Look at the little girl in the photograph who is wearing her new grass dress made of the wavy hair-grass and playing that she is a wood-nymph. She feels very proud and is greatly pleased with her pretty costume.

Almost any kind of long, slender grasses can be used for a dress of this kind, but you must gather an armful or more. It takes a good deal of material, for the fringe must be close and thick.

Divide the grass into bunches, each bunch about as thick as your thumb, and have the heads of all the grasses together at one end of the bunch, and the stem ends together at the other end.

Tie a strong string around the stem ends of one bunch. Hold this tied bunch under your left arm, stem ends to the front, and take up another bunch (Fig. 70). Bring the long end of the string across the front of the second bunch and form a loop (A, Fig. 67). Hold the loop while you pass the string around the back of the bunch (Fig. 68), then slide the end through the loop A, Fig. 69. Draw this loop-fastening very tight and it will hold. Now place the second bunch under your arm with the first bunch, and make a loop-fastening around the third bunch. Keep on adding bunches of grass in this way, always drawing the last bunch close to the one before it, and holding them all together under your arm as in the photograph (Fig. 70). In this picture the grass bunches are purposely left far apart that you may see exactly how to make the fringe.

The grass dress will be finished when you have made a strip of fringe long enough to reach around your waist, for the skirt—it needs no waist—is really only a fringe of grasses to be worn over a light summer dress.

Grass Head-Dress

The grass head-dress to be worn with the wood-nymph skirt is quite as wild-looking, but is simply a band of grasses, with bunches of the bristle-spiked cyperus grass (Fig. 71) hanging downward on each end. The band goes across over the top of the head, and the grass side ornaments fall over the ears.

Wear the grass costume and carry a light branch of green leaves in each hand when you give your next outdoor fancy dance, or take part in outdoor tableaux where you could represent either a wood-nymph or the spirit of the grasses.