Portfolio de Couturier: The Handkerchief.
This little item has been around for hundreds of years; even dating back to the days of the Pharaohs in Egypt…I’m sure many Egyptian ladies had fine linen handkerchief to use. Handkerchiefs were considered a necessity for any young lady whether you were just a little girl, or the most distinguished queen….no matter what time period, century or year… handkerchiefs have been used and enjoyed by many people all over the world.
We have most often seen them tucked into ladies ridicules (purses), sleeve cuffs or perhaps dropped in hopes that a suitor would retrieve it for her. Handkerchiefs were a place for young ladies to practice their needle work and lace making…and it also allowed girls to be creative in use of colors and laces.
Perhaps you have read the story by Beatrix Potter titled “The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle”. In that story a little girl name Luci, has lost 3 of her pocket-handkins and is looking for them everywhere, of course Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle; being the kind hedgehog she is, has found Luci’s pocket handkins and cleaned and pressed them for her.
It was common for little girls to be losing their handkerchiefs or pocket-handkins, as Luci called them, because they were simply tucked in an apron pocket or pinafore…thus, it is quite easy for them to fall out while playing.
Why do you think carrying fancy lace edged handkerchiefs have gone out of fashion?
They are still very useful to have tucked into a purse or pocket…and are a fun way to practice sewing with lace and maybe trying your hand at embroidery.
If you would like to make your own dainty handkerchief I have included some instructions of how to make a simple one edged with lace. You can embellish them however you choose… perhaps with a small daisy in the corner, or your initials, but don’t forget you are not limited to just a white pocket-handkin…why not try one in a soft mint green? Or edge it with a pretty pink lace… The possibilities are endless.
List of Supplies you will need:
- Sewing machine or needle and thread
- Sewing pins
- Fabric cutting scissors
- Iron (ask an adult for help if needed)
- Fabric cut in a square, about 12in x 12in
- Lace or trim (enough to go around the edge of your handkerchief)
- Thread to match lace
- An iron on embroidery pattern (optional)
- Embroidery thread (optional)
- Embroidery hoop (needed if you are going to do any embroidery)
What kind of fabrics will work best?
I like to use a nice cotton or linen fabric for making handkerchiefs because then it washes easily, but you can certainly try using another kind of fabric that you like.
Step 1. Cut your fabric to the desired size, and iron it smooth.
Step 2. Thread your machine or needle with thread that matches the lace or trim you would like to use.
Step 3. Iron the edge of your handkerchief down in a small hem, about ¼ of an inch. Once you have the hem ironed all the way around, do the same thing again by turning down the hem you just did. This will create a nicer hem without any raw edges showing.
Step 4. Pin the hem in place.
Step 5. Sewing all the way around, close to the edge of the hem, but not be careful not to go off of the hem, you want to stay right on the edge of it. (If you are sewing it by hand, simply stitch all the way around as you would on a machine)
Step 6. Once you have finished sewing your hem, trim all your loose threads and iron your handkerchief again.
Step 7. Next, start to pin your lace your trim around the edge. Be sure to either take a fold at the corners of your trim or lace to ensure it goes around the corner nicely. Don’t just pull it to fit, otherwise you will end up with rounded corner handkerchief.
Carefully sewing your lace onto the edge but be careful to not get any of your lace stuck underneath of where you are sewing on the stitch line.
Step 8. You now have a lovely new handkerchief that looks nice the way it is or you can dress it up even further with some embroidery or other decoration.
Miss Brielle
Portfolio de La Vie: Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller was born on June 27th, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Helen Keller is widely known for being an deaf-blind American author, activist, and lecturer. She was the first deaf- blind person to graduate from a college.
Helen's father was a former officer of the Confederate Army, and her mother was the cousin of Robert E. Lee. The Keller family lived at their estate called Ivy Green, but they had immigrated to America from Germany and one source claims that Helen's father was also of Swiss descent.
Helen Keller was not born blind or deaf, but when she was thirteen months old she was no longer responding to motion or sound. The doctors said that she had "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain, which could have actually been scarlet fever or meningitis. After the illness was gone, Helen was left with the loss of two of her senses. She had one friend with whom she communicated. The daughter of the household cook, six-year-old Martha Washington, helped Helen create different signs so she could communicate in some way, and by age seven the two girls had come up with over sixty different home signs. In later years a Soviet blind-deaf psychologist Meshcheryakov said that the time Martha had spent helping Helen was a crucial part of her later developments.
