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ART IN NEEDLEWORK

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

ENAMELLING.

PATTERN DESIGN.

ORNAMENT AND ITS APPLICATION.

NATURE IN ORNAMENT.

Third Edition.

WINDOWS: A BOOK ABOUT STAINED
AND PAINTED GLASS.

Second Edition.

ALPHABETS OLD AND NEW.

Second Edition.

LETTERING IN ORNAMENT. •

MOOT POINTS: FRIENDLY DIS-
PUTES UPON ART AND INDUSTRY.
In conjunction with Walter Crane.

ART IN
NEEDLEWORK

A BOOK ABOUT

EMBROIDERY

LEWIS F. DAY

AUTHOR OF 'WINDOWS,' 'ALPHABETS,
'LETTERING IN ORNAMENT,' & OTHER
TEXT-BOOKS OV ORNAMENTAL DESIGN

& MARY BUCKLE

THIRD EDITION REVISED AND
ENLARGED

LONDON
B. T. BATSFORD, 94 HIGH HOLBORN

1907

Printed at THE DARIEN PRESS, Edinburgh.

PREFACE.

EMBROIDERY may be looked at from more points
of view than it would be possible in a book like
this to take up seriously. Merely to hover round
the subject and glance casually at it would serve
no useful purpose. It may be as well, therefore,
to define our standpoint : we look at the art from
its practical side, not, of course, neglecting the
artistic, for the practical use of embroidery is to
be beautiful.

The custom has been, since woman learnt to
kill time with the needle, to think of embroidery
too much as an idle accomplishment. It is more
than that. At the very least it is a handicraft :
at the best it is an art. This contention may be
to take it rather seriously ; but if one esteemed
it less it would hardly be worth writing about,
and the book, when written, would not be worth
the attention of students of embroidery, needle-
workers, and designers of needlework to whom
it is addressed. It sets forth to show what
decorative stitching is, how it is done, and what
it can do. It is illustrated by samplers of stitches ;
by diagrams, to explain the way stitches are done ;
and by examples of old and modern work, to show
the artistic application of the stitches.

A feature in the book is the series of samplers
designed to show not only what are the available

vi ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

stitches, but the groups into which they naturally
gather themselves, as well as the use to which
they may be put : and the back of the sampler
is given too : the reader has only to turn the
page to see the other side of the stitching — which
to a needlewoman is often the more helpful. Lest
that should not be enough, the stitches are de-
scribed in the text, and a marginal note shows
at a glance where the description is given. This
should be read needle and thread in hand — or
skipped. Samplers and other examples of needle-
work are uniformly on a scale large enough to
show the stitch quite plainly. The examples of
old work illustrate always, in the first place, some
point of workmanship ; still they are chosen with
some view to their artistic interest.

In other respects Art is not overlooked ; but
it is Art in harness. Design is discussed with
reference to stitch and stuff, and stitch and stuff
with reference to their use in ornament. It has
been endeavoured also to show the effect needle-
work has had upon pattern, and the ways in which
design is affected by the circumstance that it is
to be embroidered.

The joint authorship of the work needs, perhaps,
a word of explanation. This is not just a man's
book on a woman's subject. The scheme of
it is mine, and I have written it, but with the
co-operation throughout of Miss Mary Buckle.
Our classification of the stitches is the result of
many a conference between us. The description

PREFACE. vii

of the way the stitches are worked, and so forth,
is my rendering of her description, supplemented
by practical demonstration with the needle. She
has primed me with technical information, and been
always at hand to keep me from technical error.
With reference to design and art I speak for myself.

My thanks are due to the authorities at South
Kensington for allowing us to handle the treasures
of the national collection, and to photograph them
for illustration ; to Mrs Walter Crane, Miss^ Mabel
Keighley, and Miss C. P. Shrewsbury, for permis-
sion to reproduce their handiwork ; to Miss Argles,
Mrs Buxton Morrish, Colonel Green, R.E., and
Messrs Morris and Co., for the loan of work
belonging to them ; and to Miss Chart for working
the cross-stitch sampler.

I must also acknowledge the part my daughter
has had in the production of this book : without
her constant help it could never have been written.

LEWIS F. DAY.

January \st, 1900.

NOTE TO THIRD EDITION.

IN addition to revising the text, I have added a
chapter on white work, which formed part of the
original plan of the book, but was not ready in
time for the first edition. I have to thank Mr
James Jeffrey for his help in getting the samplers
of white work executed by trade workers in Belfast.
October 1907.

CONTENTS.

CHAP. PAGE

1. EMBROIDERY AND EMBROIDERY STITCHES . I

2. CANVAS STITCHES . . . . . .12

3. CREWEL-STITCH . . . . . . .26

4. CHAIN-STITCH .. \ . . . . . .38

5. HERRING-BONE-STITCH . . ]. . -47

6. BUTTONHOLE-STITCH . . . . -55

7. FEATHER AND ORIENTAL STITCHES . . .62

8. ROPE AND KNOT STITCHES . . . • 71

9. INTERLACINGS, SURFACE STITCHES, AND DIAPERS 83

10. SATIN-STITCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS . . . 91

11. DARNING . . . • .x ' - . ' . . IO6

12. LAID-WORK .- . .. . , .. . . 112

13. COUCHING . . . . . . .122

14. COUCHED GOLD ... , . . 131

15. APPLIQU£ . \"'.' . > . . . . 144

1 6. INLAY, MOSAIC, AND CUT-WORK . . . 153

17. EMBROIDERYxIN RELIEF . : . . -159

18. RAISED GOLD . '. , ., . ... . 165

19. QUILTING . . . . .' . . -171

20. STITCH GROUPS . . . <~ . ... 175

21. ONE STITCH OR MANY? . . l8o

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

CHAP.

22. OUTLINE . . • l85

23. SHADING . ' ., . .188

24. FIGURE EMBROIDERY . .198

25. THE DIRECTION OF THE STITCH . . 208

26. CHURCH WORK . . . • 2l6

27. WHITE WORK . . . . . • 225

28. A PLEA FOR SIMPLICITY .- . . 237

29. EMBROIDERY DESIGN . . • 244

30. EMBROIDERY MATERIALS . -254

31. A WORD TO THE WORKER • 262
INDEX - * • • 269

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. TAPESTRY — to illustrate work on a warp, not on a web. From

Akhmin in Upper Egypt. Ancient Coptic. (In the Victoria
and Albert Museum.)

2. DRAWN-WORK ON FINE LINEN, embroidered with gold and

colour. Oriental. (From the collection of Mrs Lewis F.
Day.)

3. DARNING AND SATIN-STITCH on square mesh — The darning on

leaf, green, following the lines of the stuff; outlined with
yellow, veined with pink and white ; stem, yellow, its
foliation pink, outlined with white, and ribbed with blue
and white. Italian. I7th century. (V. & A. Museum.)

4 CROSS-STITCH UPON LINEN. Hungarian. Compare Illus-
tration 45.

5. CROSS-STITCH SAMPLER — A and B, solid ; C, line work ;

D, stroke-stitch — called also Holbein-stitch ; E, stroke and
cross stitches combined.

6. CANVAS-STITCH in coloured silk upon linen. The band

Italian, the foliated diaper Oriental. (Mrs L. F. D.)

7. CANVAS-STITCH — Design comparatively free, but showing in

its outline the influence of the rectangular lines of the
weaving. Cretan. (Mrs L. F. D.)

8. CANVAS-STITCH SAMPLER — A, tent-stitch ; B, half-cross-

stitch ; C, cushion-stitch ; D, Moorish -stitch, so called ;

E, plait-stitch ; F, couching on canvas.

xii ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

9. CUSHION AND SATIN-STITCHES UPON CANVAS — The satin-
stitches follow the lines of the stuff, and form a diaper
built upon them. Compare Illustration 71.

10. TWO VARIETIES OF CANVAS-STITCH, the pattern in the bare
linen, the background worked — A, plait-stitch, the ornament
outlined ; B, stitches drawn tightly together so as to pull
the threads of the linen apart, giving very much the effect
of drawn-work. Compare Illustration 2. (Mrs L. F. D.)

II & 12. CREWEL-STITCH SAMPLER— A and C, crewel-stitch ; B

and D, outline-stitch ; E, back-stitch ; F, spots ; G

and H, stem-stitch ; J, crewel and outline-stitches in
combination.

13. CREWEL- WORK — The stem only worked in crewel-stitch.

Embroidered in green, blue, and brown wools upon white
cotton. Old English. (Coll. of Miss Argles. )

14. CREWEL-WORK, in which crewel-stitch hardly occurs.

Embroidered in coloured wools upon white cotton. Old
English. (Coll. of J. M. Knapp, Esq.)

15. CREWEL-STITCH IN TWISTED SILK — The scroll in green upon

a brownish-purple ground ; the smaller leafage upon the
scroll in brighter green ; the flowers and butterflies in
blue and pink. Modern. (Mrs L. F. Day.)

16. CHAIN-STITCH AND KNOTS — Part of the same piece of work

as Illustration 24. Indian. (V. & A. M.)

17 & 18. CHAIN-STITCH SAMPLER— A, chain-stitch solid and in
line ; B, magic stitch ; C, church chain ; D, cable chain ; E,
Vandyke chain ; F, Mountmellic chain ; G, Mountmellic
cable — all so called.

19. CHAIN AND SURFACE STITCHES — the latter a kind of button-
holing, only occasionally worked into the stuff. Part of a
lectern cover in white thread upon a thin, greyish white
linen stuff. German, I4th century. (V. & A. M.)

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xiii

20&2I. HERRING-BONE SAMPLER — A, B, C, varieties of herring-
bone ; D, a combination of A and C ; E, fishbone ; F, a
close variety of A ; G, tapestry stitch, so called.

22 & 23. BUTTONHOLE SAMPLER — A, B, C, ordinary buttonhole
and variations upon it ; D, two rows of buttonhole worked
slanting one into the other ; E, crossed buttonhole ; F,
tailor's buttonhole ; G, ladder (called also Cretan) stitch ;
H, herring-bone buttonhole ; J, buttonhole diaper.

24. BUTTONHOLE, CHAIN, AND KNOT STITCHES — chiefly in white
floss silk on dark purple satin, with touches of crimson at the
points from which the stitches radiate. The rings on the
outer ground are not worked, but done in the dyeing of
the satin. Part of the same piece of work as 16. Modern
Indian from Surat. (V. & A. M.)

25 & 26. FEATHER-STITCH SAMPLER— A to G, ordinary feather-
stitch and its variations ; G G, feather chain.

27 & 28. ORIENTAL-STITCH SAMPLER— A to E, Oriental-stitch and
its varieties ; F, Oriental-stitch worked into buttonhole ;
G, not properly a form of Oriental-stitch, though bearing
some resemblance to it.

29 & 30. ROPE AND KNOT-STITCH SAMPLER — A, rope-Stitch ; B,

open rope- stitch ; C, what is called German knot-stitch ; D,
open German knot-stitch ; E, Old English knot-stitch, so
called ; F, bullion-stitch ; G, French knots.

31. A TOUR-DE-FORCE IN KNOTS — Worked entirely in the one
stitch ; the drawing lines expressed by voiding. In white
and coloured silks upon a very dark blue ground. Chinese.
(Mrs L. F. D.)

32 & 33. INTERLACING-STITCH SAMPLER — A, interlaced crewel-
stitch ; B, interlaced back-stitch ; C, back-stitch twice
interlaced ; D, interlaced chain-stitch ; E, interlaced
darning ; F, interlaced herring-bone ; G, herring-bone twice
interlaced ; H, an interlaced version of C in Illustration 20 ;
J, interlaced Oriental-stitch ; K, interlaced feather-stitch.

xiv ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

34. SURFACE-STITCH SAMPLER — A, D, G, various surface stitches ;

B, surface buttonhole ; H and C, surface darning ; E,
Japanese darning, as it is called ; F, net passing ; J, surface
buttonhole over bars ; K, surface buttonhole over slanting
stitches.

