WOMEN AND THE HOME

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18615, 17 November 1928, Page 22 (Supplement)

WOMEN AND THE HOME

WAYS TO LENGTHEN SKIRTS.

oman often volunteers good au. co the lengthening of a readymade skirt or dress. Such an alteration is frequently necessary, when the customer is either unusually tall or of somewhat conservative tastes. If the garment under consideration is a bodice-top skirt, it can usually be lengthened from one to three inches by inserting extra space in the bands over the shoulders. This drops the skirt both back and front alike, and if the hang of the garment was originally correct, this lengthening should not change it. Where for any reason this method of giving extra length is not feasible, a strip of new material can be inserted at the lower part of the bodice top. This is much easier than to interfere with the bottom of the skirt.

When neither one of these methods of elongating a skirt is practicable, changing the lower edge is the only alternative. This is most frequently accomplished by the addition of a false hem turned up on the right side and finished with a piping. This gives the appearance of a trimming feature and can be so planned as to harmonise with other details of the dress. The piping of such a band relieves the plainness of this added strip and makes the work much more satisfactory. Another method, still more ornamental, is the application of a band with uppei edge shaped in some irregular outline, as in shallow scallops. Such a band can be narrowly bound and pressed before it is applied to the dress. All such work must be done by hand, but it requires time and patience rather than actual dressmaking skill.

PULL-ON GLOVES.

Gloves of the pull-on type are so firmly established in favour that manufacturers have found it to their advantage to improve and beautify these instead of endeavouring to supplant them. As the ease with which these gloves are pulled on is their greatest claim to popularity, the newest designs show all sorts of clever contrivances for increasing wrist space and then confining it, with the result that the latest pull-ons are more easily adjusted than any previous models have been, and the added fullness is becomingly kept in place by means of ornamental wristlets, bracelets and other decorative strappings.

The simplest type of pull-on improvement and ornamentation, and one that has not apparently affected the price, is the slashed side that not only gives added space, but is made decorative by piping and overstitching in contrasting colour, notably brown on beige and black and white on grey. This colour combination is repeated in the wristclosing device, whether of the buckle or snap class, as well as on the back-of-the-hand stitching. Somewhat similar in method and results is the insert or godet at the side, either of the same material as the glove or in some skins of contrasting colour. Imitation reptile skin is employed in this way, and also shows as a wristband on one of the newest of the pull-on gloves. Another device for keeping the wrist snug and yet giving ample room for adjustment, is the insert of a generous gusset at the front of the wrist, which plaits over and is held flat by a wristlet which can be wound twice around the wrist, before the wearer lias had time to think of it, and clasps underneath. The trimmings of this glove are all of a darker shade and the top of the snap is mottled to harmonise with both the glove and its trimming.

What is known as the “ reversible cuff finish ” has also entered the field of the pull-on type of glove, so that the upper edge, slightly flaring and irregularly cut, can follow its usual course and appear somewhat like a modest gauntlet, or the top may turn down like a cuff, showing ornamental stitchery or strappings of contrasting colour. Two-toned effects are the rule, but novelties are displayed, such as two shades of rose or blue, with a be-tween-strap of black, as a decoration for pearl-grey or egg-shell-white kid pull-ons. While the pull-on is a utilitarian glove rather than of the more conventional dressy type, there is no reason why it should not receive somewhat more kindly treatment than is often accorded to it. Those trained in the matter of glove adjustment say that “ slip-on ” would better describe the way in which a glove should be put on, at least the first time. This has much to do with the wearer’s future satisfaction with her purchase. The hands should be cool and smooth when trying on gloves, as warm hands are puffy and hard to work into a new glove. When the fingers are well fitted, the glove should be turned down over the wrist so that there is a double thickness to hold, thus saving the usual tuging a glove off wrongside-out avoids all ging at the base of the thumb. Peelstrain and it is easily reversed and patted into shaoe. Careful treatment of new gloves adds much to their wearing qualities and also establishes their proper lines of adjustment on the hands.

HOME-MADE SCENTS.