In 1886 when Helen was six-years-old, her mother read Charles Dickens's American Notes, where he wrote about the successful education of another deafblind girl, Laura Bridgman, and was inspired to seek out help for Helen. She sent out Helen and her father to go to a Dr. J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice. He advise them to go to Alexander Graham Bell, who worked with deaf children at the time. He pointed them in the direction of the Perkins Institute for the Blind, which was the same school where Bridgman went.
It was there that the school chose a teacher, and former student, to go tutor Helen. Anne Sullivan, herself was visually impaired and very young at the age of twenty. This was the beginning of a forty-nine year long relationship between the two.
Helen, being disabled, was very spoiled by her family and the house-workers, so Anne had a lot to do before she could even really start teaching Helen. Anne asked Mr. Keller if she could isolate Helen from the family and house-workers by moving into the little house that sat in the Keller's garden. Anne dearly loved the little girl and was to love her like her own. It took a lot of effort to put up with spoiled Helen, but one day they had a break through when Anne ran cold water over Helen's hand and then gave her the water sign in the palm of her hand. It was then that Helen made the connection with the signs that Anne was doing into her palm and the objects that she encountered everyday.
When Helen was ten she was made aware of the story of a deaf-blind Norwegian girl who learned to speak, and Helen was to do the same. Anne taught Helen how to speaking using the Tadoma method, which was when you touched the lips and throats of others as they spoke. This was in addition to the finger spelling that Anne did in Helen's palm. Helen also learned to read Braille, but this remarkable girl not only learned it in English, but also in French, German, Greek, and Latin.
Helen was 18 when she started attending the Royal Institute for the Blind, and later in 1894 she and Anne moved to New York City to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf and Horace Mann School for the Deaf. Afterwards Helen and Anne went back to Massachusetts, where Helen enrolled in the Cambridge School for Young Ladies before she went to Radcliffe College in 1900. Mark Twain admired the young woman and introduced her to Henry Huttleton Rogers, who with his wife paid for Helen's college education. When Helen graduated from Radcliffe in 1904 at the age of 24 with a manga cuma laude she became the first deaf-blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree.
The following year Anne married a John Macy, and when her health started failing in 1914, Polly Thompson was hired to keep house for Helen. She was young, from Scotland, and didn't have any experience with deaf or blind people. She did progress though, and worked as a secretary later on. When Anne died in 1903 Helen and Polly, close and constant companions, moved to Connecticut. They both went traveling worldwide, raising funds for the blind, but in 1957 Polly had a stroke and never full recovered, and died in 1960. The nurse who had taken care of Polly, Winnie Corbally, would now be Helen's new companion... for the rest of her life.
Helen was a world famous speaker and activist, especially for those with disabilities a mist other numerous causes. Helen Keller had a wide variety of acquaintances such as Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin, and Mark Twain. She also met every US President from Grover Cleveland to Lyndon B. Johnson.
Helen was an author from the young age of seven when she wrote 'The Frost King'. Though it was said to be a copy of 'The Frost Fairies' by Margaret Canby, which Helen had read but suffered from cryptomnesia and was hidden in her subconscious. When Helen was 23 she published her biography entitled The Story Of My Life in 1903, with the help of Anne and her husband. She also wrote "The World I Live In" in 1908, trying to give people a glimpse into her life and how she felt. "Out of the Dark" was a series that Helen wrote about Socialism, published 1913. Also Helen wrote "Light in my Darkness", which was previously called "My Religion" and acted as a spiritual biography of dear Helen's life.
In 1961 Helen had a series of strokes and spend the rest of her life in her home. Three years later on September 14, 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded Helen the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the United States highest civilian honours. The next year Helen Keller was elected to the Women's Hall of Fame at the New York World Fair.
On June 1st, 1968 Helen passed away in her sleep, just twenty-six days before her eighty-eighth birthday at her home, Arcan Ridge, in Connecticut. She was given a memorial service at the Nation Cathedral in Washington, DC and her ashes were placed next to her dear friends, Anne Sullivian and Polly Thompson.
Her life is an example that anything is possible with God, and believing is not seeing.
During Helen's childhood she may have worn a bonnets to keep from the sun when outside. Aprons also were very ideal for keeping one's day dress clean, and though we don't see too many girls wearing bonnets or aprons, that doesn't mean they aren't practi
Blessed Designs has made it possible for GGM to give you the chance to win a Apron/Bonnet Sewing Pattern.
I could make peanut-butter and add something yummy to it. "I know!", I thought. I got out the ice cream toppings and saw that we have crushed Butterfingers.
I was excited to find out that I would be interviewing this month's cover-girl because she is one of my best and most admired friends. Allow me to introduce you to Miss Brielle. Some of you may already know her either through her articles on GGM or because you've marveled at her costumes.
