Y S o u th ern O regon News Review, Thursday, M arch 17, 1949 W O M A N 'S W O R LD SEWING CIRCLE PATTERNS New Window Curtains Give Crisp Look By Ertta Haley UbT BEFORE the w a r m e r T weather makes its appearance, many a woman is apt to take a good look at her windows. The curtains look very dirty and sleazy after a winter's heating. If you’re certain they won't stand another laundering session, then get out the tape measure and sewing ma­ chine It ’s time to make new win dow dressings! Glass curtains are among the easiest items that can be made at home. Most of them require only long stretches of straight seams. There's no fancy stitching or cut­ ting. no elaborate patterns, and hardly ever any ripping if you follow the simplest rules. Soft, full gathers will make the simplest materials exquisite when they're made into curtains. First measure the windows as to height and width. The curtain material should be purchased twice as wide as the window. You’ll need at least two inches at both top and bottom for seam allowances, and from two to four inches for a shrinkage tuck, so add at least eight inches to win­ dow measurements on the length. Net marquisette, scrim, sheer rayon or nylon are all used for glass curtains. A good quality, firm­ ly woven material will give you the most satisfaction and most wear and is well worth the few cents more a yard which it costs Measure windows carefully . . It ’s very important to buy good m aterial if you live in a community that's dirty or smokey, because then curtains will have to with­ stand frequent washing. You need never again worry about what to do with your purse when dining out, if you have one of these smart purse holderettes. These inexpensive gadgets are small and compact; they fit into your bag when not in use. and will help you avoid uncomfortable juggling of the purse on the lap or trying to find a place on the table or floor for the bag. They may also be used for holding unbrel- las or packages. cloth to catch any dirt, or you will soil the curtain. Whenever possible, tear the cur­ tain fabric, rather than cutting it, as this will give you straighter seams to sew. It the fabric does not tear, draw a thread and cut on the thread line. If you cannot pull a thread use a yardstick or ruler, and draw a chalk line on which to cut. Pay special attention to the grain of the fabric in cutting, folding and stitching so the curtain will hang straight. Selvage edges are woven tight­ er the the curtain fabric and should be removed before cutting and sew­ ing the seams. Why? After the cur­ tain is washed, you may find your­ self with baggy curtains which nev­ er can be ironed smooth. This selvage does not show up in the new curtain, but it will al­ most always show up after laun­ dering. Have Edges Straight For Good Appearance Because curtains are so large, Use iron to Save it is best to cut them on the floor Basting Stitches where you’ll have enough space Professional seamstresses always to spread them out. I l you place work with an iron and ironing the curtain material on a rug, the board set up, ready to use. in their fabric adheres to the rug and you sewing room Many edges can be pressed immediately after cutting so that the fold is sharp. This may be stitched without basting. As soon as the curtain is cut or torn, turn the side seams, using an iron to fold them neatly. The hem edge on these is one or two inches when finished. Press first a quarter of an inch turn, then a second one inch turn. Pin the hem on the outside edge and then stitch, thus saving basting. The top edge is turned in a cas­ ing, out this usually is basted first so that you can hang the curtain For nice, full curtains. for a trial to see that it fits your curta.n rod. This fitting will also need no pins to secure it. Use the vacuum cleaner on the help you in seeing that the curtain rug, and run over it with a damp hangs properly. V*e Stiffening At Heading If you like transparent curtains to hang properly, it's best to use some stiffening at the heading of the curtain. Usually three inches or slightly more is best. Firm crlnobne or buskram are fabrics which are best. In measuruig the turning neces sary tor the heading, decide first on the depth of the pleat then turn the t»ip edge in two Inches more than this measure allow a double turn so the buckram will not show. When measuring the buckram, measure two Inches from the edge, because ‘he top stiffening should not extend to the outside hem of French-pleated curtains It's also possible to use washable buckram banding made with eye­ lets ti form the French pleats. No rings are needed. The curtain pole Is slipped right through the eye­ lets, thus giving the necessary pleat. If vou are putting in the shrink­ age hick of two to tour inches, put this in at the top in a narrow head­ ing above the casing. Or, to avoid the shrinkage tuck, wash the curtain material before sewing and it will shrink as much as it is going to, and oc allowance need be made. Bell Syndicate— W N U Features U FH EN MY SISTER was th ree ’ ’ and I alm ost five y ears old, our loved Daddy was killed in a m otor crash,” says a lettei ly ­ ing here on my desk. ‘‘M other was left penniless, but she resumed her old profession of teaching and we had some happy years, we three together. Our little four- room apartment was full of love and harmony and Lily and I wanted only to be with mother for the rest of our lives. “ When mother married the fam ­ ily doctor, a widower,” the letter goes on, “what has preved to be a fatal injury to my development took place. I was not conscious of it then, naturally, but the seeds of what grew to be absolute morbid­ ity were sown then. Sense Of Injustice “Our stepfather loved Lily and me, but two boy babies came to take our places, and at 12 and 14 we were sent to boarding school. Our happy country suinineis and the letters and packages from Mother never could remove our sense of deep injustice and it has colored both our lives. Lily never married and has worked for years in the county home for mental cases. I have married twice unsuccessfully and now feel that while my present husband is an absolute angel, I am too sick, weary and disillusioned to be a good wife for him or good mother to my boys, now 17 and 5 years old. “It was my psychoanalyst who. searching painstakingly through my past, unearthed this unhappy situa­ tion in my girlhood and has helped !