To make your scent sounds ambitious, but it can be done without very much trouble, and those who have large flower gardens may be glad of knowing this delightful way of using up their surplus blossoms. The flowers must be picked when they are dry, and strongscented ones—such as violets, roses, clove-carnations, lilies of the valley and lavender—are best. Petals only will be needed of the bigger blooms. Take a large glass jam jar, and from a sheet of wadding cut a number of rounds just big enough to slip into it. Put eight or nine pieces of wadding into a dish, and thoroughly soak theih with the best olive oil. When they are saturated, sprinkle a thin layer of salt at the bottom of the jam jar. Then put in a thick layer of flower petals, following it with a disc of oil-soaked wadding, then another layer of petals, followed by more wadding, and so on, until the jar is filled. Cover with a double thickness of greaseproof paper, tie securely to keep the jar airtight. Put in a warm place and leave for a fortnight. The oil should then have become thoroughly permeated with the rich perfume of che flowers. Remove the cover, press the contents down into the jar with a spoon, and pour the liquid that is thus obtained into small bottles. Cork tightly at once, so that the fragrance does not have a chance to evaporate.

ABOUT GLOVES. Navy blue gloves have not won popularity, and are being ordered only in small numbers for autumn wear. New tailored styles will be seen in capeskin, glace kid and suede slip-ons. Black will be particularly fashionable in kid and capeskin. In suedes beaver, beige and brown tones will be seen exclusively. • FLOWERS BLOOM. Botany has won a victory over geology in Paris jewellery. Everywhere is seen the floral motive, and jewel pins, sometimes sin across, are designed like bouquets of various coloured blossoms.

THE VALUE OF OLIVE OIL.

Olive oil is a valuable adjunct to health, and it deserves to be used to a much greater extent that it now il medicinally, in the kitchen and for the toilet. One of the easiest ways of taking olive oil is in salad dressing. Be liberal with the oil when mixing the dressing, and let it at least equal all the other ingredients mixed together. Many kinds of food can be cooked in olive oil in the Italian way without offending our English taste. A teaspoonful of olive oil, taken every morning, and another at night, will help to keep us in good condition, especially if our skin is dry. Olive oil is a safe medicine for, children, and far pleasanter than castor oil. It is very valuable for the hair, and for a skin that is harsh and dry. Olive oil, applied warm to the scalp and massaged thoroughly in with the tips of the fingers the night before the hair is shampooed, will give gloss and colour to hair that has become lank and lifeless. Applied to the skin of the face, neck, arms and hands every night, it will help to keep wrinkles at bay. Only a little is necessary, and it should be put on with a small piece of cottonwool or clean rag, allowed to soak in for a few minutes, and then the surplus should be wiped off. The same treatment should be followed before one bathes or motors, walks or drives, in strong sunlight. Olive oil is a protection for the skin against sunburn and cold winds. Powder may be applied when the olive oil has been wiped off.

ANOTHER ORNATE TOUCH. Girdle brooches are accompaniments of the popular belt, and are important as jewellery. In the case of evening dresses, they assume a modified role, and are placed where the lines of the dress converge. One model, sometimes worn at the base of the U-shaped decollete, consists of two rings, each of a different colour and somewhat diversely designed, through which emerge the two loops of a bow knot.

A WINDOW HINT. Do you get tired of always cleaning vour windows? ' Well, try this:—Clean them in the usual way very carefully, and dry. Then take a clean, soft duster, and put the tiniest spot of paraffin on it and rub the windows over with this. You will find it keeps off flymarks and rainspots. You will only need to wipe the windows over every week with a paraffin duster to keep them perfectly clean.

TO AVOID WRINKLED GARMENTS.

Choosing garments that pack well is an important item for the woman who travels much of the time. Such selection is not only a question of fabric, but also of the shape and cut of the garments. For instance, it is well to remember that flat, wide pleats pack better than do accordeon pleats, and that fulness and draperies made of straight lengths of material travel more satisfactorily than if the fabric is gathered or cut on the bias, making folding difficult and the results uncertain. Wide pleats can be basted in place and folded smooth and flat for a long journey, and the re-pressing can be done under the mattress of one’s bed in a hotel or on steamer. Even intricatelooking dresses, if selected with a view to packing, resolve themselves into several flat layers of material that can be folded like a handkerchief and do not

crumple when properly packed. Another factor to be considered in choosing packable garments is the finish of a fabric. Experience has proved that a soft, dull-surfaced material does not crease so sharply as does a flat, shinyfinished one. A sales-person is usually glad to explain the best way of folding a dress so that it shall emerge in good condition from suit-case or trunk, even after a long journey.

LEARNING, RAGS AND COOKING.

