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52 FIRST SHORT DRESSES. The general rules for making infants' clothes (see Chapter 15, pages 73 and 80) apply to the first short dresses. They are very simple in construction.

DRESSES MADE WITH A CLOSING UNDER A PLAIT. This closing is often used in a plaited dress. The closing, cut under a plait and finished with laps for buttons and button-holes, is shown in Illustration 87. The slash for the opening is made under the plait a seam's width from the sewing. The laps are made double, and when attached should be a little narrower than the plait which covers them. By referring to the illustration, the method of joining the laps to the edges of the opening will be readily understood.

DRESSES MADE WITH YOKES. A yoke can be joined to a dress as shown in Illustration 88.

Cut the yoke and turn the edge under a seam's width, clipping the edge where necessary to make it lie flat. Baste the yoke over the top of the front of the dress. To the wrong side, baste a bias strip of material with its edges turned under. Place two rows of stitching across the yoke, stitching from the outside. They will catch through the bias facing that is basted underneath, and which covers the seam, making a neat finish on the inside. This finish is desirable for a dress made of any material which is not transparent, as it makes it unnecessary to line the yoke. If a lining is used, however, it is cut like the yoke pattern, and the top of the dress portion is enclosed between the turned-under edges of the yoke and its lining.

SMOCKING is a trimming much used on the better class of children's clothes here and abroad. It is used for dresses, rompers, coals and little boys' suits. It is very pretty in colors on dresses of fine white batiste, nainsook, plain lawn, handkerchief linen, cotton voile, very fine cotton crêpe and silk mull. It is also used on the heavier cotton materials in white or plain colors, on chambray, serge, broadcloth, crêpe de Chine, etc. It is very easy to do with the Butterick transfers, which not only give the design of the smocking but instructions for working it.