Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-10-07
1aers OF Various Sorts in Which the Women Folks Are Interested

vidually is able. When she has mastered
the full series of preparatory stitches and
sewed most of them into her own school
apron-purposely designed to combine tucks
and rutties and almost every device of
needlework-the little dressmaker puts 1t
on and without further ceremony passes
to the order department upstairs. Here
she experiments with ordered underwear
of different degrees of difficulty learning
to use a machine with all its complicated
attachments, and progressing gradually
through plain wash shirt-waist suits to
elaborate summer dresses and at last to a
boned lining. Then she is ready for the
dressmaking department, where she works
on customers gowns of really elegant ma
terials under the eye of a dressmaker. All
the actual sewing, trimming and finishing
Of the gowns is put into the girls hands.
They do not attempt, however, drafting.
cutting or fitting, except some minor cut
ting from patterns For 1t is not In
tended that they shall make the mistake
of fancying themselves dressmakers at
their age. They are ready when they
leave to enter the best shop in Boston as
assistants and to be boon to dressmaker
and customers alike For they really un-
derstand every detail of dainty and elab-
crate work
The little milliner. when she has com
pleted her stitches below stairs goes up
TO apply them to actual. millinery under
the direction OF a designer.
There is one branch OF the work which
comes under the head of no trade and yet
affects ALI This is the training in color
and design. A graduate OF the Boston
Normal Art school teaches milliners and
dressmakers alike to match color, to COM
bine color-stealing her color schemes
largely from the dress OF butterflies and
moths-how to use watercolor, how to de-
sign embroideries, and even whole cos
tunes. They learn TO be slSillful copy
lists, that ia, they can take notes in
shop, or even on the street Of a gown or
nat which would be of use to them-a very
important element in a dressmaker's or
milliners success. Best of all these they
g,t their eyes opened to the possibilities,
the artistic possibilities of their work. II
they have any genius for designing It
comes out, and they begin to feel them
selves in the same profession with Worth
and Vlrot If they have no genius at
least they avoid the worst calamities in
the handling of line and color.
-Four years ago in nearly half the counties
of North Carolina the average value OF the
equipment. was less than so,
There were 1000 districts with only a log
school house. There were 1000 districts
with no school houses at all, In many
cases even the best were ugly and dirty
In 1902 some OF the young women Of the
state determined to try to remove this dis
grace. They went to work They organized
state association. The first meeting was
held at Greensboro In April Of that year
Next came county associations, Of which
all white women we're invited TO become
members. These now exist in ninety-six
counties Of the state.
Many OF these offer prizes 10 the district
showing the greatest improvement. A typi-
cal case is that Of Wayne county. away up
IN the mountains. Last August the associa-
ton In that county offered a prize OF S1Oo
which was won by district No. ].
The district is described In Worlds Work
as containing only sixteen families with
children Of school age. There are only
forty children on the census. The average