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Discovered! 505
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How to Make
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In Harrod's, London, she had bought a fine pair of English leather gloves as a traveler's gift to her husband. They got a warm welcome from Mr. Martin. But eventually they wore out, as even the best of gloves will.

"I can't find any similar gloves here," he said finally. "Couldn't you buy the leather and make a pair for me?"

"Make gloves? I never heard of such a thing," returned his wife in surprise.

But she discovered that such a thing was not only possible, but was being done every day. She took private lessons from a teacher of occupational therapy, and produced the desired gloves. For fifteen years, she kept her husband in the fine English-leather gloves that were his pride. When he died more than a year ago, she had an interest to fill in her lonely hours.

MR. MARTIN proudly showed the first pair of gloves that his wife made for him to his fellow insurance adjustors—and in no time, Mrs. Martin was making gloves right and left at $4.50 a pair. A man of careful grooming, Mr. Martin appreciated good leather and good craftsmanship. Even during the war years, when he was an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force, Mrs. Martin's gloves went with him. He and other long-fingered officers valued them the more, since they were a better fit than those available in the stores. Mrs. Martin's hobby was written up in a Canadian women's magazine, and she was deluged with requests for further information.

From the beginning she had thought, "What a fine hobby this would be for women in small towns and on the farms! But of course, there would be the difficulty of getting instructions, and especially materials."

But the thought stayed with her. Her experience in the shopping service of a large Toronto department store had given her insight into the needs of out-of-town shoppers, and it was work she enjoyed. Why not put her theory into practice? She believed that she could give good value and good service by mail. So she gave a twist to her glove-making hobby, and turned it into a correspondence course, complete in one easy lesson.

"I got so much pleasure out of making gloves for my husband and our friends," she says, "that it seemed to me everyone would benefit by such an activity. And I wanted to do something at home—we have no children—and the hobby would be self-supporting and creative. Oh, I could be busy all the time instructing at hobby shops and handicraft centers, which would be more profitable, of course. But this way, I feel I'm doing something for people beyond the handicraft centers."

GLOVES AREN'T nearly so hard to make as most people think when they look at a pattern, or at handmade gloves. By mail Jessie Martin has taught hundreds of women how to make them. Letters from women on farms, in towns and cities from coast to coast, prove that she knows how to pass on her knowledge and enthusiasm to others. One letter from Victoria, British Columbia, read: "I've finished my first pair of gloves, and am delighted with the results. The directions are easy to follow. Now I want to make a white pair for my mother."

One nice feature about glove making is that it requires no tools beyond those in every household. Sharp scissors, needles, a pencil. That's all. Materials required are the leather and the thread. Oh, yes, you'll need a thimble! But getting the leather has always been the drawback. During wartime, leather was in short supply, and in a very limited color range. There are few tanneries in Canada which produce glove leather. But these do tan sheepskin into leathers called by the trade names "capeskin" and "pigtex."

Since the average sheepskin measures five to six feet in length and is of corresponding width, it is not practical to buy a whole skin to try to make a pair of gloves. Tanneries won't sell hides singly, and Canadian leathercraft shops are reluctant to sell less than a whole skin.

Mrs. Martin solves the problem neatly by buying the skins herself and cutting them up into sizes suitable for a pair of gloves. Her beginner's kit includes a generous piece of capeskin or pigtex (whichever you order), DMC Pearl cotton thread in matching color, three stubby needles of the kind used in glove making ("Betweens" 4-8), mimeographed instructions and a pattern cut to your specific size.

Since every word counts, it is well to read the directions a couple of times before starting, and then keep them handy. It is too easy to overlook some important phrase. For instance, a high school principal in Toronto, telephoned in to protest, "But Mrs. Martin, both gloves are for the same hand!"

"Didn't you, turn the pattern over?"

"No, of course not. It doesn't say to do that."

But it did—smack on page one, and in bold type. The teacher was fortunate in being able to get enough more material to cut the second glove correctly.

