32 
House & Garden 
Like a garden spot is this gay little dining room done in ginghams. The walls are creamy buff and the curtains and 
chair pads gingham of turquoise and orchid lined with soft yellow. The cottage furniture is painted a putty color on 
the outside and a clear green turquoise on the inside of the dresser. Cushions of old gold, black, turquoise, orchid 
and the gingham of the curtains fill the window seat 
GINGHAM GLORIFIED 
From the Apron Role Gingham Has Risen to the Luxury Class in Decoration Fabrics 
and Can Be Used Effectively in Many Colors 
ETHEL DAVIS SEAL 
T IME was when gingham contented itself 
with a humble role. It spread itself 
ingratiatingly over the cook’s calico skirt, 
it made morning rompers and play frocks for 
the children, it attended to house dresses and 
laundry bags, but, like the family skeleton, it 
was kept strictly out of sight. Still there was 
undeniable charm about its gay fresh colors, 
its plaids and stripes and checkerboard effects. 
Moreover, it wore and laundered well. For 
years it remained the fabric of childhood. 
Then it crept, through sub-deb circles, into 
fashion, and just as it became indispensable, 
with a bound it leaped into the luxury class! 
At the present writing we may use gingham 
with impunity in the living room, the hall, 
the dining room and the bedroom, and not to 
garb ourselves alone, but our chairs and sofas, 
our windows and our doors as well. We may 
sit on it by day and sleep under it at night, 
and even, in this topsy-turvy world, serve up 
dainty repasts upon it at happy meal times, 
with gay colored china to match. 
Gingham is no longer a cheap fabric. Since 
it has risen from the ranks, it should be treated 
with the respect it deserves: it should be con¬ 
sidered from its new but finely decorative 
standpoint; it should be used with a nice sense 
of discrimination. 
Two Gingham Schemes 
You need not be afraid to use cool green 
striped gingham overdrapes lined with pickle 
green silk at the south windows of your pleas¬ 
ant dining room, especially if your furniture 
is painted a blending green, your walls a misty 
gray, and your floor carries an all-over oval 
rag rug braided of green, gray, ivory, yellow 
and black. And with your ivory china ef¬ 
fectively in dull yellow and green you will 
find that a soft green linen meal-time cloth 
embroidered in ivory and yellow wool will be 
worthy the inspiration that prompted it. 
If your house is in the country try two 
tones of blue on a ground of ivory for the 
gingham window drapes of your living room, 
and then see what a restful room you are en¬ 
abled to evolve from this starting point. With 
walls of ivory, have the furniture painted a 
midnight blue and decorated with an occa¬ 
sional motif combining old blue, rose and 
yellow, painting the insides of such pieces as 
a flap-lid desk, a chest of drawers, or the 
drawers of any other furniture a brilliantly 
contrasting color such as a soft old yellow or 
old rose, a buff or an old blue. On the floor 
should be laid a dark rag rug combining all 