A WOMAN STUDENT UNDER THE SOVIET. It is no easy thing to be at college, attend lectures, read piles of stuff for your examinations, cook your meals, make and mend your clothes and boots, forage for food and fuel, chop wood, sweep the snow off the streets—and keep some laughter in your life in spite of all things working to the contrary 1 This is no fancy tale: it is merely a brief outline of a woman student's life under the Soviet. She was a privileged “ citizen.” Food was not denied her: but she had to go and get it herself, say, some five or ten miles out of town. She was given considerable leisure for her studies, but no paper to scribble her notes on. She had to dilute her ink with water; take infinite care of her one and only nib; beg, borrow or steal the narrow white margins of the only newspaper then printed in Petrograd. If she happened to live far from the University, she had to tramp miles through a trafficless city. Her boots may have been made of felt, rugs or curtains—their material made little difference for they invariably leaked. Her food . . . she had to cook it on a miserable oil stove and eat it half-raw (fuel was so scarce), but she often laughed as she ate it. The fact that she was a student did not prevent “ them ” from assigning to her various manual labours. She would often rise at 5 a.m., take the necessary implements, sweep the deep, deep snow off the street, gulp down a tumbler of hot water* munch a dry black rusk, and then tramp on to lectures. A miserable nightmarish life, say you? Oh, but it was not all nightmare. There was the college, you see, the silent peace of the library, the sympathy proffered by numerous books. It was hard to learn, hard to pass examinations, hard to sit up all night in an unheated room (days were so crowded!) with fingers frozen and eyes aching from the fitful light of a wretched tallow candle. But it was worth it, because she was paying for her degree with something more than mere money. And, of course, there was fun in it. There’s fun in all things if you look for it properly. It was good to go on winning each step towards the degree. It meant winning, not merely taking. She had tramped her way in broken boots and often bartered what little food she had for narrow strips of paper. But she had proved that a “ mere woman " can pitch her strength against forbidding odds and not come out a failure!

A PINCH OF SALT. \ THE RIGHT MOMENT TO MAKE USE OF IT. When cooking meat stews of any kind, don't add the salt until the meat is half-cooked. If put in with the meat it is apt to harden it. On the other hand, it must be allowed to cook with it for a certain length of time, so that the meat may be thoroughly seasoned. The water in which porridge is cooked should be salted before the oatmeal is put in, and allowed to dissolve. This ensures the pbrridge being evenly salted, and not streaked with salt, as it sometimes is when the seasoning is put in last. Salt used in cakes or puddings should be well sifted with the dry flour before the latter has other ingredients mixed with it. Sift twice if you can manage it. Green vegetables should be put into salted water. Have you ever come across cabbage which has had the salt thrown into the pan after it? The result is often a horrid mixture of brine and insipidity! In seasoning sauces, it is best to get the foundation of the sauce partly cooked and thickened before adding salt and pepper. Then add the seasonings a little at a time, tasting the sauce after each addition until you are satisfied that it is just right. Soups should not be salted till just before they are ready for serving, especially soups which require long

simmering. Season them with discretion, tasting them carefully as you would sauce. But if you do get them a bit too salt, in spite of your care, stir in a good pinch of brown cooking sugar.

SOME SEASONABLE SALADS. FOR SUMMER SUPPERS. Potatoes, Celery, and Beetroot.— Steep some slices of beetroot in vinegar and use a little of the liquid to tint some cold mashed potato. Cut some celery into small pieces and mix these with the potato. Make the potato mixture into a tall heap, garnish with the pale green celery tips stuck into the top, and arrange the slices of beetroot round. Apple, Celery, anl Butter Beans.— Peel, core, and chop some good apples, and cover with French dressing at once. Cut up a head of celery into small pieces, and mix with an equal quantity of cold cooked butter beans. Mix the apples, add more dressinr % heap in a glass dish with a border of cress round the edge. White Grape and Cream Cheese.— Use the foreign white grapes that are so cheap and plentiful now. Peel and stone them, and cover with French dressing. Make some little balls of cream cheese, dust each with paprika, and arrange with the grapes on dressed lettuce leaves. Cabbage and Brazil Nut.—Choose a good, firm cabbage or savoy, and chop the heart very finely. Mix with it some chopped Brazil nuts and mix with mayonnaise dressing. Serve the mixture on a bed of dressed watercress.

