164 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
THE LINEN PAGE. 
JETTA EHLERS ------ Page Editor 
18 East Kinney Street, Newark, N. J. 
ONE of the interesting ways in which the decoration of 
linens for the table may be varied, is by the introduc- 
tion of lace. This may be used as a finish to the edge, in bands 
of insertion, or as an inset medallion. To be in keeping with 
the spirit of these things, any lace used should be handmade. 
For this purpose the filet is very popular at present. This 
may be the crocheted filet with which we are all so familiar, 
or the Italian which is made in quite a different way. Such 
very charming squares are to be had with all sorts of quaint 
animals and birds. The edgings and insertion are also very 
good. They are not what one would call inexpensive. How- 
ever, if one wished to "plunge" a bit on a specially nice set, 
any money spent for this is well invested as it wears like iron. 
In the illustration is shown the cloth and a napkin of a four 
o'clock tea set which has these little filet squares inset. This 
set was made for a little lady whose name is familiar to most 
readers of Keramic Studio, but whose work as a ceramist has 
been swallowed up by the happy business of home and garden. 
It is rather droll that a fondness for pussy-cats is offset by a 
husband whose hobby is birds. So in this little set both find 
expression, pussy being bravely set forth in the tea cloth cor- 
ners, with the little birdlings safe by themselves on the napkins. 
The Italian fagot stitch was used in connection with the 
filet, and sewed to hold together the arrangement of the squares. 
Iu planning the napkins only one square was used on each. 
There were two reasons for this. Firstly, a limited number 
of the squares, which are not so easy to procure. Then too, 
the fact that the napkin was very small made it wise to avoid 
any overcrowding of it. The edge is the simplest single stitch 
crochet with a picot every tenth stitch. For this Barbour's 
oyster white thread No. 35 was used and a thread drawn 
about an eighth of an inch from the edge of the linen. The 
edge was then rolled and for convenience basted with a long 
loose overhand stitch. It is not absolutely necessary to do 
this, but time is saved in the end as the work is done with 
much greater ease. The drawn thread gives a good hold for 
the crochet. The squares were basted in place very carefully, 
and then overhanded on the right side with a very fine needle 
and number one hundred thread. The linen was then cut 
away from the back, leaving just enough at the edge of the 
square to roll back and overcast very finely. This makes a 
very durable finish. The cloth is one yard square and the 
napkins were cut twelve inches. The linen used is the Old 
Bleach, one yard wide, and costing one dollar and a quarter 
per yard. The oyster white thread matches the thread of 
the filet squares, and makes a very pleasing contrast with the 
pure white of the linen. At the recent exhibition of the Arts 
and Crafts Society of New York at the National Arts Club, 
a very beautiful table cloth combining filet and linen was shown. 
This had an inset in the center of the cloth of a band of lace, 
in shape a square having an irregular edge on one side. The 
cloth was edged with a border of about the same width, having 
the same irregular edge. The lace was made of a fine thread 
and the linen was also of a fine weave, the whole effect being 
very lovely. Almost all the decorated china shown was dis- 
played on specially designed linens, and there is no gain-saying 
the fact that in every instance it gave added charm to the china. 
One came away from the exhibition having a sense of 
"completeness" in regard to this end of the show. A beauti- 
ful room for a child was one of the interesting things shown. 
On the shelves of*a case for books and toys, stood some dishes 
for the use of the wee house-holder that would interest all 
ceramics workers. 
There is so little to be had in the way of shapes for child- 
ren sets which are at all artistic, that it seems high time our 
American potters were making something which we could 
use for this purpose. Imagine what fun could be gotten out 
of designing a set for nursery use with the linens, including 
bibs or aprons. The furniture of the nursery just mentioned 
was very quaint and charming and was painted, which is an- 
other field open to the wide awake worker. But we are get- 
ing away from our linen page! 
A very beautiful cloth was on one occassion evolved from 
some narrow strips of handwoven Russian linen. This at 
first seemed rather useless as it was so narrow. A little study 
suggested a way which proved a very successful solution of 
the problem, and as some reader may have a like problem 
some day, a description may not be amiss. The Russian 
linen was the usual grey tone in which it comes, and was very 
narrow. To combine with this a lovely soft greyish yellow 
linen was used for the center strip. This was cut wide enough 
to give the necessary width to the finished cloth, and the 
strips of grey were used on each side. It was all joined with a 
simple insertion of crochet, a grey linen thread being used. 
The whole cloth had a tiny crocheted edge of the same thread. 
The napkins were made on the same plan, the center of the 
yellow linen, with a narrow grey band on two sides. These 
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