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Altering Children's Clothes
Patches may be so neatly inserted as scarcely to show. The legs of a child's trousers may be turned by cutting off, and reversingchanging right and left-so as to scarcely show. Children's skirts may be altered to fit the constantly growing form, letting out the tucks and bands. The material for children's suits or dresses may be gotten from the partly worn clothes of the adult members of the family. Garments thus made are just as good for the little ones to play about in the fresh earth and grass, just as good to be torn by briers and brush as new ones. Children need pretty free scope at play. It is healthy; it is good for both brain and muscle. The child who never rolled in the grass; never wanted to make mud pies or haul sand on a shingle, who never soiled or made a rent in the dress, never made any mark in the world as man or woman.
VI. The Kind of Clothes to Wear.
CHILDREN are easily kept comfortable if proper care is taken in the materials and making of their clothing. That young children should be girded in tight garments is absurd. The young girl who is laced together to bring her "form into shape," with dresses of the shortest, and whose legs from the knee are covered only with thin stockings in winter, for fashion's sake, has as foolish a mother as has the boy a father who refuses him flannel in winter, and makes him leave off his shoes and stockings in early spring, to "toughen him." That kind of fashion and that kind of toughening send a legion of children yearly into premature graves.
Dress your children comfortably, whatever the material, with light colors and thin texture in summer, and bright, warm colors and stout, close goods for winter. Keep good shoes and stockings on the feet, and light gear on the head, for it is as true now as it was in Franklin's time, that "he who keeps the feet warm and the head cool may bid defiance to the doctors." Comfortable, flexible, rather loose hats and caps, and strong, well-fitting shoes for the boys; and no tight bandaging with belts, stays and garters for the girls. Let them race and run to their hearts' content. Nature intended that all young things should do so, to develop and round them out. Let those who think that children should act as prim as the maiden of forty, take a lesson from the colts, calves and lambs. They are always at play when not feeding or resting. It is their education.
VII. Taste in Ladies' Dress.
EVERY lady should know what colors, and shades of color, harmonize with her hair, eyes and complexion; and what patterns will be in harmony with her form. Ladies instinctively understand this; gentlemen, as a rule, depend upon their tailors. To those ladies who are in doubt, we should say, consult your dressmaker or your milliner. However costly the material, it should be simple rather than glaring in color. Avoid strong contrasts in the colors of the dress. However fashionable a color may be, abjure it unless it is becoming to you. A fashion is as often started to hide some deformity or peculiarity in a leader of fashion, as for any other reason. Adapt new purchases as much as possible to the articles you already have, and always let them be in harmony with your height, age, station in life and complexion. VIII. Something About Color.
THE strong or primitive colors are red, yellow and blue. Yellow and red produce orange by simple union; yellow and blue produce green; red and blue make purple; orange and green, again, produce olive; orange and purple produce brown; green and purple form a slate-color. The cold colors are blue, green and purple. The warm colors are yellow, red and orange; olive, brown and slate are neutral colors. These are modified by light or shade. For instance, grass which in the bright sunshine appears almost yellow, in the shade is a cool, refreshing green. Take the three primitive colors, yellow, red and blue. Upon a disk of paper paint the lower half blue, the upper right-hand quarter red, and the upper left-hand quarter yellow. Fasten this upon any swift-whirling object, as a humming or peg top, and they form white. A cold or warm effect is produced by a proper combination of these colors, with reference to light. Warm effects are produced with white, yellow, orange, red, purple, indigo and black, and their combinations. Cold effects, by white, pale yellow, yellow, green, blue, indigo and black, and their combinations.