Sewing Linen

There are a few points that apply to the making of all antique style household linens. The first of them is in regard to cutting. To pull a thread and cut on that line is always the safest way. If this is done the piece is sure to be "true" after laundering.

Wide hems should have their open ends whipped together with fine overhanding, or top-sewing, as it is also called.

Napery hem with the needle in hemming position.

This same stitch is used for sewing the napery hem whether it is wide or narrow. It should, by the way, never be wider than one-quarter inch on even the largest-size dinner napkin. To make it, turn a sixth of an inch to the wrong side of the damask and crease, but do not stretch the folded edge in the creasing. Then turn the edge a second time, making this turning one-quarter inch wide. Now bend back the hem so that there are two folded edges parallel to each other and overhand them together. The overhanding stitch is also known as the napery hemming stitch because it is used for this purpose. Be sure to set the needle at right angles to the edges each time a stitch is made and pick up only a little of the material in each edge. The diagram shows the needle in position. This makes a small, straight stitch on the right side that embeds itself in the grain of the material and does not show. Turn and hem opposite sides instead of beginning at one corner and hemming the four sides in succession.

Left: Diagram for a mitered corner. Cut on the dotted line, then fold down hem on the solid lines. Turn under raw edges 1/8 inch.
Right: Diagram for a square corner. Crease on the solid lines, cut away surplus material at the corner, and then fold down the hems.

A corner is always turned square if there is a narrow hem. But when the hem is wide the corner may be squared or mitered. The diagrams show how to prepare the corner for either kind of finish.

The nicest way to turn a corner when hemstitching a hem is to draw out the threads just to the turn in each direction. Then the hemstitching of the two sides will meet at the corners instead of crossing and continuing to the edge of the hem. The latter should have a mitered corner.

It is a wise precaution to launder linen before it is embroidered, especially if the stitchery is to cover large surfaces in single masses. Then there can be no possibility of the embroidered pattern becoming thick or blurred, as sometimes happens in the first laundering when the linen has not been previously shrunk. This applies not so much to French embroidery as to the laid surface work that is done in such a variety of stitches.

Nothing has been said so far about the making of kitchen linen. And under that term might be included everything made of stuffs, from tea-towels and dish-cloth to floor-cloth and duster. Today these can all be got in the shops ready made at such a slight additional cost that it will not pay a housekeeper whose time is precious and who cares to save her energy for more profitable application to spend it making any of these. Dish-towels for both glass and china come in yard lengths, costing very little more hemmed than the same quality of linen unhemmed. Even the much-maligned roller-towel can be bought ready made. It com.es in a size only about a third of its old-time length, a sort of compromise with those who declared against it. This size is a convenience over the sink drain-board, and, being small, it is not difficult to handle in the laundry.

Each housekeeper knows best the value of her own time and energy, and must compute for herself whether she can afford one or another kind of marking. The simple cross-stitching of initials can be afforded by practically every one, but beyond that each must make her own decisions. Elaborateness is not necessary to beauty, but a decorative ideal is necessary - and a plan.

Continue: Mending Table Linen.