Semi-Home Made Socks

The Morning Room, by Jan Frederick Portielje, Belgium, 1829-1908

These cotton socks for ladies and girls are easy to make. All you need is cotton socks in your size with a fold over cuff, and some flat lace. It takes one yard of flat lace for a pair of socks.

On the sewing machine, with a regular needle and stitch, stretch the cuff of the sock, as you sew the flat lace on it. A small zig-zag stitch works well.

Begin sewing at the back of the sock and sew around . Then stitch the edges of the lace together.

The socks shown above, were tinted with Rit Dye. Some laces will not take dye. Try a cotton eyelet flat lace if you want it to be dyed the same as the socks.  Flat lace is best to use, since the lace will ruffle automatically once sewn on a stretch sock. If you use ruffled lace, you might find it two ruffly. The cost of making these is about a dollar apiece, depending on how much your socks and lace cost. 

These are from Victorian Trading Company

 

Here are the socks. They look warm.

Women at Home, Men at Work: the Way it Should Be

Still Life of Lillies and Roses

by Mary Margetts, British 1841-1886

The Lord loves women so much that he gave special care instructions for them.  Husbands are to love them as their own body and provide for them, (Ephesians 5, Ist Timothy 5:8)  and children are to honour them (Ephesians 6).  They are called the weaker vessel in Ist Peter 3:7, and there is a reason for that.

In our homes are different kinds of cooking and serving vessels. Some of them can withstand a lot of use and pressure, and others are can not. The weaker vessels are stronger in some ways, and their function is different.

 One could argue that a china teacup appears to be weak and delicate, but can withstand a lot of heat.  That same cup might not endure so well if it were used as a frying pan, but it is strong in its own purpose. Woman, though called the weaker vessel, is strong when engaged in the purpose for which she was created: to love their husbands and children, to care for their homes.  

  God gave a special provision for women in Titus 2 and 1st Timothy 5:14, when He allowed them to guide the home.  There have been efforts to remove women from the home, and has resulted in troubled families.

 Womens political movements have spent a century trying to be equal to men, and in doing so, men have quit regarding them as  weaker vessels, creatures worth protecting and caring for. Some modern men have never seen a truly feminine woman, content with her work in the home. Growing up in institutions and schools, they saw girls and women who seemed the same as men in their purpose and activities. They have not grown up with  Biblical grandmothers and mothers. They get their image of what women are supposed to be like, from what they see around them. Most men these days have female bosses and are surrounded by women in the workforce. They see nothing wrong with sending their wives to work.  It looks normal to them. Men feel no shame in sending their children to daycare and their wives to work.

 The womens movement has changed the nature of men. They do not seem strong, protective, masculine and brave. Men have become weaker because they no longer have to be the sole provider for the family. They have no unique role in society; nothing to make them hold their head high or improve their dignity, when women also earn the living for the family. There are few places in the workplace where women have not invaded. Work needs to be a man's world, and homemaking needs to be a woman's world. Husbands and wives can be stronger in their own ways, when they do not try to be alike in their roles.

  Women must return to the home and men must take on the burden of providing for their families again.  Working to be a provider builds up a man, and contentedly tending to her home increases the soft femininity of a woman. These are the opposite tedencies which are the main attractions between men and women.  When husbands and wives both work outside the home, the wife will suffer a greater burden.  She will be suffering guilt for leaving her children, and she will suffer anxiety for not being able to manage her home.  Her health will suffer, as she can not get enough rest.  She will loose some of her innocent sweetness, as she tackles the job away from home. 

Truly masculine men will not ask their wives to go to work. They will try harder to provide for their families, or cut down on expenses so that their wives wont have to work.  Manly men will tell you that when women are not in the workplace, they get their jobs done much better. Women going to work has complicated the way things are done in the workplace, and this has not been good for the men. Men are goal-oriented, and women are relationship oriented. The desire for relationships is what makes them perfect for wives, mothers and homemakers. They tend to be more sensitive to the needs of the people at home.  Men, being goal oriented, just want to get their jobs done.  When women are at work, they have to worry about relationships with these women, while trying to work. It is better for women to be at home, forming relationships with their own families.


When a wife takes over the burden of providing, the husband relaxes.  There are men who have sent their wives to work, while they look for a job.  Sometime, women are sent to work, only to find that their husbands become house husbands, staying home all day waiting for the mail, looking for an answer to a resume, or hoping for money to be sent to them. Instead of looking for ways to better manage their income or cut down on expenses, men want women to work so that they can keep up their accustomed life.  A man who wants his wife to work, has shown a weakness in character, and a lack of manliness.

http://homeliving.blogspot.com/2007/01/please-daddy-let-mamma-stay-home.html

If you have children, the decision to stay home should already be made.

