Help! Chalk mark stains!!

Dear Sharon,

I taught at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. After I retired, we moved back to our home in Columbia--still close, but not as...

I hope the docents are still wearing "tough" clothing. I had a running battle with one of the caretakers who insisted that the house is a "Georgian mansion," when in fact it's a stone house without any conveniences. He wanted everyone in stylish silks. I made instead clothing that could go into the woods or cut timber.

When I was last there, about three years ago now, the Sappington House was just being completed. My fiber arts students replicated the quilt made by family members in the 1860s as a summer project. The original quilt was in such poor condition that it was supposed to go for conservation.

If you ever come through Columbia, give me a ring, and we can get together.

Teri

Dear Sharon,

I leave the short end of the facing loose until after the zipper is pricked. Then, I turn in this end as much as needed to miss the zipper and hand-stitch it down. I love lapped, hand pricked zippers, too, and made my students do them on their dinner and evening wear pieces.

Teri

Refer to Nancy Zeiman for an answer to the question about the neck facing problem on the lapped zipper opening. Sounds complicated but really isn't. Dot in Tennessee

That's OK on something that can be washed before wearing, but not for customer/wedding things. Sometimes basting with silk thread really IS the way to go! :)

Oh, I agree! Actually, I only discovered Wonder Tape a few months ago and so far have just used it on a few pillow cover zips.

Have you ever used a rhinestone zipper, like the ones at the Stan's Sewing site posted here the other night, in anything you've sewed?

Doreen in Alabama

Ahhh Kate----I envy your love of hand sewing......I hate it, and have to work HARD to make it look decent. If it can possibly be done on a machine, that's how I do it.

Guess I am too much a fan of speed.

I like to do hems on special things by hand. I find it very relaxing. My oldest DGD (19) does the most fabulous handsewing I've ever seen done by a kid. No one taught her. She just has the knack. Juno

Ah, DD does much nicer handwork than I do. I used to make really nice buttonholes in shirts, especially, but once I got a machine that could do them I quit and have lost the art, it appears. Any RTW for DD always needed altering and once she was in college she did all that by hand. Guess that's where she learned she had 'the knack'.

Jean M.

I love all kinds of handsewing, probably because that's the way I started out, making doll clothes all by hand. My mother wouldn't let me touch her sm until I took home ec. Thank goodness there was a wonderful teacher at our school. It really upsets me to hear stories about poor home ec teachers, knowing what a difference a good one can make.

We had mostly treadle machines, just a few electric ones. Mrs. Cleere had us rotate so that everyone learned to use both kinds. Most of us belonged to FHA (Future Homemakers of America), which had annual fairs with prizes for garments entered, so that was an added incentive to do well.

I'm sure there were drawbacks to going to school in a small southern town...our science labs were laughable, for instance...but on the whole, I think we were lucky.

Doreen in Alabama

90% of the time I DO do things on the machine. But just now and again hand work is THE BEST and also the quickest solution! :)

Meeting you would be a thrill, Teri. And I sure will give you a ring should I get down there. However, I hadn't realized that there were two Daniel Boone homesteads. Ours in is Berks County, Pennsylvania, where the lad was raised. He headed out when the neighborhood began filling up and he could see the smoke from others' chimneys.

Funny thing about Daniel Boone. His influence seems to have spanned the country. I am a Wyoming state native, and married a Pennsylvanian. On a trip home to Wyoming I learned that a mother of a childhood friend was a direct descendent of Daniel. Wish she could have visited while she was yet alive.

Sharon

Dear Sharon,

The Boone Home in Missouri is listed on the tax rolls as belonging to Daniel's son, Nathan. Both Daniel and his wife, Rebecca, died there, Rebecca in 1813 and Daniel in 1820.

Teri