* - ’ , ! • ____________________________ By Eldred E. Green - '•'<*-» Z turned too long ahead. Sandy or light soils may need only a raking to fit them for plant­ ing. The soil needs to be loose; that is all. In planting large perennials as peonies or trees and shrubs, the soil need only be prepared where Y outhful Tw o-Piecer V ’ O U 'l'H F U L , figure - flattering 1 und so weurublc Is this two piecer for misses. Sleeves can be wing or three-q u arter le n g t h - edge the pert peplum and brief sleeves with tiny ruffling. E x a g g e r a te d S e lf-P ity Is P o iso n Beware of Over-Cultivation the plants are to be set. The area in between can be taken care of later Heavy soils will be aided if rotted humus of some kind is worked in. Leaves, old sawdust, manure, peat, compost are all valuable This can be mixed in when the soil is pre­ pared Generally a depth of eight inches is enough for most plants. Trees and large shrubs may need more Cultivation in the garden should be limited to one idea: killing weeds. In lawns and around shrubs the new preparations of 2- 4D are fine; in the garden a light iioeing or scuffing of the soil is generally sufficient. Watering is a chore unless a hose is able to reach. Watering and weeding can be kept to a minimum or eliminated if a good mulch is used. Dried leaves, grass clippings, straw, old manure, sawdust or strips, of heavy, weighted paper can be used to cover the soil be­ tween plants or around larger ones. The mulch prevents weeds from taking hold and keeps the soil from drying out. Fertilizing may seem difficult but in the home garden a sack of a complete plant food is the best and cheapest way of adding fertility. Manure is excellent if it can be ob­ tained and worked into the soil. Testing for individual elements may be a pleasant pastime but the amount of special chemicals needed in most can be more easily added in a ready-mixed, balanced formula. Pests may cause trouble but now there are many preparations that will control all of the garden pests with one spray. These combination products have been supplemented to good advantage by DDT, which most of them contain. This season silk prints are really hark, for the first time. In substantial quality and quanlty. You II see them now as one of the favorites for resort wear: very classic as to lines, extremely brief ss to sleeves and pleasing as to pattern. Polka dots will continue their popularity, and prints are Innumerable. New and refreshing are the small scale patterns, often so conventional lied or stylised that they are entirely new looking. The love­ ly hand of silk makes It possi­ ble to give these new classics many original collar Interpre­ tations, and most of them are low-cut . KATHLEEN NORRIS THE GARDEN SPOT “TA K E IT EASY, You’ll live longer,” is a common saying and in the garden you will enjoy yourself more if you apply that principle. The most pathetic garden is the one that started out early in the spring as a grand affair and then fizzled out as the hot weather caus­ ed the worker to “done run out of ambition” as one lady put it. ' The first factor is soil prepara­ tion. A clay, loam or any stiff soil is benefitied by a turning to loosen it up Plowing, spading, or rotary tilling will do the job. In hand spad­ ing remember that you do not plant all the garden at once. Dig it as you need it. This will save back­ aches and keep a crop of weeds from starting on the soil that is ^JJouAe e^breAA ^9A Weal an J erniari ^Jivo-piecer JJaA ijo u lltfu f C harm ; ' 4- * J - - ", . . loo sick and u eary . . ." me enormously by putting the blame for this injustice where it belongs—on the accident that rob­ bed me of my father and my mother’s second m arriage.” This is only part of a 17-page let­ ter, which I have not answered. It takes more patience than I possess to sympathize with such a woman. And yet she is typical of actual hundreds who write me every year that fancied slights in­ justices and disadvantages far back In their perfectly normal, everyday, give-and-take, up-and- down American childhoods, have upset their mental balances for life. It has become the fashion to seek back for something Mother or Dad did or something they left undone and lay today’s stupidities, resent­ ments, failures and flaws tn char­ acter all to that. destiny It is to complicate further rather than help straighten out this enigma that is life. Some 40,000 of us die In auto crashes every year, so that detail didn’t particularly distinguish these little sisters. Terrible, but it's the truth. And as for a pretty mother, at 29, taking a second mate, for happy years of motherhood and com­ panionship— was that such a crime never to be forgiven? “Mother." says anothei part of Diana's letter, "was always trying to make us like Uncle Rob, as we called her husband. But we saw through her devices.” In other words, you and Lily were ungracious