MAKING THE MOST OF THE LITTLE DRESSMAKER

For the girl who has only a small dress allowanoe, and who yet wants to look smart, my advice is to find a “little” dressmaker and to go to her for everything., Avoid “bargains” in the shops, however tempting—stick to “little Miss Smith,” but—and this is where the whole art lies—do not ask too much of her! Never ask her for ideas—she will not have them, and if she has, be sure they will be wrong! And always, without fail, give her a pattern to copy. If you have not got a frock, a jumper, or a skirt you like, then beg, borrow or steal one! Take this in one hand and the necessary length of really expensive material in the other—and you will eliminate all the failures she will otherwise create. And, what is more, you will have an excellent garment, which will wear for umfpteen years, for less than the cost of a ready-made model made of inferior stuff! For this is where you score—all your clothes will look expensive because they are made of the very best rep, kasha, brocade, or crepe de chine, or whatever you invest in—for you there will be no “near” silks or cotton mixed wools—no garments that lose their “surface,” or voiles that shrink in the wash, or velours that rub the first time you put them on. And then remember this—the very best materials need very little fixing, draping, or making, either. With them it is a case of the simpler the better—when it comes to cutting them out.

But always give her something to copy, and never a single garment to create!

KING’S ENGLISH.

SOME COMMON ERRORS CORRECTED.

“Who does this belong to?” should be, “Whom does this belong to?” which is quite allowable in colloquial speech. But it is better to say, “To whom does this belong ? ” as it is well to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition, although we have Shakespeare’s: ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” On the other hand, you do not say, “ Whom do you think is coming to-day?” as will be self-evident if you turn the question like this: “Whom is coming to-day, do you think?” “Whom” should be “Who,” of course. But here is a tricky case: “He is a candidate whom I hope will serve us well.” Again a rearrangement of the sentence will reveal the error. “He is a candidate who will serve us well, I hope.” This is correct. Here is another case: “Someone was certainly mentioned, but I forget whom.” This seems right, because it appears to be the relative pronoun “whom” governed in the objective case by “forget.” But if the whole sentence be written it will read thus: “Someone was certainly mentioned, but I forget who was mentioned.” How commonly we hear the question: “Who do you think I saw in town?” Yet it is wrong. It should be: “Whom do you think I saw?” Similarly it is wrong to say: “I don’t know who I can send.” It should be: T don’t know whom I can send.” .Just one more case of error over these troublesome relative pronouns. We often hear: “He married no one knows who.” Yet if once more we extend the sentence, it would be: “He married, no one knows whom he married.”

THE PRIVILEGE WOMEN ENVY.

LIVING EACH DAY AS IT COMES (By Jean Herbert.)

Time was when women were supposed to envy men their freedom more than anything else in the world. Let them be free of conventions as men. and happiness would be theirs V- ell, most of the fetters that once shackled feminine development have been struck away. Are we really so verymuch happier for the revolution ? As happy as we expected to be? If the restless pursuit of careerist activities and hectic pleasures constitutes happiness, then the aniwer is presumably in the affirmative. But if, on the other hand, we women admit that the gratification of "worldly- ambitions, the successful asseration of our civic and social “rights,” or the killing of time in the dance-halt or at the wheel of a car, has left us still unsatisfied, then the answer is that we are not demonstrably nearer to real happiness than in our fettered days. And I fancy this admission would be made by many women. By no stretch of the imagination could one call the modern feminine countenance a conspicuously happy one. A certain hard brightness and alertness, a sort of devil-may-care defiance, cannot be construed as spiritual content, or as a sign that the roses ot joy are blooming in our immortal souls. The truth is—as it has always been —that our sex is wildly and incurably romantic, and therefore terrifically censorious of actualities both as regards human nature and destiny. We cannot make allowances for the pressure of human circumstances and the human limitations they reveal. It was a man w-ho gave the world the golden gospel: “To understand all is to forgive all.” That is where the men score, and will always score. I do not sav that any particular credit is due to them. They happen to be made that way. Nor did I comment on the fact that women may have more to forgive than men. I simply state that man, in not expecting the impossible either from life or from poor human nature, has already a good start on the road to happiness. That, I think, is the sex privilege we envy him most of all!

Men have an infinitely greater capacity for living each day as it comes, without wearing out their brains and hearts in futile and abortive speculations on human motives and the ulterior designs of destiny. They are blessed with a material heartiness that enables them to shut out psychological speculation unless they are deliberately engaged thereon in a professional sense. We poor wretched women, in an amateur role, are at it all the time! Our trouble is that there are too many question-marks in our souls, and not enough full stops. If men could cure us of that eternal feminine complaint, we should be really “emancipated.” For they would deliver us from those psychological miasmas that bar the way to happiness unmarred by any arriere pensee, and in the attainment of which man demonstrates his real “superiority” over woman.