Damask Table Linen & Tablecloth

There is a special patch for table damask, but unless the linen is new and has met with an accidentlaundry acid holes or holes burnt in the housekeeper will hardly care to give the time that this patch requires. The opening for the patch is first cut out of the cloth. Then the material from which the patch is to be made is placed under the opening and shifted until the pattern in it and that of the cloth match, and the size of the patch marked through the opening with a sharp lead-pencil. The patch may then be cut out, and the two piecesarticle and patchbasted on a stiff paper all ready for the patch to be fastened permanently to the gloth with the fine drawing stitch. It should not be necessary to use any darning stitches with it unless the material is too loose to hold the patch secure with fine drawing alone. Particular care must be applied to all the cutting because clean edges are essential for the best results.

When a piece of linen is quite beyond redemption through darning or patching there is still a long term of usefulness before it in other forms of household service. Old towels make the best kind of cloths for cleaning windows and mirrors. They also make soft dusters if cut down and machine-hemmed. When the good parts of the linen are too small for any of these uses they may be cut into ten-inch squares, hemmed by machine, finished with a tape loop, and hung over the bath-tub near the jar of enamel-cleaner to be used for the tub.

But of all household linens the damask tablecloth renders the greatest variety of services before it entirely disappears. At the very end of its reign it may be found in humble places, such as the refrigerator, wrapping washed lettuce.

Squares of old linen are convenient to have on hand for drying meat and fish or potato slices that are to be fried in deep fat. A large square of damask folded in several thicknesses on the kitchen table makes a good absorbent pad for ears of corn or asparagus as it is lifted from the kettle. No water will collect in the service dishes if the kitchen absorbent pad is used.

However, before the table-cloth need become assistant to the cook, it may be made to do duty in the dining-room in a number of ways. What housekeeper has not beheld with dismay that the edge of her round dining-table has worn almost through her finest damask, leaving a center and handsome border in perfect condition? The thing to do in a case like this is to turn the dinner-cloth into a cloth for luncheon service by cutting the four corners off diagonally, making four large triangles of them. Then join these four triangles with one-and-a-half-inch-wide Cluny or torchon lace, whipping the lace to the edges of the damask triangles that formerly were the edges of the cloth. This makes a cross of the lace through the center of the table. The cloth may be cut round or square after the triangles are joined, and the edge finished with lace to match the pattern in the insertion. The center of the former dinner-cloth remains to be cut into luncheon napkins that will be finished on their edges with a narrower width of lace. A small-patterned damask makes over in this way better than the large-scrolled and flowered kind: in fact, the small patterns make over better in all ways, and the housekeeper working with a very long plan might choose her damask with this in mind. But that would perhaps mean losing more than was gained in the long run.

When the center of a cloth is too darned or too thin to be darned, the borders are often quite good with the exception of the corners, which clothespins may have torn. These borders may be cut off and made into a runner, and four or more oblong place-cloths used instead of three doilies at each place. If there is not enough material in the borders for this, there will surely be enough for several carving-cloths to place under the platter. They save the large cloth many an extra laundering and reduce the weekly laundry bill. The nicest finish for the "made over" platter-cloth is a plain hem one and a quarter inches wide.

Then there are the trays to be covered - either the breakfast or porch tray, and sometimes one for an invalid, and both the top and bottom trays of the service-cart. They are much neater in appearance covered with a fitted cloth rather than a folded napkin, or still worse, a napkin with corners hanging over the edge. Worn tablecloths and napkins, too, are an economical source of supply for these. The edges may be finished with one of the finishes illustrated later. Narrow linen laces are also suitable, or a picot edge can be crocheted with very little trouble. One woman who finishes hers in this way claims that it is not practical to crochet directly on to the linen, because the edge outlasts the tray linen and can be used again if it is crocheted separate and whipped on to the cloth.

Another woman who prefers to crochet the edge on at the same time that she makes it has two ways of making the application easier. On rectangular covers she pulls out a thread or two very near the edges and then crochets into this opening after overcasting the raw edge with needle and thread. To prepare the round, "made over" doilies for picoting she stitches very close to the edge with the machine, using a long stitch. And then she crochets into each of these stitches. They not only are a place to anchor the crochet, but help keep it even. The raw edge should be overcast with fine sewing-thread before doing the picot.

Among the made sets of table linen that come from France there sometimes are damask bands two or three inches wide and about ten inches long. They are usually embroidered along the long edges and across one end. The latter is fastened over the undecorated end with small linen buttons and buttonholed loops. They are intended to hold the serviette. For any one who does not like to see her carefully set table spotted with various kinds and sizes of family napkin-rings this is a solution. The bands are so small that they can easily be made from worn napkins. They would, of course, have to be initialed for different members of the family.

By the way, when a cloth marked in French embroidery wears out, the letters or monogram can be transferred to a new cloth. Cut out the monogram with a margin of linen an inch and a half wide around it. Baste it in place on the new cloth, pinning it first with many pins so that it cannot possibly shift. Make the first basting one-quarter of an inch from the letters, and the second line one inch outside of the first. The stitches should be small. Then turn the cloth to the wrong side, and, using No. 100 cotton, backstitch with the smallest possible stitches along all the edges of the letters. The edge can easily be felt through the linen. When this is finished the old linen around the letters may be cut away very close so that no raw edges show and the monogram will have been transferred in a way that cannot be detected.

Colored damask works up into useful suitcase covers, one for the bottom and a second for over the top of the things after they are packed in the suit-case. Why not dye the borders of worn table-cloths and use them for these? The edges should be bound with colored tape. Get the white linen tape and dye it, too. Yellow covers with orange bindings would be goodboth colors dull. The perfect parts from the center of the cloth could be dyed at the same time with the borders, and then made into a nightgown case, and pockets for brush, comb, and other toilet articles. They help keep the week-end suit-case in order.

Laundry-bags for the bedrooms made of old damask might be dyed to carry out the color scheme of each room. Damask covers of the same color for dressing-table and chiffonier need only a narrow rolled hem whipped with heavy cotton of a different color for their edge finish.

There seems to be no end to,the variety of uses to which old damask may be put, so it really is worth while to pay a little more for good quality to begin with.

Needle in position for fine drawing. When the material is weak darn beyond each stitch.

Continue: Sewing Lingerie.