If you have no children right now, you need to realize that the moment you become a mother, your duty is to stay home and raise your own child.  People used to do it in the past, before money and conveniences were so available. I, and others like me, remember mothers at home in days when life was a lot harder. A mother could live in a tent and still never be tempted for a moment to leave her children to pursue a career. She knew that she was there to be the major influence in her childs' life. Today,all our decisions seem to be related to money. Try thinking for a moment of other reasons to stay home. Don't let money rule your life.

There are husbands today who demand that their wives work and bring in as much income as possible. No one has the right to send a wife to work if she does not want to. God, the supreme being, has already mandated through his word, that women should guide and keep the home. Where God has already commanded, mankind cannot legislate. We do not need "permission" or "approval" from husbands or anyone else, to be the keepers at home that the Bible describes.  Many women panic the minute their husbands lose a job, and start seeking employment outside the home. I lived in an era where men were often unemployed, because there were many jobs that were seasonal or temporary. Yet, women seemed to be able to adjust to this, and even expect this. Still, they didnt take matters into their own hands and get jobs. For one thing, jobs were usually available for men, and women prefered to be home.

 What has happened to convince women to leave their homes to work?  It has been a massive word campaign, which I called "word-ology" since the 20th century, to persuade women that they are being cheated by being "denied" jobs, or by "having" to stay home. When words are emphasised or twisted a certain way, people start believing lies.

Men need the responsibility of being providers. It gives them something to excell in, gives them pride in their families and gives them something worth living for. Work is good for them, but they need women at home helping to make that money stretch, and make a man's work worthwhile. When he sees her doing her best to save money and be creative and resourceful, it makes his burden lighter. Yes, women can stay home, but they need to make it a lifestyle that is simple and inexpensive, so that money does not go back out of the family coffers as quickly as it comes in.  The family economy is an entire skill that each generation has to learn. It requires knowing how to make things from the raw materials and how to be innovative.

 What used to be the inconvenience of temporary employment for men, has now become an "emergency" and women feel they have to fill in the gap.  Men are now "falling back" on their wives, wanting them to work. If a woman will work outside the home, a man will let her. Women control their own destiny, by either following what the prevailing culture demands, or following the Bible.

05/22/2010

Mother and Daughter, by Jan Frederick Portielje,  1829-1908 Belgium

Click on photograph for a larger view

Tin signs with antique roses are quite popular as magnetic bulletin boards, although they can be expensive. Here is a way you can make one, that really does not cost much money.

Using epoxy stickers, you can create magnetic raindrops for the roses, as you see in the photograph above.

Remove the stickers, mount them on paper, then glue them to the magnetic material, and cut out.

An old cookie sheet that cannot be restored to its original sheen, can be used for this project. This one is is very bad condition but I wanted to see what could be done with it.

First, a layer of paint, any shade you like. It can be spray paint or bottled craft paint, like Folkart or any acrylic paint. A small bottle sometimes only costs 50 cents.

For magnets, find flat buttons or fake jewels. Glue pieces of magnetic material (found in craft stores), cut to fit, on the back. I would suggest a sheet of magnetic paper, which you can cut with ordinary scissors, to the size you want. If you cannot get any, just take a magnetic strip off your old refrigerator calendar and cut it in pieces.

Use stencils, decals, or cuttings from scrapbook papers, to decorate the cookie sheet bulletin board.

Put heavy weight magnets all over the back of the cookie sheet if you want to use it on your refrigerator. It is not necessary to glue them, but you can.

Here is the tin bulletin board with butterfly buttons glued to magnet pieces, to hold down the messages and shopping reminder, placed on the side of the refrigerator. The picture is cut from a glossy calendar of roses, which I got at the Dollar Store, which is decoupaged. Elmers white glue can be substituted. Just paste the clipping down and then paint more glue over the top.  You could use any scene you like, or paint one yourself.

Years ago, cookie sheets had a hole on each end. You could attach a wire for hanging. They dont have holes any more, so you have to figure out how to hang them, or else prop them on a shelf that has a groove in it for plates.

If you do not have buttons to use as magnets, you can always cut more flowers, or anything that matches the picture you choose, and glue them to card board, and then glue on the the magnet material. Decoupage the tops of the pictures with glue or decoupage paint, to give it shiny finish. You can treat stickers the same way. For example, if you use a tea pot theme, make tea cup stickers for the magnets.