ON A rare occasion, Mrs. Martin departs from her mail order rule, and conducts a class in her charming apartment. Such was a recent group of nine English war brides. They begged for private lessons, for fear their work would not measure up to that of Canadian girls in handicraft groups.

"But you should have seen it," Mrs. Martin says. "The gloves were simply splendid. In fact, several of the girls later sold their first pair for $5. And of course, they immediately wanted to start making gloves for their husbands."

While a teacher's supervision is helpful, it is not necessary. The beginner may find it easier to work with a group so that progress can be compared, and mistakes checked at once. Church groups enjoy working together on this hobby. At Southampton, Ontario, a group of eighteen or twenty women all made, gloves at the same time. Another group of eight in Fort William did the same, and used the left-over scraps of leather to make needlecases. Both items sold like hot cakes at the church bazaar.

"And gloves solve a gift problem very neatly," Mrs. Martin adds. "Or if you can develop a market for your hobby, it is most lucrative. When you become expert, start teaching classes in church or young people's groups."

It is best to work with a well-made pair of hand-sewn gloves in front of you, handy for comparison. Jessie Martin tells students not to study cheap gloves, but the best ones on the counter in order to learn what makes a professional-looking job.

And you actually learn to look at gloves, when you start making them. You become aware of the surprising variety which can be worked out in a few bits of leather. Some gloves, usually the slip-on type, have no edging at the cuff. Some have a hem. Others are bound. Some are faced with self-material, or contrasting. There is great variety in the "points," those decorative rows on the back of the hand—long, short, curving, fancy stitching.

HOW LONG should it take the beginner to make a pair of gloves? " I inquired. By this time, I was nearly sold on the idea.

"The beginner should be able to make a pair of gloves in a day, that is, without interruptions," Mrs. Martin answered. "Some of my mail order friends write me that they make two or three pairs in a week, in addition to their housework. It makes nice pin money, since the kits are not expensive. Of course, they can always buy extra material or patterns from me—they don't have to buy the kit each time."

Although she prefers the plain, good-looking, pull-on type, Mrs. Martin can make any kind of hand-sewn glove. For a fashion show in, one of Toronto's large department stores, she made eighteen pairs—gloves which were later sold for from $5 to $8 a pair (in the days when that was real money) . Among these were long suede gloves with a tiny sequinned zipper at the wrist.

Only one pair of long gloves can be cut from a suede skin, due to its small size. But the left-overs can be used to make children's dress gloves, and scraps can go into suede flowers for a lapel. Sometimes tiny bits of leather can be used for trimming. One customer had custom-made shoes of green snakeskin, and wanted gloves to match. There were only bits left, but there were enough to make a scalloped trim on the tops of green suede gloves.

Another type of special order which Mrs. Martin is only too glad to fill is for amputees. Frequently the order is for a single glove. Sometimes for a pair—one large, one small, for a serviceman and his buddy. Occasionally the ex-soldier orders two identical gloves for the same hand, but in different materials.

I CHOSE black pigtex for my initial attempt at glove making. Following the instructions carefully, I laid my lettered and numbered pattern on the wrong side of the material, watching for any flaws or thin parts. With a sharp pencil, I traced the outline of the hand pattern, the thumb, and six outlines of the fourchette pattern. (Fourchettes are the pieces which go between the fingers.) Then I reversed the patterns, and traced once more. This is best done by daylight, incidentally. Then I cut around the outlines with a fairly heavy pair of sharp scissors.

When I saw all the pieces laid out before me, however, my heart almost failed. But I had underrated the clear and explicit directions, for the job went easily. With the directions pinned up in front of me, and a hand-sewn glove as a secondary guide, I couldn't go wrong. (Well, perhaps that is boasting—I did sew the right-hand thumb into the left-hand glove, just by being over-anxious. But it was easily corrected.)

I started with the left-hand glove, folding the back of the glove in a straight line, and stitched from "A" to "B"—the first of the three shallow tucks which are the points. This called for the regulation simple in-and-out or block stitch, which is also called the squared or jab stitch. The only thing is that the stitches must be very evenly spaced, on both sides. In the points, the stitch is fairly loose to make a nice design. But elsewhere the stitching is quite tight, to prevent gaping seams.

