1868. 



NEW ENGLAND FARIVIER. 



203 



In this variable climate of ours, children who 

 go out-doors need woolen under-waists and draw- 

 ers during seven or eight months of the year. 

 Make them of soft flannel or yam, for small chil- 

 dren crochet or knit them of split-zephyr worsted. 

 It requires no gi-eat ingenuity to form them, only 

 be sure that they are large enough to allow for 

 shrinking, a gi-eat deal for those who perspire 

 freely. The drawers should reach to the stockings 

 and be fastened to them with buttons; proper 

 holes for which should be knit or wrought in the 

 stocking-top. The waist and the drawers should 

 be buttoned together at the belt. Be sure that 

 neither fit tightly in any place, or draw uncomfor- 

 tably from any movement of the wearer ; some- 

 times the union of two portions of cloth cut from 

 different ways of the web causes this. The waist 

 should cover the neck well ; for the coldest weather 

 the sleeves should reach to the wrist, — for milder 

 only three or four inches below the shoulder. In 

 summer, substitute cotton for the flannel drawers, 

 and in making these garments always cut the 

 cloth, whether cotton or flannel, lengthwise of the 

 web. 



The under-linen of children should be made in 

 the easiest and plainest manner possible, of a 

 gored or sack form gathered into a narrow yoke 

 that lies lightly upon the shoulders ; the sleeves 

 short, and just full enough to admit of putting on 

 and off quickly. It should be finished with a neat 

 hem, and have no ornament save a narrow edg- 

 ing around the sleeves and yoke ; a very narrow 

 cambric frill, or Smyrna lace or its imitation in 

 crochet or tatting, is very good for this purpose : 

 button- hole work in scallops, or braid embroidery, 

 or laid-work, or cut-work, besides being uncom- 

 fortable where it comes in contact with the skin, 

 is difiicult to keep as clearly white as the rest of 

 the garment without scrubbing it so hard in wash- 

 ing as to injure the fabric. Night-gowns, also, 

 should have no stiff, hard trimming to annoy and 

 fret them ; they should be long and loose, gathered 

 into a yoke that fits easily to the neck from the 

 throat to over the shoulders, or merely drawn by 

 means of a hem and tape closely about the throat. 

 The best sleeping garments for children are long, 

 loose trowsers reaching from the throat, where 

 they are snugly drawn and tied, to the ankle, and 

 there gathered into a band. They should have 

 full sleeves gathered into narrow wristbands. 

 Buy unbleached cotton for these garments and 

 bleach it yourself, according to the rule given in 

 Chap. VI. Some prefer cotton flannel for winter 

 wear, especially for night-gowns. Others say that 

 cotton flannel is unhealthy, that it prevents the 

 free passage of insensible perspiration. 



The linen or linen-cambric or muslin undergar- 

 ments of infants should be merely a width of the 

 material, to cover the waist ; the cutting out of 

 the arm-size made to form a narrow shoulder-band ; 

 and the garments left open behind, or closed at the 

 sides, according to fancy. These should have the 



least possible trimming, nothing more than a row 

 of fagot-stitch at the hems. 



Infants' blankets and all children's flannel skirts 

 should be white ; a nice wide hem neatly stitched 

 is sufficient border. If you embroider them, those 

 that are in common use and need frequent wash- 

 ing should not be done in silk ; the white of silk 

 being a dye, the only white dye known, (so says 

 the Scientific American) is soon washed out, and 

 you have the original dingy yellow of the floss ; 

 nice M'orsteds or worsted braid make pretty em- 

 broidery. 



A simple embroidery for the edge of hems or 

 any seams in flannel, is the brier-vine, done with 

 worsted or coarse silk : begin at the left hand end 

 of the seam — take your needle through from the 

 wrong side — lay the thread in a slanting direction 

 toioards your right hand — take up three or four 

 threads of the flannel with your needle, as if to 

 stitch it, above the thread, which is kept in place 

 by the left thum j ; make three or four stitches in 

 this way — keeping the thread in its position by 

 them — then turn the thread from your right for the 

 next three or four stitches ; this forms a point, 

 with the briers facing all one way. Holding the 

 thread more or less inclined makes these points or 

 waves of the vine more or less sharp. Two stitch- 

 es, or even one on each side of the point, make a 

 narrower, and for small seams, a prettier border. 



When flannels become thin in those portions 

 that receive the most wear, line them with half- 

 wom pieces of the same material ; if holes appear 

 they may be darned with fine worsted to these 

 pieces so neatly as to escape observation. "When 

 skirts are getting thin at the hem, reverse them, 

 and take the belt edge for the hem, — if the edge 

 of the hem be very much worn, cut it off and take 

 it for a facing to this new edge. By this manage- 

 ment the garment will look well and be comfort- 

 able a long time. 



White cambric and brilliant are the best fabrics 

 for infants' dresses ; after these the same goods or 

 calico of the tiniest designs in the most delicate 

 colors. Don't make them too long, nor too full, — 

 seven-eighths or three quarters of a yard is long 

 enough for common wear, a yard and a half wide 

 enough. Give this skirt a hem two inches deep 

 and gather it into a loose, narrow belt. For some 

 dresses this belt may be of insertion, between 

 which and a lining, a narrow ribbon of some deli- 

 cate and becoming color may be drawn as a waist 

 fastening. Avoid all fanciful styles of waist and 

 sleeves. The easiest and the prettiest waist is of 

 moderate fullness— three to three and one half 

 inches long — gathered to the belt, and, again, to a 

 narrow band that lies loosely about the neck just 

 at the shoulders ; the band plain and drawn a 

 little snugly with a small tape, — or of insertion, 

 with rilibon, as at the belt. Cut a wide, easy arm 

 size. Make the sleeve of a straight band, about 

 an inch and a half wide, with a neat, very narrow 

 hem and edging. It should just fit the arm-size. 