While it is always nice to buy something that is ready-made, it is satisfying to be resourceful with things that otherwise might be discarded. 

For magnetic memo boards you can buy, go here

and here. I see they are out of stock, in some stores, so it is a good thing you can make your own. The magnets are a lot safer than push pins or thumb tacks, especially if there are children in your home, so your home made one might be just the thing you need.

A Message to Daughters: Forsake Not the Law of Thy Mother

Gathering Poppies by Henry Yeend King

The Lesson, by Helen Allingham

Home Sweet Home by George Dunlop Leslie

The Schoolroom 1853 by Alfred Rankley

The Test, by Thomas Armstrong

Modest Weddings - A Reminder

There is perhaps nothing more uncomfortable than to be held captive in an audience during an immodest display of wedding party garments that can only be described as underwear.  The Bible commands women to dress modestly, and it is really simple to do so. These days, all you have to do is have a garment with sleeves, a bodice that has a neckline (at least near the neck), no holes or gaps, and nothing embarrassingly tight.

The bride's attendants should also be modest. Dresses with straps, and dresses without sleeves, are not modest. Dresses that reveal cleavage to everyone, are not modest, nor are dresses that cling so tightly to the bustline or hips that they leave nothing secret.

Church members here have established modesty policies for weddings in their congregation. They claim that anyone who had a wedding in their church building, would have to be modest. No cleavage, and no bare looking clothing; nothing above the knee, and no strapless.  I thought this was fair. These church members were just trying to put some limits on the immodesty that we are faced with at weddings.  I remember one wedding I attended where I was unprepared for the amount of immodesty that was displayed. I had no warning, and neither did anyone else. There were audible gasps from some people in the audience, and then some embarrassment, as people, even men, lowered their heads and looked at the floor as the bridesmades in their short, skin tight dresses walked past.

These pictures and paintings show a variety of dresses worn for weddings in past eras, proof that modesty can be maintained. I wonder if we could change the immodesty trend by refusing to give a gift or attend any weddings where the bride and the bridesmaids were dressing immodestly. This would require some sluething beforehand, but it might be effective enough to forewarn them, so that they could reconsider wearing immodest clothing at a wedding.  Other than that, the only way to prevent immodest dressing is to train your daughters not to wear immodest clothing any other time, and they will not want to wear a skimpy, trendy wedding dress in public.

I recently enjoyed looking at the photographs of the most modest and yet beautiful wedding I have ever seen. The clothes were perfection, hand sewn by the women on both sides of the family. The bride's dress had a modest neckline, elbow length sleeves with a shaped ruffle (longer in the back part) and a full skirt. The bridesmaids wore dresses with lace vests attached, all modest and all lovely.

When you dress modestly, you do not have to keep tugging at everything. Immodest clothes are not good for you. They do not protect you, which is one function of clothing. Too many weddings look like something other than a wedding.  We all need to come up with ideas to thwart the designers attempt to put every bride in a dress that barely covers her.  These dresses often cost hundreds of dollars and have very little fabric on them.  That is not a very good deal.  We must all stop following the pied pipers of fashion.

Clothing at weddings should indicate the seriousness and holiness of the event, not the sexiness of the women. I have observed over the years so many immodest weddings, and found that more than half of these marriages do not last two years.  If a bride is serious about life and has any maturity, she will see to it that her wedding is modest, and that she covers more than she reveals. We live in an era where everyone shows off their bareness, and people have forgotten that the flesh is private.  Weddings should be treated as something so sacred that only those who are dressing in the proper, modest garments, should attend.

(Titles and links to pictures coming later)

For more history on modesty, go here.

These Hawaiian dress patterns are great for wedding dresses: Nos 205, 101, 001 in particular. Click on for a larger view.

Good role models for modest wedding attire in church and civil ceremonies are the members of the European Royalty. Do a web search of the young royals in eastern and western countries and look at the up to date wedding attire that the women are wearing. No matter what you may think of royalty, the young women have, for decades, led the world in modest, beautiful wedding attire.

An Easy Leisure Craft

Reading By A Window

by Charles James Lewis (c. 1850)

To make a box similar to the old confectioner boxes, it is just a matter of making a card a little larger than the top of the box. Use any box you wish, from a shoe box, to a tea box. On heavy scrapbook paper or textured card stock, trace around the top of the box. Click on the picture above, of the finished box, for a larger view.

