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Ironing Day: Linen

To Store Linens. - If linen articles are not in constant use they should be wrapped in brown, blue, or other dark-colored paper, as the bleaching powder and other forms of chlorine used in bleaching white and light-colored papers have a tendency to turn linen articles yellow, and so does exposure to air and sunlight. To Prepare Linen for the Wash.- It will be found a matter of economy to examine the linen before it goes to the laundry and remove all stains, and also mend bracks, tears, and worn places before the articles are washed.

Otherwise they may catch on the washboard or in the washing machine, or be whipped by the wind, caught by a flatiron, or otherwise made larger than is necessary. Here, as elsewhere, 66 a stitch in time saves nine."

Marking Linen. A good stamping outfit may be obtained very cheaply and linen may be stamped with initials that can afterwards be worked over with embroidery. Large Gothic letters appear to be most approved for this purpose.

Or, by the use of a few cents' worth of carbon paper, which may be obtained of any stationer, linen may be stamped by tracing over any desired pattern. A paper pattern may be used for this purpose, or one article may be sent away to be marked and the initial afterwards transferred to the others by tracing over with carbon.

Before starting to work on any stamped linen, take a copy of the design on a piece of paper for duplicates, which may then be transferred, at very small expense of time and trouble, by means of carbon paper to other articles.

Or plain articles may be marked by tracing the initial with a soft lead pencil and going over the outline with the sewing machine, using any color of silk thread that may be desired.

Or apply marking ink with a steel pen or fine camel's-hair brush. For recipe, see under "Ink" elsewhere in this volume. - To Hem Table Linen. Draw a thread at either end and cut straight across. Turn the hem through the narrow hemmer of an unthreaded sewing machine. This makes a narrower and more even hem than can be turned by hand.

The difficulty of drawing the thread from linen is much lessened if a piece of castile or other hard white soap is first rubbed carefully over the threads.

Tablecloth Economics. - If a tablecloth wears around the edge by rubbing against the table, draw threads on either side of the worn place, cut straight across, and sew together with a perfectly flat, even seam. This will hardly be noticed, and the tablecloth will be almost like new.

When buying new tablecloths get a half yard extra material and from time to time take a narrow strip off one of the ends. This will bring the creases in different places and prevent the cloth from wearing where it is creased in the laundry. Ravelings taken from these strips will be found the best material with which to darn frayed places.

When a tablecloth is past its proper use it is still available for many purposes. The whole parts will make an excellent bread cloth and one or more tray cloths or napkins suitable for lunches and picnics, or for use particularly in the fruit season, when the best napkins often receive peach and other fruit stains that are so difficult to remove. The small pieces make the best of silver polishers, as they are so soft that they will not scratch the finest silver. 1 Or figured centerpieces may sometimes be embroidered, as for stamped linen, and made to do duty as doilies and lunch cloths.

Toweling. - Raw linen towels can be purchased at surprisingly low prices, and under proper care may be perfectly bleached in the laundry. Or remnants of tablecloth damask may be picked up, cut to the proper length, and hemstitched all around, or finished in drawn work and decorated with embroidered initials. For ordinary uses nothing is more satisfactory than wash crash toweling, which wears well, has a good appearance, and saves the wear of linen towels.