Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1884 — SUGGESTIONS OF VALUE. [ARTICLE]

SUGGESTIONS OF VALUE.

To ieon embroideries lay them on flannel, right Bide to the fianneL Rub flat-irons on salt if they are rough. Beeswax will remove flakes of starch. If a teaspoonful of turpentine is put into a washboiler and boiled with the clothes will whiten them perceptibly. A very nourishing drink for an invalid is made of whipped cream, sweetened and mixed with highly flavored wine. If you do not wish to lay on tod mudi fat, as stock-feeders say, eat lean meat and few vegetables. Avoid much sugar or butter. Reading aloud with the teeth closed for two hours a day, is said to cure stammering. Vinegar is best to mix stove polish with. A piece of matting neatly tucked down by an outside door will protect their carpet, and will require less care than a piece of cloth. Ladies whose parlors are filled with a “pretty litter ‘of bric-a-brac," often preter, for reasons which are patent to all housekeepers, to do their own dustiug. lor the delicate trifles which a brush may knock over, a pair of small bellows will be found very convenient, and in Germany, where they are quite often put to this use, the little bellows are themselves made into ornamental objects to hang in the palor, by covering the sides with embroidery and tying a ribbon bow on the handles. The latest fashion in table covers is to knit them; occupation is thus provided for those who do not feel equal to high art in needle work, or whose eyes will not stand the strain. These table covers are of silk; old silk dresses, old ribbons that are too faded nr streaked to be of any further use are transformed into things of beauty by being cut into narrow strips and third or a fourth of an inch in width, and then are knit on large needles of wood. If you have old black silk, make a border of that. The cover mav be finished with a fringe of silk, cut in strips of the proper length, and wide enough so that they may be fringed by drawing the threads out. This thread is tied in as thread is put in the momie cloth tidies. Screens; —A simple and easy made fire screen; has, instqgd of ordinary panel, a rod across the top, from which depends a full curtain of velveteen with a dado of stamped, plush, studded with small spangles. For anyone who has time and taste for embroidery, a strip, of sateen, decorated with needle work, may take the place of the plush. A screen to take in the hand, or put in a movable rest, is made by covering a long handled Japanese fan with black satin, on which is worked, in silver gray silk, a representation of a spider’s web, which may be drawn from nature without much trouble. The iveb is worked, on a large'scale, much the same way that ladies were fond of ornamenting buttons a few years ago—bars radiating from a center,'and lines of silk going around, with a stitch taken over the bar at each intei'section, to prevent the circular effect demanded for the button. The other side of the fan may bo covered with plain satin with a flatbow in the center, and the handle may be colored red or black.