolks of four and the whites of five eggs, one pint of milk, one tablespoonful of rum or sherry and four ounces of sugar. Strain this mixture through a cheese cloth into the mould. Place the mould in a pan, with hot water up to half its height, and bake in the oven for forty minutes. Turn out of the mould and serve hot or cold as required. SONG OF FRIENDSHIP. Never believe the worst of folk, when once vou have seen their best. Of any friendship worthy the name, that is the surest test. Gossip is ready at every turn vour faith and trust to slay; but the loyal heart is deaf to doubt, whatever the world may say. Whatever you hear on other lips, let it not soil your own! Let friendship’s handclasp firmer be, while the seed of slander’s sown. Keep the image before your eyes of the friend who’s a friend to you: stand by the pact of proven love, whatever the world may do. Never believe the worst of folk, while your own soul sees the best. All that matters is what you know, not what gossip has guessed I And if all that you know is straight and fine, and has brought you friendship’s joys, be proud to treasure the truth that’s yours, whatever the world destroys. H.S. AN ENTERPRISING POLISH GIRL. She is only a student yet, Panna Stanislawa Witaczek, but she is endowed with a rare acumen for business, as my story will show:— She was born in the Caucasus, and spent her early years near a silk-wonr plantation. It interested her, and she observed the silk culture, until, when, quite a young girl, she conceived the idea of trying her own hand at it. She went to Poland some five years ago, and laid her scheme before the Ministry of Agriculture. “ Why should not the silk industry be introduced into Poland?” For some reason or other, the Ministry would not consider her plan, and Stanislawa was left to her own resources.

She looked around, notcied that in a little town near Warsaw there grew many mulberry trees, and, aided by her equally keen brother, she decided to rent a house in that locality. Her next step was to send orders to France for silk-worm eggs, and then she began her work. Within two years she succeeded in getting about fifty people to join her in this venture, and the number now totals over 300. Just recently Panna Stanislawa had the triumph of announcing that 450 kilos (about 9001 b) of silk were produced on her plantations. Spurred by this success, she and her brother started a special course in silk industry, and people from all parts of the country came to attend it. The silk propaganda has now extended to more than a thousand farms, the owners and tenants of which have taken to planting mulberry trees, stirred by the girl’s energy and enthusiasm. Silk is now being woven from home-produced cocoons. The success attained by Stanislawa Witaczek, and her indomitable pluck in coping with the numberless initial difficulties, has led the Ministry of Agriculture to reconsider their decision, and they have now agreed to cooperate in the further extensions of the girl’s scheme. M. E. Almedingen.

FROM A WOMAN’S ARMCHAIR. (By MAVIS CLARE). I suppose people will go on worrying about trifles till the end of time. It appears to be our mortal heritage of immortal folly’. Yet there are glorious hours when we can get right outside all the little problems and the persistent notes of interrogation, and say from a glad heart: “Why Worry?” Say it and mean it, too. And pass on joyously to the things that really matter, without one disturbing backward glance. The trouble is that we cannot recapture such moods at will. Because we do not make sufficient effort. The only optimism worth a song is that which has to put up a fight sometimes. The fleeting optimism of an elated mood is not the kind to protect us from the marauding hosts of pessimism when they come marching down on ow* hearts in grim array, to hold us relentlessly in their grip, to poison our conception of life, to blot out the memory of compensations, to undermine our powers of logic, and hopelessly to distort our sense of real and lasting values. Never let us believe that it is impossible to recapture the courageous outlook and the gallant smile of sanity and strength. If we spoke more firmly to ourselves, took ourselves more drastically to task in those hours of gloom, we should not permit worry to secure a monopoly of our thought-pro-cesses. We should put to ourselves the leading questions: “ Has the bottom fallen out of my universe? Am I utterly adrift? Is there no hope anywhere?” Obviously'-, the pessimism born of the sheer habit of petty worrying must take cover against this fusilade of common sense. We are all sufficiently endowed with powers of discrimination to make an honest and accurate classification of the setbacks that are real and of those that are the encouraged excesses, so to speak, of imagination working itself up, and building mountains on molehills. We know, too, that the big blows of Fate come like bolts from the blue, bringing with them a merciful numbness. It is the little ones that most oppressively get us down, and assail our health of mind and body. Fugitive fears, and disappointments, and seeming disillusion, that the morrow dispels and that never take shape as actual disaster. Such futile worrying is the

interest paid on borrowed trouble. To that sardonic usurer, Pessimism. What a thing to borrow—when Optimism, once we have proved our mettle, is ready to make us a free gift of joy’s most potent assets—courage, hope, and faith. A REMARKABLE HEROINE. A very remarkable woman has recently died in her home on the Uvero Farm, near Bayamo, in Cuba. She was Juana Aras Verdecia, the brave woman soldier of the Cuban Independence War, whose exceptional military qualities and personal distinction won her the rank of colonel in her country’s army. She died at the age of 116, having witnessed many exciting events in her long and active life. Herself the wife of a gallant soldier, she never left the active forces all through the ten weary’- years of the war. On foot or in the saddle, she led the troops of the insurgents into many a battle, and her exceptionally quick wit early came to be considered and appreciated at many a hastily-summoned military council. The personal part she took in the war was no sinecure. From her youngest years she had learned to wield her gun unerringly, and on several occasions she was faced with a ruthless hand-to-hand struggle with the Spanish troops. Even her ultra-conservative enemies, who at that time looked on any public activities of a woman with innate horror, could not underestimate the exceptional qualities of this stout-hearted amazon of the nineteenth century’. Colonel Verdecia took her valiant part in the invasion of Santa Clara, and all through the anxious ten years of warfare there was hardly a battle where she did not make her appearance. The women of Cuba can be justly proud of claiming her as their compatriot. —V.S. I THE FAMILY SILVER. TRY JEWELLER’S ROUGE. (By Hazel Brown). If you have never given those bits of family silver a chance with jeweller's rouge, you do not know what they can really’ look like! Nothing else will impart that almost blue brilliance which is quite unlike the polish obtainable in any other way, and that alone does justice to the full intrinsic beauty of silver or gold plate. There is no need to wash the silver before polishing; this is done between the two parts of the rouging process. But the articles must not be actually greasy’, of course, and it is always well to wash silver forks as an exception to the rule. Any’ dust, too, should be removed from the pieces to be polished. Otherwise, the articles are rouged,