35. LACE OR SURFACE-STITCH AND SATIN-STITCH, much of it

worn away. In straw-coloured floss upon pale blue
silk. Part of a dress. French. Late i8th century.
(MrsL. F. D.)

36 & 37. SATIN-STITCH SAMPLER — Worked in floss, the stitch in
various directions, to give different effects. Incidentally
it shows various ways of breaking up a surface in satin-
stitch. Compare with Illustration 38, which shows the
effect of the stitch in twisted silk.

38. SATIN-STITCH IN COARSE TWISTED SILK.

39. SATIN-STITCH IN TWISTED SILK — Outlines voided. Worked

in white and occasional red and yellow upon black satin.
Modern. Indian. (V. & A. M.)

40. SATIN-STITCH AND, on the birds' bodies, PLUMAGE-STITCH —

The ends of the stalks worked in French knots ; the veins of
the leaves in fine white cords laid on to the satin-stitch.
The outlines voided, and the voiding occasionally worked
across with stitches wide enough apart to show the ground
between. In white and bright-coloured silk floss upon a
black satin ground. Chinese. (Mrs L. F. D.)

41 & 42. SAMPLER — Showing offshoots from satin and crewel
stitches, and incidentally illustrating various ways of shading.
A, crewel-stitch ; B, plumage-stitch, worked in the hand ;

C, split-stitch ; D, plumage-stitch, worked in the frame.

43. DARNING SAMPLER— Except in the background the stitches
follow the lines of the drawing, regardless of the weaving
of the stuff. The customary outlining of the pattern is
here omitted, to show how far it may, or may not, be
needful.

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xv

44. DARNING — DESIGNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS. Ill delicate

colours upon a sea-green ground, outlined with black and
white. Part of the border of a table-cloth, the property
of Messrs Morris & Co.

45. FLAT DARNING — Solid and open, following the lines of a

square mesh, and stepping in tune with it; the outline
voided; all in white thread. Old German. (Gewerbs
Museum, Munich.)

46. LAID-WORK SAMPLER, showing various ways (spilt-stitch and

couching) in which the sewing down may be done, and
the various directions it may take — vertical, horizontal,
following the ornamental forms, or crossing them.

47. LAID-WORK — The couching crosses the flower forms in

straight lines ; and in the eye of the flower where the
threads cross, the two are sewn down at a single stitch.
The spiral stems a sort of laid cord. Flower in blue, sewn
with blue and outlined with gold; leaves, a bright fresh
green stitched with olive. Japanese. (V. & A. M.)

48. LAID-WORK. The sewing down of the leaves crosses them in

curved lines which suggest roundness. The stem in gold
basket pattern. Part of a coverlet. Worked upon a cedar-
coloured ground chiefly in dark blue 'and white, the blue
couched with white, the white and other colours couched
with red. Indo-Portuguese. I7th century. (V. & A. M.)

49. LAID-WORK AND SOME SURFACE-STITCH. The Stitching which

sews down the floss takes the direction of the scroll,
&c., and gives drawing. The surface work in the stems
is done upon a ladder of stitches across. Part of a chalice
veil. Italian. Early i;th century. (V. & A. M.)

50. LAID-WORK SAMPLER — The straight lines of laid floss varied in

colour to suggest shading. The stalk padded, and the
pattern made by the stitching upon it thereby emphasised.

xvi ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

51. BULLION AND COUCHED CORD— A, the somewhat loose design

of the border in bullion shows rather plainly the way it is
done. B, the solid discs of spiral cord are unusual, but most
characteristic of the method of couching. The stitches sewing
down the cord are not apparent. Oriental. (Mrs L. F. D.)

52. SAMPLER OF COUCHED SILK- The broad central band and

the narrow beaded lines are in floss, and show the effect
of sewing it more or less tightly down. The two inter-
mediate bands are in cord couched with threads in the
direction of its twist, not very easily distinguishable unless
by contrast of colour.

53. COUCHING IN LOOPED THREADS— The effect is not unlike

that of chain-stitch or fine knotting. Rather over actual
size. Worked in bright colours upon a pale green crepe
ground. Chinese. (Mrs L. F. D.)

54. REVERSE COUCHING — Showing on the face of it no sign of

couching. (After the manner of the Syon Cope.)

55. BACK OF REVERSE COUCHING — Showing the parallel lines

of couched linen thread which sew down the silk upon
the surface (Illustration 54). The zigzag pattern of the
stitching might equally well have taken other lines.

56. COUCHED GOLD SAMPLER — A, B, C, D, flat work ; E, part

flat, part raised; F, G, H, J, basket and other patterns
raised over cords.

57. COUCHING IN VARIOUS DIAPER PATTERNS, outlined in part

with "PLATE." Silver on pale pink silk. (Coll. of Mrs
T. Buxton Morrish.)

58. GOLD COUCHING IN OPEN THREADS — A, the lines of gold

which form a scale pattern on the dragon's body, are wide
enough apart to let the red ground grin through. Else-
where the couching, contrary to mediaeval practice, follows
the shapes, line within line until they are occupied. The
floss embroidery, in white and colours, is in surface satin-
stitch. Chinese. B, the open lines of gold look somehow
richer than if the metal had been worked solid upon the
crimson ground. Old Venetian. (Mrs L. F. D.)

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xvii

59. COUCHED OUTLINE WORK ; only an occasional detail worked

solid; suggests damascening. The border is in gold, the
filling in silver, thread on a greyish-green velvet. Part
of an Italian housing or saddlecloth. i6th century.
(V. & A. M.)

60. APPLIQUE— Satin upon velvet, outlined with two threads of

gold couching.

61. APPLIQUE PANEL — Designed and executed by Miss Mabel

Keighley, illustrating a poem by William Morris. (The
property of the artist.)

62. A. COUNTER-CHANGE PATTERN, INLAY OR APPLIQUE— Yellow

satin and crimson velvet. The outline, which is in gold,
falls chiefly upon the yellow, so as not to disturb the exact
balance of light and dark, which it is essential to preserve
in counter-change. Part of a stole. Spanish. i6th century.
(V. & A. M.)

B. APPLIQUE, of deep crimson velvet upon white satin,
outlined with paler red cord. The outlines, meeting
together, form a stem of double cord. Italian. I7th
century. (V. & A. M.)

63. APPLIQUE, with couched outline, and stitching upon the

applique band or ribbon. The dots in the centre of the
grapes are French knots. The pattern is in satin of
various colours, upon a figured green silk damask, out-
lined 'with yellow silk sewn down with yellow. Italiap.
(V. &. A. M.)

64. INLAY IN COLOURED CLOTHS, outlined with chain stitch.

Magic stitch also occurs. A characteristic example of the
kind of work done at Retsht, in Persia. (Mrs L. F. D.)

65. CUT-WORK IN LINEN — A fret of this kind was often outlined

with coloured silk, and the detail within the fretted outline
further embroidered in coloured silk. (Coll. of Mrs Drake.)

xviii ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

66. SAMPLER OF RAISED WORK, showing underlays : A, of cloth ;

B, of twisted cords ; C, of parchment ; D, of cotton wool ;
E, first of cotton cord and then of cotton thread ; F, of
cord; G, of string; H, of sewing.

67. RAISED WORK, showing underlay of linen, and the way it is

sewn down— The work is in flax thread, red, yellow, and
white, upon a blue linen ground. The stem is dotted with
white beads, the ground with gold spangles. Part of an
altar frontal. German. 1 5th century. (V. & A. M.)

68. RAISED GOLD BASKET PATTERNS, &c., upon white satin. The

stalk in flat wire. Spanish. i;th century. (Mrs L. F. D.)

69. QUILT, WORKED IN CHAIN-STITCH from the back — which has

precisely the effect of back-stitch. Yellow silk upon white
linen. Old English. (V. & A. M.)

70. RAISED QUILTING, in black silk upon pale sea-green satin.

Part of the border of a prayer cushion. Old Persian.
(MrsL. F. D.)

71. DIAPER OF SATIN-STITCH IN THE MAKING — Something between

canvas-stitch and satin-stitch. The leafage is in tent-
stitch. Compare with Illustration 9. (V. & A. M. )

72. STITCHES IN COMBINATION — Among them Oriental, ladder,

buttonhole, chain, crewel, satin, and herring-bone stitches,
worked in dark blue silk upon unbleached linen. Old
Cretan, so called. (Mrs L. F. D.)

73. FINE NEEDLEWORK UPON CAMBRIC — The substance of which is

apparent upon the upper edge of the work. In the ground-
work of the pattern generally the threads are drawn
together to form an open net. The stitches occurring in
the collar of which this is part are, buttonhole, satin, chain,
herring-bone, cross, and back stitches. The outline is
mostly in fine cross-stitch. Nothing could exceed the
delicacy of the workmanship, which is in its kind perfect.
Old English. (Coll. of Col. Green, R.E.)

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xix

74. PART OF A DESIGN BY WALTER CRANE, cunningly adapted to

execution in needlework. Shows the direction of the
stitch, and the part it can be made to play in expressing
form. Worked in coloured silks upon linen' by Mrs
Walter Crane, whose property the work is.

75. SHADING IN CHAIN-STITCH in silk and chenille upon a satin

ground. The shading very deliberately schemed by the
designer. In natural colours upon white. French. Louis
Seize. (V. &A. M.)

76. SHADING IN SHORT STITCHES ; picturesque to the point of a

touch of white in the glistening yellow of the dove's eye.
Chenille, in chain-stitch, is used for the wreath and in
the leaves of the flower sprigs. These are in colours, the
birds are in silvery greys, all on a white satin ground.
French. Louis Seize. (V. & A. M. )

77. SHADING IN LONG-AND-SHORT AND SPLIT STITCHES, with more

regard to expression of form than to neatness of execution.
German. i6th century. (V. & A. M.)

78. CHAIN-STITCH, showing in the figures of the little men how

much a draughtsman can express in a few stitches. Full size.
Chinese. (Mrs L. F. D.)

79. FIGURE WORK — The flesh in straight, upright stitches,

the drapery laid and couched. English. I5th century.
(V. & A. M.)

80. CONSUMMATE FIGURE EMBROIDERY — Canvas ground entirely

covered. Flesh in coloured silks, short-stitch ; drapery in
coloured silks over gold, which only gleams through in
the high lights. Architecture closely couched gold. Part
ofanorphrey. Florentine. 1 6th century. (V. & A. M.)

81. CHINESE FIGURES — The flesh in short satin-stitches, the rest

in chain-stitch ; chiefly in blue and white upon a figured
white silk ground. About actual size. (Mrs L. F. D.)

xx ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

82. SATIN-STITCH, showing the influence of its direction upon

the tone of colour. The pattern is all in one shade of
yellow-brown floss upon white linen. The outline steps
with the weaving, and shows the connection between satin
and canvas stitches. Italian. I7th century. (V. & A. M.)

83. MEANINGLESS DIRECTION OF STITCH — Satin and herring-

bone stitches. From an altar-cloth. German. I7th
century. (V. & A. M.)

84. MORE EXPRESSIVE LINES OF STITCHING — To compare with

Illustration 83.

85. SATIN AND PLUMAGE STITCHES chiefly, the bird's crest in

French knots, the clouds about him in knotted braid.
The direction of the stitch is most artfully chosen, and
the precision of the work is faultless. The satin ground
is of -brilliant orange -red ; the crane, white, with black tail
feathers, scarlet crest, and yellow beak and legs ; the clouds,
black and white and blue. Japanese. (Mrs L. F. D.)

86. RENAISSANCE CHURCH WORK IN GOLD AND SILVER, partly

flat, partly in relief, upon pale blue satin, with touches of
pink and crimson silk to give emphasis. Spanish. i8th
century. Compare the stem with Illustration 66, B.
(V. & A. M.)

