The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-10-01
DOMESTIC ECONOMY.
Clara Belle Discourses on Fancy Work
How to Entertain Guests.
Some Choice Recipes for Croguettes
Cakes, Pies and Puddings.
FANCY WORK.

Some Choice Recipes for Croguettes
Cakes, Pies and Puddings.
FANCY WORK
Among the fancy work | have seen
here, writes Clara Bell from Narrasan-
sett Pier, none is better than that of
ornamenting linen doylies that come
ready stamped with the designs of
various kinds, by embroidering or out
line stitching the same with colored
washing-siiks or cottons. Grecnaway
figures of children and little people,
punches of flowers and fruit, chickens,
ducks and geese, pug dogs, rabbits,
squirrels, little goats, and tiny baby
elephants, in ali sorts of odd groups and
single figures arc the subjects found on
these ready-stamped linens, to be had
in all the so-called art embroidery
stores, the magazines for fancy work
which abound not only in New York,
but in all our large cities.
Dried rose leaves make a nice filling
for n perfume bag or sachet, and, as the
petals OF all the roses you get may be
carefully dried in your room in the
shade. you may make the bags to hold
them while enjoying your rocking-chair
on the piazza or your hammock on the
lawn. First make bag eight inches
wide and fifteen long of thin silk, and
fill it tnree-quarters full with your rose
petals when dry. Now take piece of
linen lawn or fine Swiss muslin, and
make slip cover for your silken sack.
Hem the top, put a frill of lace around
it, and, slipping it over the silken bag,
tie it with ribbon low enough to give
it meal-bag shape. A spray of roses
may be worked or applique on the out
side of the muslin cover, and q motto,
''Sweets to the Sweet or Sweetest
When Crushed" or some such legend,
traced in colored silk stitches under,
over, or through the device. These
rose-bags laid in bureau drawers or
placed under the pillows of an invalid
are pleasant and yield healthy per-
fume.
Tussore silk and pongee are lovely
materials for chair scarfs, pillow covers,
work-bags, fancy work-aprons, and
many other fancy toilet and household
articles. Cingress canvas is another
favored stuff for such purposes. 1t is
coarse grenadine fabric, the threads of
which can be easily pulled out for drawn
work, while embroidery and applique
show to fine advantage on its coarse
surface. II is thirty-six inches wide,
crcam-colored, and costs GO cents a
yard. TussOre silk costs 81 ward:
pongce about the same. They are both
about a yard wide.
The taste for quaint conceits in the
way of Ornamental and useful pin-cush-
ions is on the increase. The newest are
made OF colored silks and velvets to
represent fruit lying on their leaves.
The streaks and ripening shades are
then put on with paint The stalks are
of gutta-percha, such as milliners use in
making artificial flowers. Apples, pears,
peaches, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes,
plums, grapes, and nectarines are pro-
duced by the artistic worker in these
novelties
Unblcached huckaback is chosen by
some workers rs the foundation of
which the designs for quilts are en-
broldered IN silks or cottons. First, the
whole OF the huckaback foundation is
covered with darning stitch in gold
tilosele or red-silk. The stitch is easily
made by passing the needle and thread
under the two little raised strands of the
fabric, either lengthwise, crosswise or
diagonally. II diagonaily. IL WIN ~
quire a second running in the opposite
direction. This accomplished, the
squares of the quilt or pieces, no matter
what the shape, may be decorated with
sunflowers, daisies, dahlias, or dog
roses, outlined in buttonholc stitch with
two shades of silk, and the center of the
flower filled in with French knots of
darker silk, or any. tasteful pattern can
be worked on the foundation IN any
stitch preferred, in either silk or cotton.
UNDUE ATTENTIONS TO GUESTS.
Do not exercise your mind too much
about amusing your guest, is the good
advice of a writer in Chanlbcrs'S Jour
nal. have often thought that in some
foreign countries, and notably in many
parts of America, the relation of host
and guest was sort of double slavery.
The host has the comfort and amuse-
ment of his guest so painfully at heart
that both undergo for the time being
an amount of social misery that entire
ly spoils the freedom and pleasure of the
visit.
In our country IL is different. Go to
spend week i'm an Englishman's house,
and you may be sure that neither your
host nor hostess will bother you about
trliling matters unless you seem to de-
sire it. Everything goes on as though
you were not there, and, yet, per con-
ira, the house and its belongings are
practically yours SO long as you remain.
/ consider it the extreme of bad taste to
pursue visitor with continual offers of
amusement. If treated us n member of
the family and suffered to amuse HIM
self he will generally do very well. and
will feel much happier and move at
ease than when he is too closely looked
after.
have heard persons complain bitter
ly of undue attentions and continual
running after, from which they have
suffered far more acuIcly than if actually
neglected. Where is Mrs. Dash? Who
is sitting with hcr?' cries the Hurried
hostess. Good gracious! is it possible
she has been left by herself? Go ut
once, Mary, or Julia, or Tommy, and
sit with her and anusc hcr until have
time to come" And I'LL the while, per-
haps, the haplesS Mrs Dash is strug-
Cling 10 get a letter or two written. or
Il bill or account made up, and is con-
graduating herself upon the unwonted
luxury of few delicious moments of
absolute quiet. She is reveling in the
thought of being alone, when 10! Miss
Mary, aged 10. comes awkwardly in,
and stands smiling in the window or
sits sidewise upon the piano stool,
stunning with one hand at the notes,
which is her idea of keeping the visitor
company until mamma comes. Or
Master Tommy, aged II. enters with a
burst of noise and proceeds to relate to
the afflicted guest how he and Jack
Jones are in the same Latin class; and
how said Jones is beyond him i'm Euclid.
though inferior i'm something else; and
how Brown licked Black for calling
him duncc-with variety of other
information by no means interesting to
unconccrncd parties. To this annoy
ance there are few of us who have not
been subjected. A greater error of