Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled During Her Visit Among the "Pennsylvania Germans"Thomas, Edith May Bertels
General
Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled During Her Visit Among the "Pennsylvania Germans"
Thomas, Edith May Bertels
Cookbooks; Cooking -- Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania -- Social life and customs; Pennsylvania Dutch
"Yes," answered her Aunt, "I have always greatly admired them myself,
especially the large gray one which covers the Professor's own chair
in the library. The Professor brought them with him when he returned
from 'Cutler's Ranch' at Rociada, near Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he
visited his nephew, poor Raymond, or rather, I should say, fortunate
Raymond, an only child of the Professor's sister. A quiet, studious
boy, he graduated at the head of his class at an early age, but he
inherited the weak lungs of his father, who died of consumption.
Raymond was a lovable boy, with a fund of dry humor and wit--the idol
of his mother, who, taking the advice of a specialist, accompanied her
boy, as a last resort, to New Mexico, where, partly owing to his
determination to get well, proper food and daily rides on the mesa, on
the back of his little pinto pony, he regained perfect health, and
today is well, happily married and living in Pasadena, California, so
I have been told by Frau Schmidt, who dearly loves the boy."
"But Mary, forgive an old woman for rambling away from the subject in
which you are interested--Navajo blankets. Ever since we planned to
make a rug with a swastika in the centre, I have been trying to evolve
from my brain (and your Uncle John says my bump of inventiveness is
abnormally large) a Navajo rag rug for the floor of the room you
intend to furnish as Ralph's den, in the home you are planning. Well,
my dear, a wooden crochet hook in your deft fingers will be the magic
wand which will perform a miracle and transform into Navajo blankets
such very commonplace articles as your discarded gray eiderdown
kimona, and a pair of your Uncle's old gray trousers, which have
already been washed and ripped by Sibylla, to be used for making
carpet rags. These, combined with the gray skirt I heard you say had
outlived its day of usefulness, will furnish the background of the
rug. The six triangles in the centre of the rug, also lighter stripes
at each end of the rug, we will make of that old linen chair-cover and
your faded linen skirt, which you said I might use for carpet rags;
and, should more material be needed, I have some old, gray woolen
underwear in my patch bag, a gray-white, similar to the real Navajo.
The rows of black with which we shall outline the triangles may be
made from those old, black, silk-lisle hose you gave me, by cutting
them round and round in one continuous strip. Heavy cloth should be
cut in _very_ narrow strips. Sibylla will do that nicely; her hands
are more used to handling large, heavy shears than are yours. The
linen-lawn skirt you may cut in strips about three-fourths of an inch
in width, as that material is quite thin. I would sew rags of one
color together like carpet rags, not lapping the ends more than
necessary to hold them together. The rug will be reversible, both
sides being exactly alike when finished. I should make the rug about
fifty-three stitches across. This will require about six and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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