87. GOTHIC CHURCH WORK— The flesh, &c., in split-stitch; the

vine-leaves green, getting yellower as it nears the crimson
silk ground. Part of a cope embroidered with a repre-
sentation of the Tree of Jesse. English. Ca. 1340.
(V. & A. M.)

88. MODERN CHURCH WORK ON LINEN, in long-and -short stitch.

Veins padded with embroidery cotton and worked over
with two threads of filo-floss, a green and a blue ; the
rest of the leaves worked in one shade of stout floss. All
this applied to velvet with a couching of brown filoselle,
and the tendrils added. Designed and executed by Miss
C. P. Shrewsbury. (The property of the artist. )

DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xxi

89. APPLIQUE SPRIG, with subsidiary lines of gold embroidery

upon the velvet to disguise the application. From a late
Gothic altar frontal.

90. WHITE WORK on fine linen — Chiefly in satin-stitch and seeding.

Designed by James Jeffrey, and worked (like the other
illustrations to this chapter) by trade workers for the
Irish factories.

91. WHITE WORK on linen, in satin-stitch, seeding, and matting.

The vase shape outlined with sparring or spoke-stitch.

92. DETAILS— Designed to be worked chiefly in short satin-stitches ;

some matting in the leaves ; the berries formed by eyelets.

93. WHITE WORK — Leaves and outlines in satin-stitch, heart shapes

filled with seeding and matting.

94. WHITE WORK — In satin-stitch with applique of rectangular

pieces of cambric, seeding and eyelets in the sprigs.

95. WHITE WORK — Satin-stitch and drawn- work, the centre

applique.

96. BUTTERFLY — In satin-stitch, seeding, and sparring (which

follows the lines of the wings and body). Eyelets for the eyes.

97. SIMPLE STITCHING ON LINEN, the broader bands in a canvas-

stitch in yellow, the finer lines in back-stitch in pale grey
silk. Italian. (Mrs L. F. D.)

98. SIMPLE COUCHED OUTLINE WORK, in purplish silk cord upon

linen. Part of an altar-cloth. Italian. i6th century.
(V. & A. M.)

99. RENAISSANCE ORNAMENT— Most gracefully designed arabesque.

The raised outline (couched) has somewhat the effect of
cloisons, the satin-stitch (in colours) of brilliant enamel.
It is upon a white satin ground. The foreshortened face
in the picture is painted upon satin. Italian. Ca. 1700.
(V. & A. M.)

xxii ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

100. APPLIQUE DESIGN, in yellow satin upon crimson velvet-

Double outline ; next the red, white, sewn with pale blue ;
next the yellow, gold. Midrib of the leaf couched silver.
Spanish, i6th century. (V. & A. M.)

101. SATIN-STITCH — Except that the heart-shaped features at the

base and the lily-shaped flowers, of which only the tips
are shown, are outlined with fine white cord. Part of a
fan, worked by Miss Buckle, from a design by L. F. D.
(The property of the worker.)

102. LEATHER APPLIQUE UPON VELVET — The stitching well within

the edge of the leather.

ART IN NEEDLEWORK

EMBROIDERY AND STITCHING.

Embroidery begins with the needle, and the
needle (thorn, fish-bone, or whatever it may have
been) came into use so soon as ever savages had
the wit to sew skins and things together to keep
themselves warm — modesty, we may take it, was
an afterthought — and if the stitches made any sort
of pattern, as coarse stitching naturally would,
that was embroidery.

The term is often vaguely used to denote all
kinds of ornamental needlework, and some with
which the needle has nothing to do. That is
misleading ; though it is true that embroidery
does touch, on the one side, tapestry ', which may be
described as a kind of embroidery with the shuttle,
and, on the other, lace, which is needlework pure
and simple, construction "in the air" as the Italian
name has it.

The term is used in common parlance to express
any kind of superficial or superfluous ornamen-
tation. A poet is said to embroider the truth;

2 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

But such metaphorical use of the word hints
at the real nature of the work — embellishment,
enrichment, added. If added, there must first of
all be something it is added to — the material, that
is to say, on which the needlework is done. In
weaving (even tapestry weaving) the pattern is
got by the inter-threading of warp and weft. In
lace, too, it is got out of the threads which make
the stuff. In embroidery it is got by threads
worked on a fabric first of all woven on the loom,
or, it might be, netted.

There is inevitably a certain amount of over-
lapping of the crafts. For instance, take a form
of embroidery common in all countries, Eastern,
Hungarian, or nearer home, in which certain
of the weft threads of the linen are drawn out,
and the needlework is executed upon the warp
threads thus revealed. This is, strictly speaking,
a sort of tapestry with the needle, just as, it was
explained, tapestry itself may be described as a sort
of embroidery with the shuttle. That will be clearly
seen by reference to Illustration I, which shows
a fragment of ancient tapestry found in a Coptic
tomb in Upper Egypt. In the lower portion of it
the pattern appears light on dark. As a matter of
fact, it was wrought in white and red upon a linen
warp ; but, as it happened, only the white threads
were of linen, like the warp, the red were woollen,
and in the course of fifteen hundred years or so
much of this red wool has perished, leaving the

I. TAPESTRY, SHOWING WARP.

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

white pattern intact on the warp, the threads of
which are laid bare in the upper part of the
illustration.

It is on just such upright lines of warp that all
tapestry, properly so called, is worked — whether
with the shuttle or with the needle makes no
matter — and there is good reason, therefore, for
the name of " tapestry stitch " to describe needle-
work upon the warp threads only of a material
(usually linen) from which some of the weft
threads have been withdrawn.

The only differ-
ence between true
tapestry and drawn
work, an example
of which is here
given, is, that the
one is done on a
warp that has not
before been woven
upon, and the other
on a warp from
which the weft
threads have been

drawn. The distinction, therefore, between
tapestry and embroidery is, that, worked on a
warp, as in Illustration I, it is tapestry; worked
on a mesh, as in Illustration 3, it is embroidery.

With regard, again, to lace. That is itself a
web, independent of any groundwork or foundation

2. DRAWN WORK.

STITCHING ON A SQUARE MESH.

6 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

to support it. But it is possible to work it over
a silken or other surface ; and there is a kind of
embroidery which only floats on the surface of the
material without penetrating it. A fragment of
eighteenth-century silk given in Illustration 35
shows plainly what is meant.

Embroidery is enrichment by means of the
needle. To embroider is to work on something :
a groundwork is presupposed. And we usually
understand by embroidery, needlework in thread
(it may be wool, cotton, linen, silk, gold, no matter
what) upon a textile material of some kind. In
short, it is the decoration of a material woven
in thread by means still of thread. It is thus the
consistent way of ornamenting stuff — most con-
sistent of all when one kind of thread is employed
throughout, as in the case of linen upon linen, silk
upon silk. The enrichment may, however, rightly
be, and oftenest is, perhaps, in a material nobler
than the stuff enriched, in silk upon linen, in wool
upon cotton, in gold upon velvet. The advisability
of working upon a precious stuff in thread less
precious is open to question. It does not seem to
have been satisfactorily done ; but if it were only
the background that was worked, and the pattern
were so schemed as almost to cover it, so that, in
fact, very little of the more beautiful texture was
sacrificed, and you had still a sumptuous pattern
on a less attractive background — why not? But
then it would be because you wanted that less

EMBROIDERY AND STITCHING. 7

precious texture there. The excuse of economy
would scarcely hold good.

In the case of a material in itself unsightly, the
one course is to cover it entirely with stitching,
as did the Persian and other untireable people of
the East. But not they only. In the Middle Ages
Western embroiderers were hardly less industrious.
The famous Syon cope is worked all over. Much
of the work so done competes in effect with
tapestry or other weaving ; and its purpose was
similar : it is a sort of amateur way of working
your own stuff. But in character it is no more
nearly related to the work of the loom than other
needlework — it is still work upon a stuff. For
all-over embroidery one would naturally choose a
coarse canvas ground to work on ; and it more
often happens that one chooses canvas because it
is proposed to cover it, than that one works all
over a ground because it is unpresentable.

Embroidery is merely an affair of stitching ; and
the first thing needful alike to the worker in it and
the designer for it, is a thorough acquaintance with
the stitches ; not, of course, with every modifica-
tion of a modification of a stitch which individual
ingenuity may have devised — it would need the
space of an encyclopaedia to chronicle them all—
but with the broadly marked varieties of stitch
which have been employed to best purpose in
ornament.

They are derived, naturally, from the stitches

8 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

first used for quite practical and prosaic purposes
— button-hole stitch, for example, to keep the
edges of the stuff from fraying ; herring-bone, to
strengthen and disguise a seam ; darning, to make
good a worn surface ; and so on.

The difficulty of discussing them is greatly
increased by the haphazard way in which they
are commonly named. A stitch is called Greek,
Spanish, Mexican, or what not, according to the
country whence came the work in which some one
first found it. Each names it after his or her
individual discovery, or calls it, perhaps, vaguely
Oriental ; and so we have any number of names for
the same stitch, names which to different people
stand often for quite different stitches.

When this confusion is complicated by the
invention of a new name for every conceivable
combination of thread-strokes, or for each slightest
variation upon an old stitch, and even for a stitch
worked from left to right instead of from right
to left, or for a stitch worked rather longer than
usual, the task of reducing them to order seems
almost hopeless.

Nor do the quasi-learned descriptions of old
stitches help us much. One reads about opus this
and opus that, until one begins to wonder where,
amidst all this parade of science, art comes in.
But you have not far to go in the study of the
authorities to discover that, though they may
concur in using certain high-sounding Latin terms,

EMBROIDERY AND STITCHING. 9

they are not of the same mind as to their meaning.
In one thing they all agree, foreign writers as well
as English, and that is, as to the difficulty of iden-
tifying the stitch referred to by ancient writers,
themselves probably not acquainted with the tech-
nique of stitching, and as likely as not to call it
by a wrong name. It is easier, for example, to
talk of Opus Anglicanum than to say precisely
what it was, further than that it described work
done in England ; and for that we have the simple
and sufficient word — English. There is nothing
to show that mediaeval English work contained
stitches not used elsewhere. The stitches probably
all come from the East.

Nomenclature, then, is a snare. Why not
drop titles, and call stitches by the plainest and
least mistakable names? It will be seen, if we
reduce them to their native simplicity, that they
fall into fairly marked groups, or families, which
can be discussed each under its own head.

Stitches may be grouped in all manner of
arbitrary ways — according to their provenance,
according to their effect, according to their use,
and so on. The most natural way of grouping
them is according to their structure ; not with
regard to whence they came, or what they do,
but according to what they are, the way they
are worked. This, at all events, is no arbitrary
classification, and this is the plan it is proposed
here to adopt.

io ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

The use of such classification hardly needs
pointing out.

A survey of the stitches is the necessary pre-
liminary, either to the design or to the execution
of needlework. How else suit the design to the
stitch, the stitch to the design? In order to do
the one the artist must be quite at home among the
stitches ; in order to do the other the embroidress
must have sympathy enough with a design to
choose the stitch or stitches which will best render
it. An artist who thinks the working out of his
sketch none of his business is no practical designer ;
the worker who thinks design a thing apart from
her is only a worker.

This is not the moment to urge upon the needle-
woman the study of design, but to urge upon the
designer the study of stitches. Nothing is more
impractical than to make a design without realis-
ing the labour involved in its execution. Any
one not in sympathy with stitching may possibly
design a beautiful piece of needlework, but no one
will get the utmost that is to be got out of the
needle without knowing all about it. One must
understand the ways in which work can be done
in order to determine the way it shall in any
particular case be done.

