Hind and Her Little Dog

You can, Madam, make beautiful toys out of the rags and scraps of colored cloth that you keep collected in a bag set apart, giving them to your child to play with, or presenting them to your friends among the children, who will take delight in them. From your torn stockings and a few scraps of woolen and silken cloth and the like, you can make well-wrought, beautiful toys like those sold at exorbitant prices in the toy dealers' shops. To make a beautiful doll like the one in the picture, bring small pieces of your child's torn white and blue socks; a small piece of colored velvet — blue, for example — or a piece of blue and white woolen cloth; a piece of stiff paper (cardboard) from which to make the spade; small scraps of white, red, and blue cloth for the features, or wool with which to embroider them; and a small amount of cotton or fluffed wool for the stuffing and the hair.

Cut out the parts after you have first copied them onto pieces of paper. From the torn sock cut pieces for the legs, the arms, and the face; and from the cardboard, the spade and the hat. The remaining pieces come from the blue and white socks. When you have finished the cutting according to the patterns, sew the parts one to another, then stuff them well with cotton or fluffed wool, or with very fine strips of cloth scraps. Use flesh-colored thread in the sewing; the best threads are those you use in darning your stocking. Shape the fingers by sewing between them, and you should also draw a flesh-colored thread tight above the palm of the hand to represent the wrist with it. Cut two oval-shaped pieces from the white cloth and from the blue cloth for the eyes, and one oval-shaped piece from the red cloth for the mouth. Sew the eyes with black threads in the manner shown in the figure, to represent the lids and the lashes with them. Use red threads in sewing the mouth; and you should also sew two red knots in the middle of the space between the mouth and the eyes to represent the two nostrils with them. Color the cheek with a red pencil. And after crimping a small bunch of woolen strands, sew it under the hat so that it represents the hair. Sew four red knots on the chest to represent the buttons of the jacket. Then sew a piece of the blue and white ribbon around the waist to represent the belt; as for the remaining piece of ribbon, knot it around the neck as shown in the picture.

As for the scraps and materials needed for making the dog, they are: a flesh-colored sock; a piece of black socks for the leg, the mouth, and the front of the face; small pieces of satin or of tanned leather, some white and some black in color, for the eyes; a short piece of ribbon to be knotted around the neck; and a quantity of fluffed wool, or very small scraps of cloth, for the stuffing. Then cut out paper patterns based on the shapes shown in the picture, with the body made from the flesh-colored sock and the leg from the black-colored sock; and use the suitable threads in every case, as mentioned above in the description of the making of the doll Hind.