Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1876 — Amateur Dress-Making. [ARTICLE]

Amateur Dress-Making.

“ 1* is hard times,” we said, in concert with everybody else, ‘‘and our own hands mutt put that twenty-five yards of bottle green poplin into wearable shape. No great trick with a GotUy't Book and a Demons! pattern, and plenty of pins and advfce ifom the neighbors.” We drew the blinds, bolted the doors and smoothed out the cloth on the carpet. Amateurs always cut work on the carpet. We had selected a deni i-train underskirt with a wide ruffle and a narrow one, and a shirr, and a puft, and a fold, and a cord, and an upright frill in knife-pleating for garniture, an apron overskirt with a ruffle and a cord and a fold and a frill around it, and bows all Sown the front, and a puckered pocket dapped on the left side, and a pud and a sash behind trimmed with folds and shirrs, and straights and biases, then a cuirass basque (it should be speSed ctgdouffl; We gazed at the figure dn the book* and felt Willing to be put under the thumb screws for a month if we Could come out like that in the end. We pinned the pattern on Several times and heaitated about the first clip. The bottle green was six shillings a yard, and we an poor, but a crick between the shoul4em ana a rush of blood to the head warned us that a bent posture is not the most desirable one for prolonged meditation, so w« called np the mptto “nothing risked,nothing won,”and slashed away desmretoly. We measured, and pinned, ana planned till the weary sun showed Symptom* of setting, and the twenty-five yards lay in separate piles on the carpet Mid chain. Two sleeves for one arm, a strange mistake in front and a lack of elothfbr trimming clouded our April sky. We basted the waist for trial, and, except a slight hitch under the arm, and a wrinkle on the shoulder, and a twist in the lorn-seams, it was a charming fit. ' Of course it would come all right cut by a pattern, and one doesn’t expect basted ihintt to 86t f Three weeks, four days and several kotura and minutes of mortal agony have passed since the pbove mentioned. We nave ehased down town six times to match bottle-green poplin, till it approximates forty yards we have lugged over the road. Our gait is under paralysis from too much sewing-machine; our finger-tips ere worn g and pleat coforj'the* house and yard are littered with striugs, and scrape of bottle-green poplin, ana we had a wad of bottle-green this morning, and, after all, *e wish you could see that thing that hanga In the closet yonder, but yon han’t We have crowded the bolt in, yet, like BtppWlt'l murdered man,’ fog ghost will not bs laid. It is alter us oonununlly, with a skirt that pulls forward instead of back, the frill dips, the tain folds over, tile overskirt draws, the pocket puckers heartlessly, tlie front reMOkfow a ends are like anti the .hews lop like Uic oareof a greyhound ; then the bsjque-il

swas-assa.—* »i§«|££g|S with our ears, and tho seam in the then's a new crow-foot between our eyes; our dearest friend has cut us because we wfere “not at home;” we have lost the thread of the post trader literature, and there, for recompense, that bottle grew thing of twists and wrinkh* which snail never drape this human form —never If We go to the poor-houss—unless some wretch puts as in It after ws are dead.— M. O. T., in Detroit Free Pmt.