Certain stitches answer certain purposes, and
strictly only those. The designer must know
which stitch answers which purpose, or he will in
the first place waste the labour of the embroidress,

EMBROIDERY AND STITCHING. 11

and in the second miss his effect — which is to waste
his own pains too. The effective worker (designer
or embroiderer) is the one who works with judg-
ment. And you cannot judge unless you know.
When it is remembered that the character of
needlework, and by rights also the character of its
design, depends upon the stitch, there will be no
occasion to insist further upon the necessity of a
comprehensive survey of the stitches.

A stitch may be defined as the thread left on
the surface of the cloth or what not, after each ply
of the needle.

And the simple straightforward stitches of this
kind are not so many as one might suppose. They
may be reduced indeed to a comparatively few
types, as will be seen in the following chapters.

CANVAS STITCHES.

The simplest, as it is most likely the earliest
used, stitch-group is what might best be called
CANVAS stitch — of which cross-stitch is perhaps
the most familiar type, the class of stitches which
come of following, as it is only natural to do, the
mesh of a coarse linen, net, or open web upon
which the work is done.

A stitch bears always by rights some relation
to the material on which it is worked ; but canvas
or very coarse linen almost compels a stitch based
upon the cross lines of its woof. At all events it
suggests designs of typically rigid construction,
which we find in embroidery no matter where it was
done. In ancient Byzantine or Coptic work, in
modern Cretan work, and in peasant embroidery all
the world over, pattern work on coarse linen has run
persistently into angular lines — in which, because of
that very angularity, the plain outcome of a way of
working, we find artistic character. Artistic design
is always expressive of the mode of workmanship.

Work of this kind is not too lightly to be
dismissed. There is art in the rendering of form
by means of angular outlines, art in the choice of

CANVAS STITCHES. 13

forms which can be expressed by such lines. It is
not uncharitable to surmise that one reason why
such work (once so universal and now quite out of
fashion) is not popular with needlewomen may be,
the demand it makes upon the designer's draughts-
manship : it is much easier, for example, to draw
a stag than to render the creature satisfactorily
within jagged lines determined by a linen mesh.

4. CROSS-STITCH. •

The piquancy about natural or other forms thus
reduced to angularity argues, of course, no affecta-
tion of quaintness on the part of the worker, but
was the unavoidable outcome of her way of work.
There is a pronounced and early limit to art of
this rather na'ive kind, but that there is art in some
of the very simplest and most modest peasant
work built up on those lines no artist will deny.
The art in it is usually in proportion to its modesty.
Nothing is more futile than to put it to anything

1.4 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

like pictorial purpose. The wonderfully wrought
pictures in tent-stitch, for example, bequeathed to
us by the seventeenth century, are painful object-
lessons in what not to do.

The origin of the term cross-stitch is not far to
seek : the stitches worked upon the square mesh
do cross. But, falling naturally into the lines of
the mesh which governs them, they present not so
much the appearance of crosses as of squares,
reminding one of the tesserae employed in mosaic.
TO WORK To explain the process of working cross-stitch
CROSS- would be teaching one's grandmother indeed. It
is simply, as its name implies, crossing one stitch
by another, following always the lines of the
canvas. But the important thing about it is that
the stitches must cross always in the same way ;
and, more than that, they must be worked in the
same direction, or the mere fact that the stitches at
the back of the work do not run in the same way
will disturb the evenness of the surface. What
looks like a seam on the sampler opposite is the
result of filling up a gap in the ground with stitches
necessarily worked in vertical, whereas the ground
generally is in horizontal, lines. On the face of
the work the stitches cross all in the same way.

The common use of cross-stitch and the some-
what geometric kind of pattern to which it lends
itself are shown in the sampler, Illustration 5.

The broad and simple leafage, worked solid (A)
or left in the plain canvas upon a groundwork of

5- CROSS-STITCH SAMPLER.

16 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

solid stitching (B), and the fretted diaper on vertical
and horizontal lines (C), show the most straight-
forward ways of using it.

The criss-cross of alternating cross-stitches and
open canvas framed by the key pattern (C) shows
a means of getting something like a tint half-way
between solid work and plain ground. The mere
line work — or " stroke-stitch," not crossed (D), is a
perfectly fair way of getting a delicate effect ; but
design in that stitch has a way of working out rather
less happily than it promised.

The addition of such stroke-stitching to solid
cross-stitch (E) is not at best a very happy device.
It seems rather like a confession of dissatisfaction
on the part of the worker with the simple means of
her choice. As a device for, as it were, correcting
the stepped outline it is at its worst. Timid
workers are always afraid of the stepped outline
which a coarse mesh gives. In that they are
wrong. One should employ canvas stitch only
where there is no objection to a line which keeps
step with the canvas ; there is then a positive
charm (for frank people at least) in the frank
confession of the way the work is done.

There are many degrees in the frankness with
which this convention has been accepted, accord-
ing perhaps to the coarseness of the canvas
ground, perhaps to the personality of the worker.
The animal forms at the top of Illustration 6 are
uncompromisingly square ; the floral devices on

6. CANVAS-STITCH.

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

the same page, though they fall, as it were inevit-
ably, into square lines, are less rigidly formal. The
inevitableness of the square line is apparent in
the sprig below (7). It was evidently meant to be
freely"drawn, but the influence of the mesh betrays

itself ; and the
design, if it loses
something in
grace, gains
also thereby
in character.

There is liter-
^ ally no end to
the variety of
stitches, as
they are called,
belonging to
this group, and
their names are
a babel of confu-
sion. Floren-
tine, Parisian,
Hungarian, Spanish, Moorish, Cashmere, Milanese,
Gobelin, are only a few of them ; but they stand,
as a rule, rather for stitch arrangements than for
stitches. A small selection of them is given in
Illustration 8.

TENT- What is known as tent-stitch (A in the sampler
STITCH opposite) is a sort of half cross-stitch ; its pecu-
liarity is that it covers only one thread of the

7. CANVAS STITCH.

CANVAS-STITCH SAMPLER.

20 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

canvas at a stroke, and is therefore on a more
minute scale than stitches which are two or three
threads of the canvas wide, as cross-stitch may, and
cushion-stitch must, be. It derives its name from
the old word tenture, or tenter (tendere, to stretch),
the frame on which the embroidress distended
her canvas. The word has gone out of use, but

9. CUSHION AND SATIN STITCHES.

we still speak of tenter-hooks. The stitch is service-
able enough in its way, but is discredited by the
monstrous abuse of it referred to already. A picture
in tent-stitch is even more foolish than a picture
in mosaic. It cannot come anywhere near to
pictorial effect ; the tesserae will pronounce them-
selves, and spoil it.

This kind of half cross-stitch worked on the
larger scale of ordinary cross-stitch would look

CANVAS STITCHES. 21

meagre. It is filled out, therefore (B), by hori- CROSS-
zontal lines of the thread laid across the canvas, STITCH

and over these the stitch is worked.

Cushion - stitch consists of diagonal series of CUSHION-
upright stitches, measuring in the sampler (C) STITCH
six threads of the canvas, so that after each
stitch the needle may be brought out just three
threads lower than where it was put in. By
working in zigzag instead of diagonal lines, a
familiar pattern is produced, more often described
as " Florentine " ; but the stitch is in any case the
same.

The stitch at D (sometimes called Moorish CANVAS-
stitch) is begun by working a row of short vertical STITCH
stitches, slightly apart, and completed by diagonal
stitches joining them.

Unless the silk employed is full and soft, this
may not completely cover the canvas, in which
case the diagonal stitches must further be crossed
as shown on Illustration 89.

If the linen is loosely woven, and the thread is
tightly drawn in the working, the mesh will be
pulled apart, giving the effect of an open lattice
of the kind shown at B, on Illustration 10, in
which the effect is something like drawn work ;
but here the threads of the linen are not drawn
out but drawn together.

The way of working the stitch at E is described CANVAS-
on page 51, under the name of "fish-bone." TIT(jJI
Worked on canvas it has somewhat the effect of

22 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

plaiting, and goes by the name of "plait-stitch."
It is worked in horizontal rows alternately from
left to right and from right to left.

CANVAS- The stitch at F is a sort of couching (see
page 124). Diagonal lines of thread are first laid
from edge to edge of the ground space, and these
are sewn down by short overcasting stitches in
the cross direction.

Admirable canvas-stitch work has been done
upon linen in silk of one colour — red, green, or
blue — and it was a common practice to work
the background leaving the pattern in the bare
stuff. It prevailed in countries lying far apart,
though probably not without inter-communication.
In fact, the influence of Oriental work upon
European has been so great that even experts
hesitate sometimes to say whether a particular
piece of work is Turkish or Italian. In Italian
work, at least, it was usual to get over the angu-
larity of silhouette inherent in canvas stitches by
working an outline separately. When that is thin,
the effect is proportionately feeble. The broader
outline (shown at A, Illustration 10) justifies itself;
and in the case of a stitch which falls into
horizontal lines it appears to be necessary. This
is plait-stitch, known also by the name of Spanish
stitch — not that it is in any way peculiar to Spain.
It is allied to herring-bone stitch, to which a special
chapter is devoted.

Darning is also employed as a canvas stitch.

10. PLAIT AND OPEN CANVAS STITCHES.

24 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

There is beautiful sixteenth-century Italian work (in
coloured silks on dark net of the very open square
mesh of the period), which is most effective, and
makes no pretence of disguising the stepped out-
line. In the very early days of Christian art in
Egypt and Byzantium, linen was darned in little
square tufts of wool upstanding on its surface,
which look so much like the tesserae of mosaic as
to suggest a doubt whether it was not worked in
deliberate imitation of it.

Again, in the fifteenth century satin-stitch was
worked on fine linen with strict regard to the
lines of its web ; and the Persians, ancient and
modern, embroider white silk upon linen, also in
satin-stitch, preserving piously the rectangular and
diagonal lines given by the material. They have
their reward in producing most characteristic needle-
work. The diapered ground in Illustration 9 (page
20) is satin-stitch upon coarse linen.

The filling-in patterns used to such delicate and
dainty purpose in the marvellous work on fine
cambric (Illustration 73) which competes in effect
with lace, though it is strictly embroidery, all
follow in their design the lines of the fabric, and
are worked thread by thread according to its woof:
they afford again instances of perfect adaptation
of stitch to material and of design to stitch.

Satin and other stitches were worked by the
old Italians (Illustration 3) on square- meshed
canvas, frankly on the square lines given by it,

CANVAS STITCHES. 25

for the filling in of ornamental details, though the
outline might be much less formal. That is to
say, the surface of freely drawn leaves, &c., instead
of being worked solid, was diapered over with
more or less open pattern work constructed on
the lines of the weaving.

A cunning use of the square mesh of canvas
has sometimes been made to guide the worker
upon other fabrics, such as velvet. This was first
faced with net : the design was then worked, over
that, on to and into the velvet, and the threads of
the canvas were then drawn out. That is a device
which may serve on occasion. The design may
even be traced upon the net.

CREWEL-STITCH.

TO WORK

For work in the hand, CREWEL-STITCH is
perhaps, on the whole, the easiest and most
useful of stitches ; whence it comes that people
sometimes vaguely call all embroidery crewel

work ; though,
as a matter of
fact, the stitch
properly so
called was never
very commonly
employed, even
when the work
was done in
"crewel," the
double thread
of twisted wool
from which it
takes its name.

CREWEL-STITCH proper is shown at A on the
sampler opposite, where it is used for line work.
It is worked as follows : — Having made a start in
the usual way, keep your thread downwards under
your left thumb and below your needle — that is,

THE WORKING OF A ON CREWEL-
STITCH SAMPLER.

II. CREWEL-STITCH SAMPLER.

12. CREWEL-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).

CREWEL-STITCH.

to the right ; then take up with the needle, say
|th of an inch of the stuff, and bring it out through
the hole made in starting the stitch, taking care
not to pierce the thread. This gives the first half
stitch. If you proceed in the same way your next
stitch will be full length. The test of good work-
manship is that at the back it should look like
back-stitch (Illustration 12), described on page 30.

