Here is a pretty little feeder for baby that you will be able to make all by yourself. I expect mother will be only too pleased to help you to get the materials. You will want about half-a-yard of some soft white washing material, a small quantity of Penelope canvas, a ball of coloured “Brighteye” embroidery thread, and three-quarters of a yard of a narrow silk ribbon.

Do you see the three happy little dogs running after each other across the bottom of the feeder? These are worked in cross-stitch, also baby’s name in the centre.

If you haven’t yet done any cross-stitch, you had better first look at the little illustration on page 26, and see exactly how it is done, before commencing to cut out your feeder.

Just for practice, take a small square of canvas, and thread a crewel needle with the embroidery thread. Bring your needle up through one of the large holes in the canvas, count over two canvas threads to the right, and two upwards, put your needle in this hole, and pick up two threads towards the left. Pull your thread through, and this will give you the first part of the cross. Now put your needle in the hole two threads to the right of the hole you started from, and bring it up through the hole two threads to the left of the first hole, as shown in the second part of the little illustration.

This, as you will see, completes the first cross, and brings the thread ready to make a second one in the same way.

The lower part of the illustration shows the dog’s tail commenced, and how you should place your needle when you want to make a cross on the slant below. One thing you should be very careful about when working in cross-stitch: see that the threads are always crossed in the same direction, and not sometimes one way and sometimes another. Your work will look so much better if this rule is always followed.

When you feel quite sure you can work the crosses evenly, you can cut out the feeder. Perhaps you may like first to cut it out in paper. Take your tape measure and measure off a piece of paper 12 inches long and 11 inches wide. Fold this right down the centre, the longest way. Measure two inches down the fold and two inches up the cut edges from one end, and cut round from points A to B, as shown in the little diagram. This will give you a curve for baby’s neck. Now measure down an inch on the long outer edges, and cut from point B on the slant to this point, which we will call C.

Now that you have a paper pattern, you will be able to place this over your material and cut it from this. You will want to have two pieces exactly alike, so that you can use one to line the feeder.

We have now come to the interesting part of working the little dogs. Tack a strip of canvas along the bottom of the right side of one of the pieces you have just cut out; the dogs are nine crosses high, so the strip should be wide enough to take the design and leave a few extra threads of canvas above and below. It is best to commence with the centre dog, starting the centre cross of the design in the centre hole of the canvas, you will then be sure of getting it right in the middle. When working the other dogs, leave 16 threads of canvas between the middle one and each of these. You will then have your three little dogs at equal distances apart, and there will be no chance of their catching each other up! Canvas must be placed across the centre for the name in the same way.

From the illustrations of the dog and the letters, you will easily be able to count the crosses, and see how they are placed. If baby’s name is not May, and you want to work another name, designs for a whole alphabet appear on another page.

When you have worked all your designs, the canvas threads must be pulled away. Cut the canvas down fairly close to the embroidery, and pull out the threads one by one. Baby’s name is shown with all the threads of the ‘Y’ pulled out, and the ‘A’ as it looks when only the cross threads have been pulled away.

To make up the feeder, place the plain portion of the feeder over the embroidered one, with the right sides facing one another, and run round all the edges about a quarter of an inch in from the edge, leaving only the curved neck edges open. A running stitch, with a back-stitch put in now and then, is the best for this, as this will hold it firm. Turn the feeder out on the right side, then turn in the neck edges and oversew them together. How the oversewing stitch is made is shown in the little illustration on this page. Hold the edges to be joined together firmly in your left hand, and work from right to left, always putting your needle in slanting just as the little picture shows, and taking up about a couple of threads of the material from each of the edges you are joining together.

The piece of work in the illustration has been flattened out, in order that you may see the stitches more clearly; but when you are oversewing you will hold the two pieces together with the thumb and first finger of your left hand, oversewing the top of the two edges.

Now cut your length of ribbon in half, and sew one piece to each end of the neck of the feeder, so that it can be tied round baby’s neck when she wants to take her food.