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ENJOYING EACH OTHER 253
I wonder and I wonder why The grown-up people let them lie, Such lovely things of finest taste In baskets that are full of waste.
The child's own shop, therefore, is chiefly a repair shop, a place for making what the dressmaker calls "alterations." Glue, string, buckles, fasteners—these are more essential to them than tools.
Fall Dressmaking
The first discovery is the one, natural to woman, that the dolls have "positively nothing to wear." A certain mother opens her piece-bag, in emergencies, and permits each child present, whether home-born or visiting, to select four different pieces. The distraction of making the choice is soothing, and even if simultaneous choice falls upon one precious fragment, amity is restored by drawing of straws.
Then naturally follows the refurnishing of the doll-house for the winter. It may be repapered from bits of old wall paper, and recarpeted with rag-rugs made on the spot or with bright bits of curtain material. The furniture may be cut from old magazines and the catalogues of furniture houses. The garage may be filled from the automobile periodicals, and the conservatory from the bright pages of the florists' catalogues.
New Dolls for Old
If the stock of dolls is low, there are always clothespins. They have the human outline already, and legs. Arms are made with strips of cotton about four inches long and one inch wide, slashed in the middle, pulled over the head of the pin, and folded, with a twist at the end for hands. Dark, raw cotton will make the hair. If the feet are inset and pasted into a piece of double-faced corrugated cardboard the child will stand alone.
One mother aroused new interest in an old doll family by suggesting that they all be renamed to represent the characters of a favorite story. With these new names, ages and |
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