Now cut with shaped scissors, a short length away from the lines, at least 1/2 inch.

Click on the picture for a closer view of the faux diamonds used as dewdrops on the roses.

To give the card a lace look, use your hole-punch near the scalloped edges. Place your art and scraps and paste down. Here you see those little glass stickers that look like diamonds, placed on the dew drops of the rose bouquet in the picture. Choose the shade of paper and the kinds of scraps you like. Here, I have used a ribbon rose bud, a clear glass button butterfly, and some scrapbook papers. I have outlined the middle picture with glitter glue.  On a strip of paper is a written verse, which is then torn around.

Wrap the box in wrapping paper or thin paper, to cover it up. Paste it on the lid of the box, and fill it with the things you wish to give (or keep).  This one is going to be a small afternoon tea for one: a tea bag, and some little bites of tea foods, wrapped in a pretty paper napkin. I will be giving it to a widowed friend.

This is done with a large square paper lace piece, glued on to mauve card board. There was a slight imprint of an oval, which I outlined with glitter glue. The roses are cut out of scrap paper, found at So Shabby Pink. This is then glued on the top of a square box, which is just a little smaller in size.

Here is what the vintage confection box replica looks like, from Victorian Trading Company. I have not seen it up close so I do not know what kind of materials it is made from, but this can give you an idea of what you can use to make this box: ribbons and bows and metalic pieces, crepe paper and cut-outs. Glitter paper from the glitter stack might work for this topper, if you use lots of thick white glue for the doo-dads.

Replica of Confectioners Box From Victorian Trading

with satin ribbon, mica flakes, silk flowers,scrapbook papers $12.94

On family vacation times, even at home, time was spent in leisure crafts. Whether it was a sewing or knitting project, or a paper craft, it was one of the highlights of vacation times. Even a day at the lake or ocean warranted a bag full of these wonderful leisure supplies, to pass an hour away while enjoying time off.

 It is a great benefit to children to find things to do for relaxation, such as reading, writing, or art work. A good book for boys, any time of year, is "The American Boys Handibook," a reprint of the original boy scout book, which has a lot of basic and good activities for boys, from building a bridge, to constructing a brush shelter. You could easily make a boy busy every day of the year with these kinds of projects:- The handibook for boys includes making a kite, a sturdy hammock,  making outdoor furniture, creating a large balloon, making a tent, and many more, some which are very adventurous.  Girls can use some projects in "The American Girl's Handibook."  Both are reprints from Dover. which you can order or find in your local museams.

There are a couple more great boxes like this, here  and here which use good scrapbook materials.
Check this out for supplies. It has everything you need to make the lid of one of these confectioner's boxes, including the punch that makes the edges look like eyelet, sparkling butterflies, and some decorated boxes.
This glitter painting is interesting.  Any kind of card makes a good top for a gift box.  These are all a lot more advanced. I have posted a quick an easy recipe for relaxation and leisure. I believe if the craft takes a lot of time and effort, it can become more like work. The ones I have made here were much more relaxing, and easy to teach children.  I have seen some of these on sites for schools, where children have made gifts for their mothers. Here is a beautiful box top  made with the faux jewels. This one has the scalloped edges. Watch the entire slide show for more paper ideas for box tops resembling the vintage confectioners boxes. This one is more complicated, and interesting.

I still remember carrying a box of sewing and knitting supplies, books, writing materials, and craft goodies, on a trip or just summer holidays at home.

Paintings by James Hayllar, 1829-1920

A Family Grouping

This might possibly be the family of the artist. The wood structure is a painting holder. The father is showing paintings to his child. A structure like this was in a scene of one of Emma movies, where she was showing some of her paintings to Mr. Elton.

Paintings of previous centuries tell stories of the way people lived. They were quite like us, in so many ways, especially in their loyalty to the family. I appreciate James Hayllar's portrayal of family members. The men look strong and trustworthy (respected and revered) and the women look beautiful and understanding: devoted to their homes.

All The World Over

Notice how he painted a replica of his own painting, "All the World Over" on the wall in the background, in this painting called  "The Letter."

Keeping Out of the Cold

I like the tenderness showing on the face of this woman, and I enjoy the simple staircase and window in the background. The clothing is not elaborate, yet it is very dignified. 

The Only Daughter

I also enjoy seeing the inside architecture of paintings like these, and the paintings in the background portraying relatives that lived before them. It was a custom to show respect for the grandparents by displaying their likeness.