and cat-stitch are inserted between, to add to the oddity of the whole.  These forms can be bought at a low price in almost any fancy shop.  A good deal of ingenuity and taste can be shown in arranging and blending the figures richly and brilliantly, without making them too bright and glaring.  Table-covers in this work should have falls of deep points, pinked on the edges.  Smaller points of white cashmere are sometimes inserted between the deep ones, and similarly decorated.  Bright little tassels are swung between the points by twisted silk cords.  The tassels are made of strips of scarlet and white flannel, cut almost across, in narrow fringes, rolled into shape, and confined by a tiny heading of flannel embroidered with silk.  Sofa-pillows in this Oriental work are bright and effective, also wall-pockets and brackets—­in fact, it can be applied in many ways.  The bracket shapes must be cut in wood, and topped with flannel, the embroidered piece hanging across the front like a miniature drapery.

BEDSIDE RUGS.

The prettiest bedside rug which we ever saw was made in part of a snow-white lamb’s-wool mat.  This was laid in the center of a stout burlap, which projected six inches beyond the fleece all around, and was bordered with a band of embroidery on canvas six inches wide, the whole being lined with flannel and finished with a cord and a heavy tassel at each corner.  A simpler rug is made of brown burlap, with a pattern in cross-stitch, worked in double zephyr worsteds of gay colors.  Initials, or a motto, can be embroidered in the middle.  The burlap can be fringed out around the edges for a finish.

[Illustration:  VASE, PAINTED BLACK AND ORNAMENTED WITH FERNS (AUTUMN-LEAF WORK).]

A RAG RUG.

An effective rug can be made in this way:  Cut long inch-wide strips of cloths, flannels, and various kinds of material (widening the strip, however, in proportion as the fabric is thinner).  Sew the ends together so as to make one very long strip, which, for convenience’ sake, can be loosely wound up in a ball.  Then, with a very large wooden crochet-needle, you crochet a circle, a square, or oblong mat of this rag-strip, just as with cotton or worsted.  It makes a strong, durable, and, with bright and tasteful colors, a very pretty rug.

A SCREEN.

A folding clothes-horse with two leaves, such as is used in laundries, makes the foundation for this screen.  The wood is painted solid black, and covered inside and out with very yellow unbleached cotton, stretched tightly over the frame, and held down by black upholstery braid fastened on with gilt nails.  A design in flowers, leaves, birds, double circles, crescents, and parallel bars, to imitate the Japanese style of decoration, is painted in oil colors on the cotton, and a motto on the wood along the top.  If the