then washed, then finally' polished with a leather. The rouge (both rouge and ammonia hail from the chemist’s shop) —should be mixed to the consistency of cream, preferably’—and most efficaciously—with ammonia. (But mind the fumes—and y’our eyes!) Prepare only a little, as it is ” njessy ” stuff, and you don’t want a large quantity lying about at a time. At each application, the soft red paste should be rubbed until it disappears into the silver. Then more—but only a tiny amount—should be taken on' finger or rag. and again rubbed in. The silver simply’ eats up the rouge-paste, and on a plai# surface a quite wonderful polish appears with no trace whatever of the polishing agent. Where there is deep engraving, or in the interstices of very’ heavily moulded silver, the tiniest faint tint of red will remain, but that is all; and the washing removes it. Wash the silver in the hottest water available made to a lather with soap. Then rinse in hot water and dry immediately’. With the final application of the special silver-leather, the family silver will be a joy to behold. LEMON CHEESE. Grate the rinds of two lemons and mix with half a pound of castor sugar until all is of a uniform yellow colour. Put this lemon sugar into a lined saucepan with three ounces of butter, two tablespoonsful of cakecrumbs, the yolks of three and the whites of two eggs slightly beaten. Stir well over a gentle heat until the mixture is about the thickness of honey. Pour into jars, and, when cold, cover with jam. This mixture will keep for some time, and can be used with pastry instead of jam. HATS FOR EVERY HEAD. BRIGHTENING OLD SUITS. Lets talk of hats! Paris hats in particular, for perhaps there is no hat quite like the one that is created in Paris. Created is the right word to use,* for actually some of the new felt models, made of felt so soft and supple that it looks and feels more like silky velvet, are cut and modelled on the wearer's head. A very trying business, no doubt, but it is the method par excellence of obtaining “ the only hat.” Apart from these adorable little felt chapeaux, Paris is specialising just now in some delightful straw models. Big hats of burnt straw, with brims that droop pleasantly and becomingly in front and turn up coquettishly at the back. Underneath the rolled up back is placed a cluster of flowers . . . nasturtiums if you like, all glowing in their natural colourings; roses, if you prefer them, in shades ranging from palest pink to deepest red; or again, lovely fragile lilies, orange, yellow or white. Adorable things, these big hats with posies beneath their brims! Then there are tiny toque-like hats covered completely with flowers, massed together in varying tones, and with gay little gteen leaves sticking up here and there. These have the inevitable V-shaped slit on one side which shows the forehead, although the rest of the cap-like hat fits closely to the head. There are wide hats in soft straw, and tiny hats in soft straw, and nearly all are adorned with floral wreaths or posies. Those which do not follow the floral vogue are—merely darned! Perhaps with brightly coloured wools, worked vertically from the top of the crown, perhaps with brilliant metal threads, or with thick silk. The darn-

ing almost covers the crown and finishes on one side in a sort of cabochon —very effective when exploited with a darned frock or jumper suit. Talking of darning, most things are darned these days. You do not quite know how to brighten up a jumper suit? Darn it! Work metal threads horizontally over the jumper, repeat the embellishment on the square neck binding and on the cuffs: and add another touch to the hem of the skirt. You will be amazed at the difference it will make. And darning is really not necessarily a matter for the expert: the amateur can easily add these modish and attractive finishing touches to a frock which, because it was undarned to begin with, was probably bought quite cheaply. Washing frocks are darned with bright coloured fadeless cotton threads; hems are turned up with darning, collars, cuffs and belts are darned en suite, and the result is astonishingly attractive. A sports coat that looks as though it had cost guineas was made by an amateur from rather thick coarse net, cut out by a good pattern, and then darned all over in multi-colouied wools. The net was deep string colour, and the wools were in shades of red, blue, yellow and green—a medley of colour which looked very well over the white sports frock with which the coat was worn. When the darning was finished the coat was lined with soft white silk, and a really distinguished garment was the result. If the wool darning seems too heavy, carry out the same idea with thick flourishing silk in the excellent shades in which it is now obtainable, and you will have a coat fit for any occasion. The coat is only hip-length, of course, and it has no fastening, a fact which makes it all the easier to achieve. Banana colour, maize colour, honey colour—any colour in fact that suggests sunlight—is fashionable just now, both for day and evening gowns. Primrose yellow, and real “ sunshine ** yellow are similarly in favour for dainty dresses which are worn by dainty women on sunny days. With white fichus or collars and cuffs, they look and are delightfully fresh and youthful. An interesting development of the vogue for pleating was seen in a recent collection. A model in lianana coloured crepe de chine was box pleated from shoulders to hem. The pleats were quite narrow, and particularly effective since no other form of adornment appeared on the frock. At the normal waistline was a narrow gilded leather belt fastening with a buckle studded with sapphire blue stones, and round the hips was a similar belt similarly fastened. A charming toilette, completed by a string of sapphire blue beads wound twice round the neck and allowed to drop to the waist in front.