OUTLINE-STITCH (B on sampler) differs from
crewel-stitch only
in that the thread
is always kept up-
wards above the
needle, that is to
the left. In the
doing it one is
very apt to un-
twist the thread,
and it wants con-
stantly re -twist-
ing. The stitch is
useful for working single lines and for outlining
solid work. The muddled effect of much crewel
work is due to the confusion of this stitch with
crewel-stitch proper.

THICK CREWEL- STITCH (C on sampler) is
only a little wider than ordinary crewel-stitch, but
it gives a heavier line, in higher relief. In effect
it resembles rope-stitch, but it is more simply
worked. You begin as in ordinary crewel-stitch,

THE WORKING OF 'B ON CREWEL-
STITCH SAMPLER.

TO WORK

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

TO WORK
D.

TO WORK
E.

TO WORK

THE WORKING OF G ON CREWEL-STITCH
SAMPLER.

but after the first half-stitch you take up Jth of
an inch of the material in advance of the last
stitch, and bring out your needle at the point
where the first half-stitch began. You proceed,

always put-
ting your
needle in Jth
of an inch in
front of, and
bringing it
out Jth of an
inch behind,
the last stitch, so as to have always Jth of an inch
of the stuff on your needle.

THICK OUTLINE-STITCH (D on sampler) is
like thick crewel-stitch with the exception that,
as in ordinary outline-stitch (B), you keep your
thread always above the needle to the left.

In BACK-STITCH (E), instead of first bringing
the needle out at the point where the embroidery
is to begin, you bring it out Jth of an inch in
advance of it. Then, putting your needle back,
you take up this |th together with another ^th in
advance. For the next stitch you put your needle
into the hole made by the last stitch, and so on,
taking care not to split the thread in so doing.

To work the SPOTS (F) on sampler — having
made a back-stitch, bring your needle out through
the same hole as before, and make another back-
stitch above it, so that you have in what appears

13 CREWEL WORK AND CREWEL-STITCH.

32 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

to be one stitch, two thicknesses of thread ; then
bring your needle out some distance in advance of
the last stitch, and proceed as before. The distance
between the stitches is determined by the effect you
desire to produce. The thread should not be drawn
too tight.

TO WORK You begin STEM-STITCH (G) with the usual
G- half-stitch. Then, holding the thread downwards,

instead of proceeding as in crewel-stitch (A) you
slant your needle so as to bring it out a thread or
two higher up than the half-stitch, but precisely
above it. You next put the needle in Jth of an inch
in advance of the last stitch, and, as before, bring it
out again in a slanting direction a thread or two
higher. At the back of the work (Illustration 12)
the stitches He in a slanting direction.

TO WORK To work wider STEM-STITCH (H). After the
first two stitches, bring your needle out precisely
above and in a line with them, and put it in
again £th of an inch in advance of the last stitch,
producing a longer stroke, which gives the measure
of those following. The slanting stitches at the
back (Illustration 12) are only two-thirds of the
length of those on the face.

CREWEL AND OUTLINE STITCHES worked (J)
side by side give somewhat the effect of a braid.
The importance of not confusing them, already
referred to, is here apparent.

CREWEL-STITCH is worked SOLID in the heart-
shape in the centre of the sampler. On the left

14. CREWEL WORK IN VARIOUS STITCHES

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

TO WORK
SOLID
CREWEL-
STITCH.

side the rows of stitching follow the outline of
the heart ; on the right they are more upright,
merely conforming a little to the shape to be filled.
This is the better method.

The way to work solid crewel-stitch will
be best explained by an instance. Suppose a
leaf to be worked. You begin by outlining it ;
if it is a wide leaf, you further work a centre
line where the main rib . would be, and then
work row within row of stitches until the space
is filled. If on arriving at the point of your leaf,
instead of going round the edge, you work back
by the side of the first row of stitching, there
results a streakiness of texture, apparent in the
stem on Illustration 13. What you get is, in
effect, a combination of crewel and outline stitches,
as at J, which in the other case only occurs in the
centre of the shape where the files of stitches meet.

To represent shading in crewel-stitch, to which
it is admirably suited (A, Illustration 41), it is well
to work from the darkest shadows to the highest
lights. And it is expedient to map out on the
stuff the outline of the space to be covered by each
shade of thread. There is no difficulty then in
working round that shape, as above explained.

In solid crewel the stitches should quite cover
the ground without pressing too closely one against
the other.

It does not seem that Englishwomen of the
seventeenth century were ever very faithful to the
stitch we know by the name of crewel. Old ex-

CREWEL-STITCH IN TWISTED SILK.

36 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

amples of work done entirely in crewel-stitch, as dis-
tinguished from what is called crewel work, are
seldom if ever to be met with. The stitch occurs
in most of the old English embroidery in wool ; but
it is astonishing, when one comes to examine the
quilts and curtains of a couple of hundred years or so
ago, how very little of the woolwork on them is in
crewel -stitch. It is only in the main stem and in
some of the outlines of the detail given on page 3 1
that the stitch is used, though the illustration (13)
was chosen because it contained more of it than
any other equal portion of the handsome and
typical English hanging of which it is part. And
it appears to have been the prevailing practice to
use crewel-stitch for stems and outlines, and for
little else but the very simplest forms. The
filling in of the leafage, the diapering within the
leaf shapes, and the smaller and more elaborate
details generally were done in long-and-short-
stitch, or whatever came handiest. In fact, the
thing to be represented, fruit, berry, flower, or what
not, seems to have suggested the stitch, which it
must be confessed was sometimes only a sort of
scramble to get an effect.

Of course the artist always chooses her stitch,
and she is free to alter it as occasion may demand ;
but a good workwoman (and the embroidress is
a needlewoman first and an artist afterwards,
perhaps) adopts in every case a method, and
departs from it only for very good reason. It
looks as if these ancestors of ours had set to work

CREWEL-STITCH. 37

without system or guiding principle at all. No
doubt they got a bold and striking effect in bed-
hangings and the like ; but there is in their work
a lack of that conscious aim which goes to make
art. Theirs is art of the rather artless sort which
is just now so popular. Happily it was kept in
the way it should go by unconscious adherence
to traditional pattern. We, unfortunately, have
broken with tradition.

Quite in the traditional manner is Illustration 14.
One would fancy at first sight that the work was
almost entirely in crewel-stitch. As a matter of
fact, there is little which answers to the name,
as an examination of the back of the work shows
plainly enough. What the stitches are it is not
easy to say. The mystery of many a stitch is to
be unravelled only by literally picking out the
threads, which one is not always at liberty to do,
although, in the ardour of research, a keen em-
broidress will do it — not without remorse in the
case of beautiful work, but relentlessly all the same.

The only piece of embroidery entirely in crewel-
stitch which I could find for illustration (15) is
worked, as it happens, in silk ; nor was the worker
aware when she worked it that she was doing any-
thing out of the common. Another instance of
crewel-stitch is given in the divided skirt, let us call
it, of the personage in Illustration 72.

Beautiful back-stitching occurs in the Italian
work on Illustration 97, and the stitch is used for
sewing down the applique \\\ Illustration 102.

CHAIN-STITCH.

CHAIN and TAM-
BOUR STITCH are in
effect practically the
same, and present the
same rather granular
surface. The differ-
ence between them is
that chain - stitch is
done in the hand with
an ordinary needle, and

1 6. CHAIN-STITCH AND KNOTS. J '

tambour - stitch in a

frame with a hook sharper at the turning point
than an ordinary crochet hook. One takes it rather
for granted that work which was presumably done
in the hand (a large quilt, for example) is chain-
stitch, and that what seems to have been done in
a frame is tambour work, though it is possible, but
not advisable of course, to work chain-stitch in a
frame.

Chain-stitch is not to be confounded with split-
stitch (see page 105), which somewhat resembles it.
TO WORK To work chain-stitch (A on the sampler, Illus-
A- tration 17) bring the needle out, hold the thread

l"J. CHAIN-STITCH SAMPLER.

•;• ( '

v; if 5

X /

l8. CHAIN-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).

CHAIN-STITCH. 41

down with the left thumb, put the needle in again
at the hole through which you brought it out, take
up J of an inch of stuff, and draw the thread
through : that gives you the first link of the chain.
The back of the work (18) looks like back-stitch.
In fact, in the quilted coverlet, Illustration 69
(as in much similar work of the period), the out-
line pattern, which you might take for back-stitch-
ing, proves to have been worked from the back in
chain-stitch. The same thing occurs in the case of
the Persian quilt in Illustration 70.

A playful variation upon chain-stitch (B on the T0 WORK
sampler, Illustration 17) is effected by the use of
two threads of different colour. Take in your
needle a dark and a light thread, say the dark one
to the left, and bring them out at the point at
which your work begins. Hold the dark thread
under your thumb, and, keeping the light one to
the right, well out of the way, draw both threads
through ; this makes a dark link ; the light thread
disappears, and comes out again to the left of
the dark one, ready to be held under the thumb
while you make a light link. This " magic
stitch," as it has been called, is no new invention.
It is to be found in Persian, Indian, and Italian
Renaissance work. An instance of it occurs in
Illustration 64.

A variety of chain-stitch (C on the sampler,
Illustration 17) used often in church work, and
more solid in appearance, the links not being so

42 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

open, is rather differently done. Begin a little in
advance of the starting point of your work, hold
the thread under your thumb, put the needle in
again at the starting point slightly to the left,
bring your needle out about J of an inch below
where it first went in but precisely on the same
line, and you have the first link of your chain.

To work what is known as cable-chain (D on
the sampler, Illustration 17) keep your thread
to the right, put in your needle, pointing down-
wards, a little below the starting point, and bring
it out about J of an inch below where you put it in ;
then put it through the little stitch just formed,
from right to left, hold your thread towards the
left under your thumb, put your needle through
the stitch now in process of making from right to
left, draw up the thread, and the first two links of
your chain are made.

A zigzag chain, of a rather fancy description,
goes by the name of Vandyke chain (E on the
sampler, Illustration 17). To make it, bring your
needle out at a point which is to be the left edge
of your work, and make a slanting chain-stitch
from left to right ; then, putting your needle into
that, make another slanting stitch, this time from
right to left — and so to and fro to the end.

The braid-stitch shown at F on the sampler
(Illustration 17) is worked as follows, horizontally
from right to left. Bring your needle out at a
point which is to be the lower edge of your work,

CHAIN-STITCH.

THE WORKING OF F ON
CHAIN-STITCH SAMPLER.

throw your thread round to the left, and, keeping
it all the time loosely under your thumb, put your
needle under the thread and twist it once round
to the right.
Then, at the
upper edge of
your work, put
in theneedleand
slide the thread
towards the
right, bring the
needle out ex-
actly below
where you put

it in, carry your thread under the needle towards
the left, draw the thread tight, and your first stitch
is done. TO WORK

A. yet more fanciful variety of braid-stitch (G
on the sampler, Illustration 17) is worked vertically,
downwards. Having, as before, put your needle
under the thread and twisted it once round, put
it in at a point which is to be the left edge of
your work, and, instead of bringing it out imme-
diately below that point, slant it to the right,
bringing it out on that edge of the work, and
finish your stitch as in the case of F.

These braid-stitches look best worked in stout
thread of close texture.

In covering a surface with chain-stitch (needle-
work or tambour) the usual plan is to follow the

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

contour of the design, working chain within chain
until the leaf or whatever it may be is filled in.
This stitch is rarely worked in lines across the
forms, but it has been effectively used in that
way, following always the lines of the warp and
weft of the stuff. Even in that case the successive
lines of stitching should be all in
one direction — not running back-
wards and forwards — or it will
result in a sort of pattern of
braided lines. The reason for the
more usual practice of following
the outline of the design is obvious.
The stitch lends itself to sweeping,
even to perfectly spiral, lines — such
as occur in Greek wave patterns :
it was, in fact, made use of in that
way by the Greeks some four or
five centuries B.C.

