The House Wife

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 17894, 14 June 1920, Page 8

The House Wife

PARIS FASHIONS. The satin frock is the observed of all observers, and nothing could be prettier than some of the “little” dresses made of black or navy-blue charmeuse. The foundation of most of these is the one-piece pattern, but lit is supplemented by a tunic, either i draped or hanging straight and full | and beginning at the sides only, the front remaining plain. Very wide i sash ends, as it were, of the dress material take the place, sometimes, of the more important tunic and trim the sides of the skirt. They are gathered at the top and are hung from the waist of the skirt, falling to below knee-level and concluding with a handsome silk fringe. The “little” frock shown in the illustration is a typical model from Paris. It is made of soft satin in a beautiful and rather brilliant shade of sapphire-blue. Hung from the sides of the waist and travelling round to the back, is an over-skirt heavily fringed at the base and with lattice-work beading. The neck is cut to a pretty round shape, and is finished with a necklace of soft fringe, and the sleeves are also fringed where they terminate at the elbows. At the waist is a wide, soft sash of satin arranged in folds. In this case the over-skirt is unlined, as the heavy fringe keeps it well down, but where no trimming is used the

draperies are lined with white or coloured soft silk georgette or ninon, and give out pretty glints Of colour with the movements of the wearer. A black satin frock with over-piece lined with pale pink or apricot-col-oured silk would be charming. One frock of the kind recently brought over from Paris and made for a stout figure, is arranged with two pleats no either side of the centre-front and a draped waist-band finished at the left side with a large, exquisitelymade flower-rosette. The bodice fastens beneath one of the pleats at the left side, and the skirt also fastens at the left. A„ the neck is a soft roulean of apricot-coloured chiffon, matching the ninon lining of the over-skirt. HAPPINESS IN THE HOME. While good furniture and pretty decorations add to the beauty of the home and give a certain amount of pleasure to beholders, yet they do not in the least contribute to real happiness, which is entirely independent of them We find people who are not happy in beautiful homes, and we also find those who live very humbly and simply and have none of the “fine feathers” of the world who have ideal home lives. The home is not the building or the furniture in it; it is rather the atmosphere in the building which is created, not by the inanimate things in the building, but by the persons in it. Everything that will help to make the members of a family more unselfish and thougnttul one for the other, more patient and sympathetic, will help to make home happier. A pertty environment is, of course, not to be despised, but is a thing to be encouraged. The appearance of the home indicates to a great extent the character of the owner. “Everything in the home was hard, like the people themselves” said a woman recently, in describing a home she had visited. “The chairs were stiff and rigid, even the sofa was a hard one, and there were no cushions anywhere.” FOR THE YOUNG HOUSEKEEPER. There is no harder problem that the young housekeeper has to meet in her kitchen than the cleaning of burnt cooking utensils. Often when one is new at housekeeping one learns by sad experience, and in the beginning much time and energy are spent in scrubbing pans that have been left on the stove over-time. A much easier method than trying to rub the burnt substance off in the usual way is to make a solution of a tablespoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of cooking soda to a pint of warm water. Pour this into the burnt utensil and bring it to the boil, then let it stand until cold. This softens the burnt substance, so that it may usually be removed with a stiff brush. If it persists in sticking, it should be rubbed with a little sand. If the housekeeper has some fresh potato peelings on hand, two or three teaspoonfuls of these may be used instead of the salt and soda, and by boiling these for a few minutes and letting them stand, the same results may be obtained. The water, in both cases, must be brought quite to the boil and allowed to stand in the utensil for some time.

THE NEW TAILOR-MADE WITH LONG COAT. The backbone, as it were, of a woman’s wardrobe is a well-cut tail-or-made costume, hence the most important thing in the new outfit for the season is a fashionable coat and skirt. It is inteersting to know that coats are longer aud skirts are

every whit as short as they were, displaying good hosiery and shoes as smart as the purse can afford. Hips are to be wide, and the effect of width is brought about in various ways. Sometimes it is achieved by a clever arrangement of lines where the material is a striped one, sometimes it is brought about by the flare of the coat, which latter is cut tolerably straight, though kept close to the figure as far as -the waist and then flares out over the hips and terminates near the region of the knees in heavy flutes. A coat of this kind tailor-made of brick-red cloth, the skirt of which is very short and absolutely plain. With the curtailing of skirts and lengthening of coats, it comes about that the coat of a costume is sometimes almost as long as the skirt itself. Tailors are doing great things with fancy cloth materials, large checked designs, and bold-looking striped effects being particularly fashionable. The costume illustrated is one of the latest models, and introduces the wide hip effects on a coat of the new length. The material is. powder-blue cloth, with stripes in a darker shade of blue, in dull red and in yellow. The panel-like front of the coat is repeated by the skirt, which is bordered round the sides and back with a band of the material showing a different “lie" of the stripes to elsewhere, and thus taking up the hip effect of the coat. The shaped cuffs, with buttons on the outside, are very smart and becoming, and the simple revers-collar suits better than anything more ornate could do, the style of this well-built coat. The costume is crowned by a lovely hat of black satin, with one of the new “flame” feathers. Some of the latest costume coats are slashed up over the hips in a big curve, and a panel is inlet into each that is covered with rows of silk braid of wide width Braid is once again generously used in the trimming of tailor-mades, and some of the new serge and cloth skirts, cut very narrow at the foot, are trimmed all the way up with rows of inch-wide silk braid running right round the skirt. Others have rows of braid back and front that stop short at the sides and finish with loose, fall-over ends turned in to mitre points and tasseled at the tips. The little dangling tassels form a fussy and attractive trimming to the skirt. The braid is sometimes used in two widths joined together.