Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-16

XIII later, out now, 10
begin at the beginning and tell you why.
The woman who urged me to make the
baby's dresses is the same one who, when
L appear In new gown. asks me who made
it. and when 1 name the tailor, she signs as
wretchedly as if had confessed the seven
deadly sins, and asks reproachfuly, Isn't
he very expensive?"
OF course, my conscience begins to vi
brate unpleasantly at this suggestion that
I'm extravagant, and don't get chance
to be lucid in defending myself before she
has settled me completely by telling me
with a saint-like cast in her eye and flash
of her halo that she makes all her own
clothes.
AS a matter of fact. anybody would know
this without her mentioning it, but the
way she tells 1t has the effect of convincing
me that my only chance of saving my soul
and incidentally keeping my dear husband
from going to the poor house is to make
my own clothes, too.
The Woes of Sewing.
l know perfectly well from past expert
ence that all 1 shall ever accomplish in
sewing will be paresis and spelling valuable
dry goods, which aren't fit even for patch
work when I'm done with them. Besides
the destruction 1 have wrought myself
trying to sew, there are all the horrible
examples l have witnessed in other women
of just what this practice leads to.
am not going to say single mean
thing, though l could write volumes, of how
the seams of homemade dresses skewgee
down the back, of how the skirts hang, and
of how the whole air of the creation is
such as to ruin the reputation of goodness
in a woman. The deluded women whose
sense of duty impels them to make their
own clothes. are tagged until there's moth
ing left of them but their goodness so
frightfully dressed that, upon my honor,
they mike me shuaier and VOW that If
goodness looks like that, why, bless me!
Ill be wicked in the INTERESTS of art and the
bcauty-ioving souls of men.
Let me tell you something:
Women who make their own clothes take
awful chances with thei"husbands.
Domestic Lnhappiness.
1 have never yet had any man pour into
my supposedly sympathetic ear the sad
tale OF how his wife is MT capable Of ap-
preciating him, that, ! did not tird upon in
luiry that this unappreciative wife does
her own sewing, or. what amounts to the
same thing. has il done in the house with
some sorry, doWn-trodden old maid or
widow to help her. :;
I Ineau to show you after lit how this
practice operates 10 estrangc a oman
from her whole family, but / also want
women to understand something of the
philosophy OF clothes and clothes making
Briefly, it is, clothes have souls derived
from the creative genius that brings them
into being, and when you have put the fay
end Of yourself, coupled with the fag-end
of a disappointed old maid or a discour-
aged widow into your frockS. you have
Identified yourself with a pitifully decadent
power that not only operates to diminish
your ability for approaching your hus-
band, but tends drcadfully to incapacitate
him for approaching YOU.
i hen the cStr2vagance ECur f2nciei
economy. | can write it down in numbers,
but just now I'm thinking of companion
pictures, illustrating the subject, watch l
stumbled upon recently.
The woman was going abroad for the
summer. She had had sewing woman in
the house five weeks and had sewed with
he" every odd moment she could get during
that time. A few white threads stuck to
her dress while she sat in the pariOr talk
ing with me, and her facc-well to get as
tired as that woman was in any but the
Lords work is a degree of SuICide-nOthing
less sinful.
Motives of Economy.
What in the world do you want TO take
n load Of clothes over there for l asked,
when you can get everything better and
cheaper after you get there"
ooh. but it is such a saving to help make
them myself" she answered. land then
You know | run a bill at the-dry goods
store so that ii doesn't seem like spending
as much as if l paid out the money for
everything"
The Edenic innocence of this economy
would have been funny, if she hadn't looked
so wretchedly done to death by it. Then the
other picture. 1t was her Observation-Disclosures
eyed. hungry for better things, his soul
starved and his body strained to the ut
most, serving Mammon for wherewithal to
pay the bills that are part of his wife's
economy.
Yet clearly I know the truth ahou. this
boosted domestic virtue of doing your own
sewing, sort of "after-shine' of the con-
science of my grandmother so endures in
me that about once year the only way for
me to be a r-r-real ''womanly woman is
to quit writing and go to sewing
But | don't know how to sew and all
these years l hav" tried I cant learn" /
say. weakly. to the good woman in the
crooked clothes who is warning upon INV
reason.
But surely You can make the baby's
DIRE sses," she replies. Have a girl come to
run the machine. and if you will get a few
Butter and Breaderick patterns you will he
delighted.'
The Fnteful Habit
This was lie and had proved it. But.
just as man who is born to be hanged NAV
escape the gallows repeatedly and vet has
it in him to commit the crime that fnallv
ends him. I suppose Will never learn to
quit doing what undoubtedly will one dav
drive my husband from me and cause nv
sons to grow up and curse me for the home
made pants they had to wear as babies
Those patterns! IT was never any differ
ent. AS soon as I began turning over the
book for boys dresses 1 saw one picture
after another that. now the spell was fairly
upon me- looked so easy, concluded [ would
make lot of things. [ bought pattern
not only of the babyis dress, but of a shirt
waist for myself. a wrapper, a cape-the
cape looked simply dead easy"-aud a ga Tor
suit for little Lord FaEntleroy Then 7 com
menced buying materials to go with the pat
terms. There is one store in town shall not
dare go into again. till next year. when
they've had time to forget me.
These patterns are so lucid in their drec
tons that one-eyed, deaf and dumb idiot
couldn't help mastering them, and they are
positively tender in their concern for giving
details In buying materials for each I had
something like this to guide me:
"A lady of medium size will need 1872
yards of material % inches wide; 145s Yards
of material 81 inches wide; II SO yards of
n. aterial 30 inches wide, or . $40 Yards Of
material AZ inches wide"
Calculating the Material,
The great trouble was the material that
should have been twenty-five inches wide