We owe the tambour frame, they
say, to China ; but it has been
largely used, and abused indeed,
in England. Tambour work, when
STITCH SAMPLER, once you have the trick of it, is
very quickly done — in about one-
sixth of the time it would take to do it with the
needle. It has the further advantage that it serves
equally well for embroidery on a light or on a
heavy stuff, and that it is most lasting. The mis-
fortune is that the sewing machine has learnt to

THE WORKING
OF G ON CHAIN-

46 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

do something at once so like it and so mechanically
even, as to discredit genuine hand-work, whether
tambour work or chain-stitch. For all that, neither
is to be despised. If they have often a mechanical
appearance that is not all the fault of the stitch :
the worker is to blame. Indian embroiderers
depart sometimes so far from mechanical precision
as to shock the admirers of monotonously even
work. Artistic use of chain-stitch is made in many
of our illustrations : for outlines in Illustrations 24
and 72 ; for surface covering in Mr Crane's lion,
Illustration 74 ; to represent landscape in Illus-
tration 78, where everything except the faces of
the little men is in chain-stitch ; and again for
figure work in Illustration 81. In Illustration 19
it occurs in association with a curious surface
stitch ; in Illustration 64 it is used to outline and
otherwise supplement inlay. The old Italians did
not disdain to use it. In fact, wherever artists
have employed it they show that there is nothing
inherently inartistic about the stitch.

HERRING-BONE-STITCH.

HERRING-BONE is the name by which it is
customary to distinguish a variety of stitches
somewhat resembling the spine of a fish such
as the herring. It would be simpler to describe
them as " fish-bone " ; but that term has been
appropriated to describe a particular variety of it.
One would have thought it more convenient to use
fish for the generic term, and a particular fish .for
the specific. However, it saves confusion to use
names as far as possible in their accepted sense.

It will be seen from the sampler, Illustration 20,
that this stitch may be worked open or tolerably
close ; but in the latter case it loses something of
its distinctive character. Fine lines may be worked
in it, but it appears most suited to the working of
broadish bands and other more or less even-sided
or, it may be, tapering forms, more feathery in
effect than fish-bone-like, such as are shown at E
on sampler.

Ordinary herring-bone is such a familiar stitch
that the necessity of describing it is rather a
matter of literary consistency than of practical
importance.

48 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

The two simpler forms of herring-bone (it is
always worked from left to right, and begun with
a half-stitch) marked A and C on the sampler are
strikingly different in appearance, and are worked
in different ways — as will be seen at once by
reference to the back of the sampler (Illustra-
tion 2 1 ), where the stitches take in the one case a
horizontal and in the other a vertical direction.

TO WORK To work A, bring your needle out about the
centre of the line to be worked ; put it into the
lower edge of the line about Jth of an inch
further on ; take up this much of the stuff, and,
keeping the thread to the right, above the needle,
draw it through. Then with the thread below it,
to the right, put your needle into the upper edge
of the line Jth of an inch further on, and, turning
it backwards, take up,^ again ^th of an inch of
stuff, bringing it out immediately above where it
went in on the lower edge.

TO WORK What is called " Indian Herring-bone " (B) is

B- merely stitch A worked in longer and more

slanting stitches, so that there is room between
them for a second row in another colour, the two
colours being, of course, properly interlaced.

TO WORK To work C, bring your needle out as for A,
and, putting it in at the upper edge of the line
to be worked and pointing it downwards, whilst
your thread lies to the right, take up ever so small
a piece of the stuff. Then, slightly in advance
of the last stitch, the thread still to the right,

2O. HERRING-BONE SAMPLER.

21. HERRING-BONE SAMPLER (BACK).

HERRING-BONE-STITCH. 51

your needle now pointing upwards, take another
similar stitch from the lower edge.

The variety at D is merely a combination of A
and C, as may be seen by reference to the back of
the sampler (opposite) ; though the short horizontal
stitches there seen meet, instead of being wide
apart as in the case of A.

TO WORK

THE WORKING OF E ON HERRINCz-BONE SAMPLER.

What is known as "fish-bone" is illustrated in
the three feathery shapes on the sampler (E), two
of which are worked rather open. It is charac-
teristic of this stitch that it has a sort of spine up
the centre where the threads cross. Suppose the TO WORK
stitch to be worked horizontally. Bring your
needle out on the under edge of the spine about
Jth of an inch from the starting point of the work,
and put it in on the upper edge of the work at the
starting point, bringing it out immediately below
that on the lower edge of the work. Put it in
again on the upper edge of the spine, rather in

52 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

advance of where it came out on the lower edge
of it before, and bring it out on the lower edge of
this spine immediately below where it entered.
TO WORK In close herring-bone (F on the sampler, Illus-
tration 20) you have always a long stitch from
left to right, crossed by a shorter stitch which
goes from right to left. Having made a half-
stitch, bring the needle out at the beginning of
the line to be worked, at the lower edge, and put

THE WORKING OF F ON HERRING-BONE SAMPLER.

it in Jth of an inch from the beginning of the upper
edge. Bring it out again at the beginning of this
edge and put it in at the lower edge Jth of an inch
from the beginning, bringing it out on the same
edge Jth of an inch from the beginning. Put the
needle in again on the upper edge ^th of an inch
in front of the last stitch on that edge, and bring
it out again, without splitting the thread, on the
same edge as the hole where the last stitch went in.
If you wish to cover a surface with herring-bone-
stitch, you work it, of course, close, so that each

HERRING-BONE-STITCH.

successive stitch touches its foregoer at the point
where the needle enters the stuff (F on the sampler,
Illustration 20). It will be seen that at the back
(21) this looks like a double row of back-stitching.
Worked straight across a wide leaf, as in the lower
half of sampler, it is naturally very loose. A better
method of working is shown in the side leaves,
which are worked in two halves, beginning at the
base of a leaf on one side and working down to
it on the other. There is here just the suggestion
of a mid-rib between the two rows.

THE WORKING OF G ON HERRING-BONE SAMPLER.

The stitch at G on sampler, which has the effect
of higher relief than ordinary close herring-bone
(F), is sometimes misleadingly described as tapestry
stitch. It is worked, as the back of the sampler
(21) clearly shows, in quite a different way. You
get there parallel rows of double stitches. Having

TO WORK

54 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

made a half-stitch entering the material at the
upper edge of the work, bring the needle out on
the lower edge of it immediately opposite. Then
going back, put it in at the beginning of the
upper edge, and bring it out at the beginning of
the lower one. Thence take a long slanting stitch
upwards from left to right, bring the needle out
on the lower edge immediately opposite, cross it
by a rather shorter stitch from right to left, enter-
ing the stuff at the point where the first half-stitch
ended, bring this out on the lower edge, opposite,
and the stitch is done.

The artistic use of herring-bone-stitch is shown
in the leaves of the tulip (84), and a closer variety
of it in the pink, or whatever the flower may be,
in the hand of the little figure in Illustration 72.

BUTTONHOLE-STITCH.

BUTTONHOLE is more useful in ornament than
one might expect a stitch with such a very utilitarian
name to be. It is, as its common us"e would lead
one to suppose, pre-eminently a one-edged stitch,
a stitch with which to mark emphatically the
outside edge of a form. There is, however, a
two-edged variety known as ladder-stitch, shown
in the two horn shapes on the sampler, Illustra-
tion 22.

By the use of two rows back to back, leaf forms
may be fairly expressed. In the broad leaves on
the sampler, the edge of the stitch is used to
emphasise the mid rib, leaving a serrated edge
to them. The character of the stitch would have
been better preserved by working the other way
about, and marking the edge of the leaves by a
clear-cut line, as in the case of the solid leaves in
Illustration 73.

The stitch may be used for covering a ground
or other broad surface, as in the pot shape (J) on
the sampler, where the diaper pattern produced
by its means explains itself the better for being
worked in two shades of colour.

The simpler forms of the stitch are the more

56 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

useful. Worked in the form of a wheel, as in the
rosettes at the side of the vase shape (A), the
ornamental use of the stitch is obvious.

TO WORK One need hardly describe BUTTONHOLE-STITCH.

A- The simple form of it (A) is worked by (when you

have brought your needle out) keeping the thread
under your thumb to the right, whilst you put
the needle in again at a higher point slightly to
the right, and bring it out immediately below,
close to where it came out before. This and other
one-edged stitches of the kind are sometimes called
" blanket-stitch."

The only difference between versions such as B
and C on the sampler, and simple buttonhole, is
that the stitches vary in length according to the
worker's fancy.

TO WORK The CROSSED BUTTONHOLE-STITCH at E is

E- worked by first making a stitch sloping to the

right, and then a smaller buttonhole-stitch across
this from the left.

The border marked D in sampler consists merely
of two rows of slanting buttonhole-stitch worked
one into the other. Needlewomen have wilful
ways of making what should be upright stitches
slant awkwardly in all manner of ways, with the
result that they look as if they had been pulled
out of the straight.

The border at F, known as " TAILOR'S BUTTON-
HOLE," is worked with the firm edge from you,
instead of towards you, as you work ordinary

22. BUTTONHOLE SAMPLER.

23. BUTTONHOLE SAMPLER (BACK).

BUTTONHOLE-STITCH.

buttonhole. Bringing the thread out at the upper TO WORK
edge of the work to the left, and letting it lie on
that side, you put your needle in again still on the
same edge, and bring it out, immediately below,
on the lower one. You then, before drawing the
thread quite through, put your needle into the
loop from behind, and tighten it upwards.

In order to make your '!
"Ladder-stitch" (G) square at
the end, you begin by making a
bar of the width the stitch is to
be. Then, holding the thread
under your thumb to the right,
you put the needle in at the top
of the bar and, slanting it towards
the right, bring it out on a level
with the other end of the bar
somewhat to the right. This
makes a triangle. With the
point of your needle, pull the
slanting thread out at the top,
to form a square ; insert the needle ; slant it again
to the right ; draw it out as before, and you have
your second triangle.

The difference between the working of the lattice-
like band at H, and ladder-stitch G, is that, having
completed your first triangle, you make, by means
of a buttonhole-stitch, a second triangle pointing
the other way, which completes a rectangular
shape.

THE WORKING OF II

' ON BUTTONHOLE

SAMPLER.

WORK

24. BUTTONHOLE, CHAIN, AND KNOT STITCHES.

BUTTONHOLE-STITCH. 61

In the solid work shown at J, you make five
buttonhole-stitches, gathering them to a point
at the base, then another five, and so on. Repeat
the process, this time point upwards, and you have
the first band of the pot shape.

Characteristic and most beautiful use is made
of buttonhole-stitch in the piece of Indian work
in Illustration 24, where it is outlined with chain
stitch, which goes most perfectly with it.

Cut work, such as that on Illustration 65, is
strengthened by outlining it in buttonhole-stitch.

Ladder-stitch occurs in the cusped shapes
framing certain flowers in Illustration 72, em-
broidered all in blue silk on linen. It is not
infrequent in Oriental work, and, in fact, goes
sometimes by the name of Cretan-stitch on that
account.

FEATHER AND ORIENTAL STITCHES.

FEATHER-STITCH is simply buttonholing in a
slanting direction, first to the right side and then
to the left, keeping the needle strokes in the centre
closer together or farther apart according to the
effect to be produced.

It owes its name, of course, to the more or less
feathery effect resulting from its rather open
character. Like buttonhole, it may be worked
solid, as in the leaf and petal forms on the sampler,
Illustration 25, but it is better suited to cover
narrow than broad surfaces. The jagged outline
which it gives makes it useful in embroidering
plumage, but it is not to be confounded with what
is called " plumage-stitch," which is not feather-
stitch at all, but a version of satin-stitch.

The feathery stem (A) on sampler is simply a
buttonholing worked alternately from right to left
and left to right.

