Buy twelve or fourteen yards of cotton clothesline. It is white and smooth, and twisted like the fibre clothesline. Or there is a soft cotton window cord that is even better, because it is smoother. Thread a No. 19 tapestry needle with a strand of raffia, putting the thick, or root, end through the needle. Lay the other end of the raffia on the rope, with its tip turning toward the long end. Starting at the very end of the rope, wind the long end of raffia around it (and its own short end) for an inch or more. Then coil it into the smallest ring you possibly can, bring the long end of the raffia around, up through the centre of the ring and around again, taking in two coils--the one of which the ring was made and a second one made by bringing the long end of the rope around the ring (see Fig. 78). The first and second coils are covered in this way with a simple over-and-over stitch, which binds them together, passing around both and up through the centre. With the third coil the real stitch begins. It is an Indian one called the Figure Eight Stitch. The needle passes under the third coil (that is, the long end of rope which you are coiling around), around, over it, under the coil below, around, over it and up again, under and around the third coil--drawing the coils close together. The whole mat is sewed in this way. If you choose, you can work a design of coloured rings as a border or a solid border of the coloured raffia. Fig. 79 shows how the new pieces of raffia are added. Cross the old and new ends on the rope, bring the needle threaded with the new strand under the lower coil, out in front, over the lower coil, under and around the upper one, and so on. [Illustration: FIG. 79] _Doll's Hat of Raffia_ =Materials Required:= A bunch of raffia, A tapestry needle, No. 19.