little jealous minxes and did all you could to ruin your mother's chances for happiness in her marriage. I'm all for modern psychological methods when they deal with the problems of the immediate present. Many good doctors and teachers and all good mothers know bow to handle those cases that arise in connection with almost every child's development Their adroit­ ness in analysis and method is amusingly evident to those of us who can remember our own young vagaries, inhibitions and fixations —only under simpler names. As long as the psychologists take to­ day, tell their patients just what’s wrong today, then I ’m with them. But when they encourage us to dig into the past, to discover that at four months one's bottle was late in arriving and at three years Mother said she already had kissed us goodnight and was going downstairs now—and that these heinous crimes lived on a n d malignantly affected all our later years, then that is sheer nonsense. Silly? You’ll find all these in­ stances solemnly portrayed in a recent moving picture that sup­ posedly represents a woman's ex­ perience in a madhouse. These are the causes that sent her there. U.S. Filming Old Documents D ainty House Dress A S IM P L E , crisp a. u daisy house dress to s ta rt the day w ith a song. B rig h tly colored ric ra c m akes a p re tty tr im ; a n a r­ row belt ties softly on the side— deep pockets ure as handy os can be. • • • Pattern No M05 1« tor ilze« 14. IS. IS. 20; 40. 42. 44 und 46. Size IS . 4 ’. yard» of 35 or 39 lnch; 3 yards trim m ing ; ASK M S O ? J ANOTHER f ; ? A G e n e ra l Q uiz fN- (V. o i S H n c h ; » k u t. 2»« y a rd s of 3U-lnch Send a n e x tra q u a rte r fu r your cony of the S p rin g and S u m m e r F A S H IO N - It's b r im fu l of sew ing Ideas for r v e r y borne d re s s m a k e r. F re e p a tte rn p rin ted Inside the book. S F .W IN O ( I K I I . K I ’ A T T K K N I I E I ’T. Sin South W 'r lh S I. I h i r a g o 7. III. Eliclo»« 25 cent» In coin» for each pattern desired. i'a lltr n N.. Sira______ Name__ Addres» Lights Increase Egg Production fV. The Questions 1. When Colum bus discovered the new w o rld in 1492, where did he land? 2. How m any registered A m e ri­ can voters fa iled to vote in the 1948 presidential election? 3. Has a vice president of the United States ever resigned? 4. W hat w ould you do w ith a dem ijohn? 5. How long is the w o rld 's long­ est ra ilw a y tunnel? 6. In w h a t country was th e B a t­ tle of W aterloo fought? The Answers 1. On San Salvador, in the B a­ hamas. 2. A p p ro xim a te ly 20,000,000. 3. Yes—John C. Calhoun in 1832. 4. F ill it w ith liq u id —it is a glass or earthenw are vessel w ith a large body and s m a ll neck enclosed in w ickerw are. 5. 12 m iles, 560 ya rd s—Sim plon tunnel in S w itzerland and Ita ly . 6. In B e lg iu m —about 12 m iles south of Brussels. F luorescent tubes convert u l i t ­ tle c u rre n t into a lot of lig h t. So when R alph B. M cKenzie of Kane county, Illin o is , put 1,000 laying hens into a pen 40 feet wide and 100 feet long in a rem odeled d a iry barn, he in stalled 10 four-foot tubes to augm ent the little lig h t w hich was ava ila b le through the w in ­ dows. The lig h ts, when a ll burning, consume 640 w atts per hour. A t the reduced ra te M cKenzie pays fo r e xtra e le c tric ity , the average is less than seven cents per hen a n n u a lly ; thus, tw o of the m any e x tra eggs la id by each b ird d u r­ ing the year, pay the lig h t b ill. MIGHTY FAST RELIEF in RHEUMATIC ACHES-PAINS ^>1 MUST e r o LE (W O BAKE AT HOME) M icrofilm to Preserve Records for Posterity A campaign to save part of the world's cultural heritage is being carried on by the United States library of congress. A library of congress laboratory in Mexico City, Mexico, has photo­ graphed 20,000 historical docu­ ments of northern Mexico. The li­ brary operates a second laboratory in Japan. A third project, still in the planning stage, is photograph­ ing medieval manuscripts of value in St. Catherine’s monastery in Palestine. George T. Smisor, head of the Mexico laboratory unit, recently re­ turned from Washington where he conferred with library of congress officials. “Both the state department and the library,” said Smisor, “feel a responsibility for cooperating to preserve documents throughout the Must Compensate For Wrongs world, documents that are a part of But, good heavens, which one of our heritage and part of our cul­ us hasn’t suffered wrongs far ture. deeper than these imaginary ones “The United States is the only Diana lists here, not once, but all country in the world with the ex­ through our younger years! Par­ perience and the desire to do it.” ents will have favorites, teachers The desire entails plenty of hard will put the blame on the wrong child, and young bewilderment and work. Men from Smisor’s unit have confusion will lead children into ridden muleback across Mexico’s embarrassing and humilating mo­ bleak Sierras to photograph pre­ rasses. Unless we make up our cious manuscripts in old colonial minds, at 5 or 7 or even earlier, that towns. They have, to date, put on that’s the way the stupid world of film the complete cabildos (records grownups is and develop some sort of city councils) for Durango from of shell, philosophy or spiritual the 16th century to the time of balance to offset it, we shall grow Benito Juarez, the middle 19th cen­ up like Lily and Diana—lopsided tury. Durango was a big operating human beings whose wretched base for the early church fathers. //fy -B u y 3 packages at a time. Extra-active . . . always handy! 3 times as many, women prefer FLEISCHMANNS YEAST