TO WORK The border line at B requires rather more
explanation. Presume it to be worked vertically.
Bring your needle out at the left edge of the band ;
put it in at the right edge immediately opposite,
keeping your thread under the needle to the right ;

FEATHER-STITCH SAMPLER.

FEATHER-STITCH SAMPLER (l)ACK).

FEATHER AND ORIENTAL STITCHES. 65

2 3

bring it out again still on the right edge a little
lower down, and then, keeping your thread to the
left, put the needle in on the left edge, opposite to
where you last brought it out, and bring it out
again on the same edge a little lower down.

The border at C is merely an elaboration of the
above, with three slanting stitches on each edge
instead of a single one in the
direction of the band.

Bands D, E, F, G, are va-
riations of ordinary feather-
stitch, requiring no further ex-
planation than the back view
of the work (26) affords. On
the face of the sampler it will
be noticed that lines have been
drawn for the guidance of the
worker. These are always
four in number, indicating
that the stitch is made with
four strokes of the needle, and
showing the points at which it
is put in and out of the stuff.

In working G G, suppose
four guiding lines to have been
drawn as above — numbered,

to right. Bring your needle out at the top of line I.
Make a chain-stitch slanting downwards from line I
to line 2. Put your needle into line 3 about Jth
of an inch lower down, and, slanting it upwards,

THE WORKING OF G G

ON FEATHER-STITCH

SAMPLER.

2, 3, 4,

from left TO WORK
GG.

66 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

bring it out on line 4, level with the point where you
last brought it out. Make a chain-stitch slanting
downwards, this time from right to left, and bring
your needle out on line 3. Lastly, put your needle
into line 2, ^th of an inch below the last stitch,
and, slanting it upwards, bring it out on line I.

Feather-stitch is not adapted to covering broad
surfaces solidly, but may be used for narrow ones.
ORIENTAL-STITCH is the name given to a close
kind of feather-stitch much used in Eastern work.
The difference between the two, at once apparent
to the eye, is that, whereas for the mid-rib of a
band or leaf of feather-stitching (25) you have
cross lines, in Oriental-stitch (27) you have a
straight line — longer or shorter as the case may be.
Oriental-stitch is sometimes called " Antique-
stitch," and is a stitch in three strokes, just as
feather-stitch is a stitch in four. It is usually
worked horizontally, though shown upright on the
sampler. Like feather-stitch (compare diagrams
on pages 65 and 69), it is worked on four guiding
lines, faintly visible on the sampler.

TO WORK Stitches A, B, and C are worked in precisely

A» the same way. Bring your needle out at the top

c' of line i. Keep the thread under your thumb to

the right and put your needle in at the top of line

4, bringing it out into line 3 on the same level.

Then put it in again at line 2, just on the other

side of the thread, and bring it out on line I

ready to begin the next stitch.

ORIENTAL-STITCH SAMPLER.

28. ORIENTAL-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).

FEATHER AND ORIENTAL STITCHES. 69

It will be seen that the length of the central
part (or mid-rib, as it was called above) makes
the whole difference between the three varieties
of stitch. In A the three parts are equal : in
B the mid-rib is narrow : in C it is broad,

THE WORKING OF A, B, C ON ORIENTAL-STITCH SAMPLER.

as is most plainly seen on the back of the
sampler (28). The difference is only a difference
of proportion.

The sloping stitch at D is worked in the same
way as A, B, C, except that instead of straight
strokes with the needle you make slanting ones.

Stitch E differs from D in that the side strokes
slant both in the same direction. It is worked
from right to left instead of from left to right. TO WORK

Stitch F is a combination of buttonhole and
Oriental stitches. Between two rows of button-

TO WORK

70 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

holing (dark on sampler) a single row of Oriental-
stitch is worked.

The stitch employed for the central stalk, G,
has really no business on this sampler, except that
it looks rather like a continuous Oriental-stitch.

Oriental-stitch is one of the stitches used in the
mixed embroidery in Illustration 72.

ROPE AND KNOT STITCHES.

A single sampler is devoted to ROPE and
KNOTTED STITCHES. They are more nearly
akin than they look, for rope-stitch is all but
knotted as it is worked.

ROPE-STITCH is so called because of its appear-
ance. It takes a large amount of silk or wool to
work it, but the effect is correspondingly rich. It
is worked from right to left, and is easier to work
in curved -lines than in straight.

Lines A on the sampler, Illustration 29, represent
the ordinary appearance of the stitch ; its construc-
tion is more appa-
rent in the central
stalk B, which is
a less usual form
of the same stitch,
worked wider
apart.

Having brought
out your needle
at the right end
of the work, hold
part of the thread towards the left, under the
thumb, the rest of it falling to the right ; put your

THE WORKING OF A, B, ON ROPE-STITCH
SAMPLER.

TO WORK

A, B.

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

needle in above where it came out, slant it towards
you, and bring it out again a little in advance of
where it came out before, and just below the
thread held under your thumb. Draw the thread
through, and there results a stitch which looks
rather like a distorted chain stitch (B). The next
step is to make another similar stitch so close to
the foregoing one that it overlaps it partly. It

is this overlapping
which gives the
stitch the raised
and rope-like ap-
pearance seen at A.
A knotted line
(C on the sampler,
Illustration 29)
is produced by
what is known as
"GERMAN KNOT-
STITCH," effective only in thick soft silk or wool.
TO WORK Begin as in rope-stitch, keeping your thread in
the same position. Then put your needle into
the stuff just above the thread stretched under
your thumb, and bring it out just below and in
a line with where it went in ; lastly, keep the
needle above the loose end of the thread, draw
it through, tightening the thread upwards, and
you have the first of your knots : the res^ follow
TO WORK a* intervals determined by your wants.
D. The more open stitch at D is practically the same

THE WORKING OF C ON ROPE-
STITCH SAMPLER.

29. ROPE-STITCH AND KNOT STITCH SAMPLER.

30. ROPE-STITCH AND KNOT-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).

ROPE AND KNOT STITCHES. 75

thing, except that in crossing the running thread
you take up more of the stuff on each side of it.

What is known by the name of " OLD ENGLISH
KNOT-STITCH " (E) is a much more complicated
stitch. Keeping your thread well out of the way TO WORK
to the right, put your needle in to the left, and E-

take up vertically a piece of the stuff the width of
the line to be worked at its widest, and draw the
thread through. Then, keeping it under the thumb
to the left, put your needle, eye first, downwards,
through the slanting stitch just made; draw the
thread not too tight, and, keeping it as before
under the thumb, put your needle, eye first, this
time through the upper half only of the slanting
stitch, making a kind of buttonhole-stitch round
the last, and draw out your thread.

The importance of these rather ragged-looking
and fussy knotted rope stitches, by whatever name
they are called, may easily be over-rated. They
are not much more than fancy stitches. KNOTS
used separately are of much more artistic account.

BULLION or ROLL-STITCH is shown in its simplest
form in the petals of the flowers F on the sampler,
Illustration 29. To work one such petal, begin T0 WORK
by attaching the thread very firmly ; bring your F.

needle out at the base of the petal, put it in at the
tip, and bring it out once more at the base, only
drawing it partly through. With your right hand
wind the thread, say seven times, round the pro-
jecting point of the needle from left to right. Then,

76 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

holding the coils under your left thumb, your
thread to the right, draw your needle and thread
through ; and, dropping the needle, and catching
the thread round your little finger, take hold of the
thread with your thumb and first finger and draw
the coiled stitch to the right, tightening it gently

THE WORKING OF F ON KNOT-STITCH SAMPLER.

until quite firm. Lastly, put the needle through
at the tip of the petal, and the stitch is complete
and ready to be fastened off.

The leaves of these flowers consist simply of
two bullion stitches. The bullion knots at the
side of the central stalk are curled by taking up
in the first instance only the smallest piece of
the stuff.

ROPE AND KNOT STITCHES. 77

To work FRENCH KNOTS (G), having brought TO WORK
out your needle at the point where the knot is to
be, hold the thread under your thumb, and, letting
it lie to the right, put your needle under the
stretched part of it. Turn the needle so as to
twist the thread once round it. That done, put
the needle in again about where it came out,
draw it through from the back, and bring it out
where the next knot is to be.

For large knots use two or more threads
of silk, and do not
twist them more than
once. With a single

thread you may twist ^>f? 7S)}?S ?S) 7S>
twice, but the result
of twisting three or
four times is never THE WORKING OF G ON

. KNOT-STITCH SAMPLER.

happy.

The use of knots is well shown in Illustration
24. Worked there in white silk floss upon a dark
purple ground, they are quite pearly in appear-
ance, whether in rows between the border lines,
or scattered over the ground. They are most
useful in holding the design together, giving it
mass, and go admirably with chain-stitching, to
which, when close together, they have at first
sight some likeness. A single line of knots may
almost be mistaken for chain-stitch ; but of them-
selves they do not make a good outline, lacking
firmness. A happier use of them is to fringe an

78 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

outline, as for example in the peacock's tail on
page 38 ; but this expedient must be used with
reticence, or it results in a rather rococo effect.
Good use is sometimes made of knots to pearl the
inner edge of a pattern worked in outline, or to
pattern the ornament (instead of the ground) all
over. Differencing of this kind may be an after-
thought— and a happy one — affording as it does
a ready means of giving texture or of qualifying
a colour which may not have worked out quite
to the embroiderer's liking.

The obvious fitness of knots to represent the
stamens of flowers is exemplified in Illustra-
tion 101. Worked close together, they represent
admirably the eyes of composite flowers, as on
the sampler ; they give, again, valuable variety
of texture to the crest of the stork in Illustra-
tion 85.

The effect of knotting in the mass is shown in
Illustration 31, embroidered 'entirely in knots, con-
tradicting, it might seem, what was said above
about its unfitness for outline work. The lines,
even the voided ones, are here as sharp as could
be ; but then, it is not many of us who work, knot by
knot, with the marvellous precision of a Chinaman.
His knotted texture is not, however, always what
it seems. He has a way of producing a knotted
line by first knotting his thread (it may be done
with a netting needle), and then stitching it down
on to the surface of the material, which gives a

8o ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

pearled or beaded line not readily distinguishable
from knot stitch.

The Japanese embroiderer, instead of knotting
his own thread, employed very often a crinkled
braid. This is shown in the cloud work in
Illustration 85. The only true knotting there is in
the top-knot of the bird.

32. INTERLACING-STITCH SAMPLER.
F

INTERI.ACING-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).

INTERFACINGS, SURFACE STITCHES,
AND DIAPERS.

The samplers so far discussed bring us, with
the exception of Darning, Satin-stitch, and some
stitches presently to be mentioned, practically to
the end of the stitches, deserving to be so called,
generally in use.

By combining two or more stitches endless
complications may be made ; and there may be
occasions when, for one purpose or another, it
may be necessary, as well as amusing, to invent
them. In this way stitches are also sometimes
worked upon stitches, as shown on the sampler,
Illustration 32. You will see, on referring to the
back of it (33), that only the white silk is worked
into the stuff: the dark threads are surface work
only. There is no end to such possible INTER-
LACINGS. Those on the sampler do not need
much explanation ; but it may be as well to say
that A starts with crewel-stitching ; B and C with
back-stitching ; D with chain-stitching ; E with
darning or running ; F, G, and H with varieties of
herring-bone-stitch; J with Oriental - stitch ; and
K with feather-stitch. It is not difficult by follow-
ing the interlacings of the darker threads to detect

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

TO WORK

THE WORKING OF F ON INTERLACING-
STITCH SAMPLER.

the surface work upon the white. C and G under-

go a second course of interlacing.

The danger of splitting the first stitches in

working the inter-
lacing ones, is
avoided by passing
the needle eye first
through them.

Other surface
work, sometimes

c % \ \ Q £ LACE-

STITCH, is illus-
trated in the sampler, Illustration 34. There is
really no limit to patterns of this kind. Some are
better worked in a frame, but that is very much
a matter of personal practice.