Then I turned to the right-hand glove, and did the three points on it. This began to feel like progress.

The thumb came next. This style thumb is called the Bolton and is considered the best-fitting type. Here it is important to watch the pattern closely, matching numbers just as when you put the sleeve into a dress. I kept studying the model glove in front of me, and found it a great help. The seams are all on the outside.

The twelve little black fourchettes seemed rather intimidating. But by sewing pairs together, the problem was only half as large. (You whip the bottoms—the only bit of internal seaming.) Each pair of fourchettes was left with a long trailing piece of thread, in order to avoid unnecessary knots inside.

The first fourchette goes alongside the index finger. A small stitch taken through glove and fourchette anchors it firmly in place. I sewed up one side of the fourchette and index finger and down the other side; then up the fourchette and palm side of the middle finger, and down again to my starting point. All the other fourchettes went in the same way, except that I had to trim the length to suit the length of the different fingers.

In doing the right band, the procedure is exactly the same. I started from the back of the glove with the sewing, stitched up and down the index finger, then up and down the one side of the middle finger. Tips of the fingers are delicate, since the fourchette must just barely touch, and the glove fingers meet with a single stitch on top.

You know the thrill when you've accomplished something you never thought you could do? I knew then that the instructions were dependable, although I won only a "Not bad," from Mrs. Martin.

PIGTEX AND capeskin are the cheapest and most durable of glove leathers. But they are not as exciting as some of the finer, more expensive leathers such as suede, chamois, doeskin or goatskin. Suede and chamois come in lovely jewel tones, but are so delicate to wash that Mrs. Martin does not feel she can recommend them.

Goatskin wears very well, though it is rather steep in price. Dogskin, a tradename for selected best-quality English sheepskin, is soft lovely leather, which is very durable. It comes in pastel shades, among others, and is good-wearing in the natural or darker tones. Capeskin, too, now comes in pale blue or pink, suitable for wedding outfits. That making your own gloves is quite a saving is obvious when comparing the cost of materials for dogskin gloves at $3.50 with the made-up price of $17.95 in a Detroit store! Deer hide, makes fine general service glove leather, if you stress that the hides are to be tanned as glove leather. Sewing deer hide requires special glover's three-sided needles.

But these are not for the beginner—they call for experience.

MRS. MARTIN has sent her kits to every part of Canada, to the British Isles, and from Connecticut to California. "And I think everyone in a Maine resort town must have been making gloves last year," she adds. Farthest away went her packets to South Africa. Never have any of the kits been returned, which must mean satisfied customers.

Mrs. Martin's contacts have come largely through word-of-mouth advertising, since often such a hobby runs like wildfire through a group. Especially vocal are those who have sold a pair of handmade gloves, and immediately set to work to make more. Hosts of letters have come through a short article or two in the columns of Canadian women's magazines. In addition, Mrs. Martin maintains extremely cordial relations with a hobby-craft shop near her home. It is the one place in Toronto where a hobbyist can buy just the right amount of leather for making a pair of gloves.

"A person eager to sell a lot of kits could make hundreds of contacts through the handicraft classes, and I know some of the teachers, myself," Mrs. Martin says. "But I prefer to keep my work as it is, rather than teach. But I do occasionally run an advertisement in farm journals. Weekly farm papers of national circulation reach the people I want to reach—those far from handicraft classes and supplies. Such an activity means more to them, even, than to city groups."

People like the dejected woman in a tiny Saskatchewan village, for instance, tug at the heart-strings. "Seeing your ad in the paper," she wrote, "I would like to do this work, but I would not have no outlet for it. I find there is no market here for anything a person can do."

Such a disheartened individual needs the creative work of a hobby quite as much as the money it can bring in. Mrs. Martin was able, in this case, to suggest some outlet for the finished goods, fortunately.