Dainty Trifles

I can't remember where I got this book, but I do remember that it was under $5. What a bargain! Dedicated by the author Addie E. Heron in 1894 to Mrs. Potter Palmer, its battle cry is: "There is no home so poor that some attempt at beautifying cannot be made." Here's a list of some of the beauties it teaches the homemaker how to craft: burnt match holders, pansy sachets, chamois tobacco pouches, Spanish foot-rests, glasseine toilet sets, water lily carafe mats, and ladies' dust caps. Did people ever really have time to make this intricate stuff? There are many more crochet than knitting patterns in here, and "doyley" instructions galore. Aren't these silk chatelaine bags gorgeous? The trick to reproducing this particular fancy work today would be in finding the closures. Hello, China? And as we see by the gentlemen's shaving paper case, owls were as popular a motif back when as they are now. What is shaving paper? Is that the stuff my husband sticks all over his face whenever he nicks himself with the razor?