The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1883-04-21

Little girls, nowadays, are 80 busy
using their brains and studying algebra
and geometry, Latin and French, chem
istry and astronomy, that they have little
time to use their fingers and learn the
simple accomplishments that used to be
considered a necessary part OF every
woman's education. The great benefit
and advantage of teaching children to
sew neatly has been well represented,
and now a word should be said in behalf
of the sister art that, If slightly less inn
portant than sewing. yet occupies no
mean place of its own in the list OF femi-
would have sounded as absurd to deliver
q lecture on the propriety OF teaching
little girl to sew and knit as it would now
to expstiate on the necessity of giving
instruction in breathing and sleeping.
However, as our French friends say, we
have changed all that. Machinery has
produced a revolution, and hand work
/, Is no longer as absolutely necessary for
the providing q covering as it once was.
Still, knitting machines are not yet as
common as sewing machines, and their
work does not bear as favorable COM
parison to hand-wrought knitting as the
other, when accurately done, does to
hand sewing. There is room for an
earnest plea in favor of teaching chill
dren how to knit.
| There are those among us who can
well remember the pride with which they
completed their first pair of carriers, the
joy of presenting them as their own
work, and the satisfaction of knowing
that they had male something which
grown people would wear. The mod
ern followers of Hygia turn up their
noses at these old-fashioned contrivances.
murmur their disapproval of ligatures.
and talk openly of restricted circula-
ton. They use elastic bands suspended
from the waist. with skillfully devised
clasps and catches, and perhaps they
are right; but where they can walk a
mile their grandmothers could walk
twain and not feel the worse for it either,
SO the close embrace of these old friends
could not have been very injurious. They
used to be favorite commodity at fairs.
A pair done in pretty-colored cotton or
worsted were rolled up tightly and put
in large pill-box with Two to be
taken every morning" written on the
lid. and they were seldom long in finding
a purchaser.
A child will master knitting as quickly
as crochet, and take as much delight
in it. Rather large needles and not too
fine yarn should be used for the first
lesson. A pair of hose is a good thing to
begin with. A child learns anything
more easily if its interest is aroused by
definite end in view. There are many
things that can be knitted with two
needles, and to these, when once the
stitch is acquired. the early efforts should
be confined. A very pretty tidy can be
done in basket pattern by following
these simple directions: Set up twenty
stitches. or, if wider strip is desired,
any number divisible by ten; knit seven
plain stitches, then three ribbed, or
purled, as it is called; repeat until the
end of the row. Begin the next row
with three plain and seven puzzled stitches
and repeat to the end. The third row
is the same as the first. The fourth row
is knitted plain all the way across. Com
mence the next row with two plain
stitches, then three puzzled. then seven
plain, three puzzled, and SO on as be-
fore. There will be only five plain
stitches at the end of this row, so the
sixth row is begun with five puzzled, ther
three plain, seven puzzled stitches as be.
fore; the seventh row is like the fifth
and the eighth is knit plain across like
the fourth. Begin the ninth row like
the first. and repeat the patterns. Thi.
gives the interviewer effect of baske
work, and yet it is all simple knitting
there are no complicated stitches.
When the use of two needles has be
come familiar. it is an easy transition t.
four. Mufatces may be knitted at first
but it will not be long before stocking
may be tried, and the mysteries of tot
and heel laid open to the learner.
Little boys can be taught to knit a
easily and readily as little girls, and j
, is as good an amusement for them OF
: winter evenings as for their sisters.
, knew boy of twelve who knit not onl,
his own but all his older brothers stock
! ings, too. He was healthy, happy
, specimen of boyhood. fond of outdoor
, games and boyish fun, but he did no
! dislike the work. and was not bit NOR
, ashamed of it than of whiting or play
ing marbles.
Youth does not last always, the create
the pity. We are no more successful
than Ponce de Leon in the search for tn
elixir of life, so it is well to provide a
many resources as possible against oil
age and failing eyesight Among these
: knitting is one of the chief, because witt
: practice it can be done well withou
: looking at it. 1t can never be Learned
, as easily or as suickly as in early life
, and the wise mother will take care Il
, furnish her children with the knowledg
. of this simple spell for shortening lionel,
hours, andenploying fingers that would
} fain be busy though they have lost som
} of the cunning that once was theirs
] E. r. ScoUiil. in Christian linton.