In the Surface Darning at H (34) long threads are
first carried from edge to edge of the square, there
only piercing the stuff, and then darned across by
other stitches, again only piercing it at the edges.

An oblique version of this is given at C (34).

The Lace Button-holing at B (34) is worked as
follows : — Buttonhole three stitches into the stuff
from left to right, not quite close together, and
further on three more ; then, working from right
to left, make three buttonhole stitches into the
thread connecting the stitch groups ; but do not
stitch into the stuff except at the ends of the
rows. The last row must, of course, be worked
into the stuff again.

4 « «t «• ^ ^

34. SURFACE-STITCH SAMPLER.

86 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

TO WORK Net Passing, as at F (34), is not very differently

F- worked from A, only it is much more open. The

first row of horizontal stitches is crossed by two

opposite rows of oblique stitches, which are made

to interlace.

TO WORK The square at G is worked by first making rows
G- of short upright stitches worked into the stuff, and

then threading loose stitches through them.
TO WORK The square at D is worked on the open lattice
D> shown ; the solid parts are produced by interlacing

stitches from side to side, starting at the angle.

In the square at E (Japanese Darning) hori-
zontal lines are first darned, and then zigzag lines
are worked between them, much as in G ; but, as
they penetrate the material, this is scarcely a
surface stitch.

TO WORK The horizontal lines at top and bottom of the

A< square at A are back-stitching, the intermediate

ones simply long threads carried from one side to

the other ; they are laced together by lines looped

round them.

TO WORK The band at L is begun by making horizontal
bar stitches. A row of crewel-stitch and one of
outline-stitch, worked on to the bars and not
into the stuff, makes the central chain.

TO WORK The band at K is merely surface buttonholing
K- over a series of slanting stitches.

TO WORK The band at J is buttonhole stitching wide apart,
J- the bars filled in with surface crewel-stitch.

Most delicate surface stitching occurs in Illus-

LACE OR SURFACE STITCH.

88 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

tration 35, the fine net being worked only from
edge to edge of the spaces it fills, and not else-
where entering the stuff; which accounts for most
of it being worn away. The flower or scroll-work
is substantial embroidery, worked through the stuff.
The delicate network of fine stitching, which once
covered the whole of the background, is neither
more nor less than a floating gossamer of lacework.
One cannot deny that this is embroidery, though
it has to be admitted that lace-stitches are employed
in it.

Stern embroiderers would like to deny it. Of
course it is frivolous, and in a sense flimsy, but it
is also delicate and dainty to a degree. It is
suited only to dress, and that of the most exquisite
kind. A French marquise of the Regency might
have worn it, and possibly did wear it, with entire
propriety — if the word is not out of keeping with
the period.

The frailty of this kind of thing is too obvious
to need mention, and that, of course, is a strong
argument against it.

All attempt to give separate names to diapers
of this kind, whether worked upon the surface or
into the stuff, is futile. They ought not even to be
called stitches, being, in fact, neither more nor less
than stitch patterns, to which there is no possible
limit, unless it be the limit of human invention.
Every ingenious workwoman will find out patterns
of her own more or less. They are very useful for

INTERLACINGS, SURFACE STITCHES, ETC. 89

filling in surfaces (pattern or background) which it
may be inexpedient to work more solidly.

The greater part of such patterns are geometric
(Illustrations 35 and 73), following, that is to say,
the mesh of the material, and making no secret
of it. On Illustration 3, where, by the way, the
relation of stitch to stuff is obvious, you see very
plainly how the rectangular diaperings are built up
geometrically on the square lines of the mesh,
as was practically inevitable working on such a
ground. In any case, however, preceptible weaving
lines facilitate the setting out of geometric diaper.

The choice of stitch patterns of this kind is
inevitably left to the needlewoman. The utmost
a designer need do is to indicate on his drawing
that a " full," " open," or " intermediate " diaper
is to be used. Still, the alternation of lighter and
heavier diapers should be planned and not left
altogether to impulse, though the pattern may be.
Moreover, there is room for the 'exercise of con-
siderable taste in the choice of simpler or more
elaborate patterns, freer or more geometric. Many
a time the shape of the space to be filled, as well as
its extent, will suggest the appropriate ornament.
The diaper design is not, of course, drawn on the
stuff, but points of guidance may be indicated
through a kind of fine stencil plate, supposing the
weave of the stuff not to be plain enough to
go by.

The patterns used for background diapering

90 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

need not, as a rule, be intrinsically so interesting
as those which diaper the design itself, nor are they
usually so full. They take more often the form of
spot or sprig patterns, not continuous, in which the
geometric construction need not be obvious. Nor
is it necessary. In either case the prime object of
the stitching is not so much to make ornamental
patterns as to give a tint to the stuff without
entirely hiding it ; and the worker chooses a lighter
or heavier diaper according to the tint required.

For a background, simple darning more or less
open, in stitches not too regular, is often the best
solution of the difficulty. The effect of the ground
colour grinning through is delightful.

In white work the purpose of the stitching is to
give texture.

SATIN-STITCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS.

SATIN-STITCH is par excellence the stitch for
fine silk work. I do not know if the name of
" satin-stitch " comes from its being so largely
employed upon satin, or from the effect of the work
itself, which would certainly justify the title, so
smooth and satin-like is its surface. Given a
material of which the texture is quite smooth and
even, showing no mesh, satin-stitch seems the
most natural and obvious way of working upon it.
In it the embroidress works with short, straight
strokes of the needle, just as a pen draughtsman
lays side by side the strokes of his pen ; but, as she
cannot, of course, leave off her stroke as the pen-
man does, she has perforce to bring back the
thread on the under side of the stuff, so that, if
very carefully done, the work is the same on both
sides.

Satin-stitch, however, need not be, and never
was, confined to work upon silk or satin. In fact
it was not only worked upon fine linen, but often
followed the lines of its mesh, stepping, as in Illus-
tration 9, to the tune of the stuff. This may be
described as satin-stitch in the making — at any

92 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

rate, it is the elementary form of the stitch, its
relation to canvas -stitch being apparent on the face
of it. Still, beautiful and most accomplished work
has been done in it alike by Mediaeval, Renaissance,
and Oriental needleworkers.

To cover a space with regular vertical satin
stitches (A on the sampler, Illustration 36), the
best way of proceeding is to begin in the centre
of the space and work from left to right. That
half done, begin again in the centre and work
from right to left.

In order to make sure of a crisp and even edge
to your forms, always let the needle enter the stuff
there, as it is not easy to find the point you want
from the back.

In working a second row of stitches, proceed
as before, only planting your needle between the
stitches already done. Fasten off with a few tiny
surface stitches and cut off the silk on the right
side of the stuff: it will be worked over.

To cover a space with horizontal satin stitches
(B on sampler), begin at the top, and work from
left to right. The longer stretches there are not,
of course, crossed at one stitch ; they take several
stitches, dovetailed, as it were, so as not to give
lines.

The easiest, most satisfactory, and generally
most effective way of working flat satin stitch is
in oblique or radiating lines (C, D, E), working
in those instances, as in the case of A, from the

36. SATIN-STITCH SAMPLER.

SATIN-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).

SATIN-STITCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS. 95

centre, first from left to right and then from right
to left.

Stems, narrow leaflets, and the like, are best
worked always in stitches which run diagonally
and not straight across the form.

In the case of stems or other lines curved and
worked obliquely, the stitches must be very much
closer on the inner side of the curve than on the
outside : occasionally a half-stitch may be necessary
to keep the direction of the lines right, in which
case the inside end of
the half-stitch must be
quite covered by the
stitch next following.

Satin-stitch is seen at
its best when worked
in floss. Heavy or
twisted silk looks
coarse in this stitch, as
may be seen by com-
paring the petal D in
the sampler, Illustra-
tion 36, with the petal in
twisted silk here given
(38). Even the needle-
workers of India, astonishingly skilful as they are,
get rather broken lines when they work in thick
twisted silk (Illustration 39). The precision of line
a skilled worker can get in floss is wonderful. An
Oriental will get sweeping lines as clean and firm

38. SATIN-STITCH IN COARSE
TWISTED SILK.

96 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

as if they had been drawn with a pen, and this not
merely in the case of an outline, but in voided
lines of which each side has to be drawn with
the needle. The voided outline, by the way, as
on Illustrations 39, 40, is not only the frankest way
of defining form, but seems peculiarly proper to
satin-stitch. And it is a test of skill in workman-
ship : it is so easy to disguise uneven stitching by
an outline in some other stitch. The voiding in
the wings of the birds in Illustration 40 is perfect ;
and the occasional softening of the voided line,
as in the wing of the bird at the bottom of Illus-
tration 40, by stitching in threads comparatively
wide apart, is quite the right thing to do. It would
have been more in keeping to void the veins of
the lotus leaves than to plant them on in cord in
the way that has been adopted.

Satin-stitch must not be too long ; and it is often
a serious consideration with the designer how to
break up the surfaces to be covered so that only
shortish stitches need be used. You might follow
the veining of a leaf, for example, and work from
vein to vein. But all leaves are not naturally veined
in the most accommodating manner. Treatment
is accordingly necessary, and so we arrive at a
convention appropriate to embroidery of this kind.
It takes a draughtsman properly to express form
by stitch distribution. The Chinese convention
in the lotus flowers (Illustration 40) is admirable.

It is the rule of the game to lay satin-stitch

39- SATIN-STITCH IN FINE TWISTED SILK.
G

98 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

very evenly. Worked in floss, the mere surface of
satin-stitch is beautiful. A further charm lies in
the way it lends itself to gradation of colour.
Beautiful results may be obtained by the use of
perfectly flat tints of colour, as in Illustration 40;
but the subtlest as well as the most deliberate
gradation of tint may be most perfectly rendered
in satin-stitch.

TO WORK SURFACE SATIN - STITCH (not the same on
SURFACE both sides), though it looks very much like
STITCH ordinary satin-stitch, is worked in another way.
The needle, that is to say, after each stitch is
brought immediately up again, and the floss is
carried back on the upper instead of the under
side of the stuff. Considerable economy of silk
is effected by thus keeping the threads as much as
possible on the surface, but the effect is apt to
be proportionately poorer. Moreover, the work
is not so lasting as when it is solid. The satin-
stitch in Illustration 58 is all surface work. It
looks loose, which it is always apt to do unless
it is kept stretched on the frame, on which satin-
stitch is for the most part worked. Very effective
Indian work is done of this kind — loose and flimsy,
but serving a distinct artistic purpose. It is to
embroidery of more precious kind what scene
painting is to serious mural decoration.

Embroidery is often described as being in "long-
and-short-stitch," a term properly descriptive not
of a stitch, but of its dimensions. Whether you

40. CHINESE SATIN-STITCH.

TOO ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

use stitches of equal or of unequal length is a
question merely of the adaptation of the stitch to
its use in any given instance ; there is nothing
gained by calling an arrangement of alternating
stitches, "long and short," or by calling them
"plumage-stitch," or, which is more misleading,
" feather-stitch," when they radiate so as to follow
the form, say, of a bird's breast. The bodies
of the birds in Illustrations 40 and 85 are in
plumage-stitch so called. This adaptation of
stitch to bird or other forms gives the effect of
fine feathering perfectly. But there is no good
reason for applying the term " satin-stitch " exclu-
sively to parallel lines of stitches all of a length.

" Long - and - short - stitch," then, is a sort of
satin-stitch ; only, instead of the stitches being all
of equal length, they are worked one into the others
or between them, as in the faces in Illustrations 79
and 80.

A little further removed from satin-stitch is what
is known as " split-stitch," in which the needle is
brought up through the foregoing stitch, and splits
it. The way of working this stitch is more fully
described on page 105.

The worker adapts, as a matter of course,
the length of the stitch to the work to be done,
directing it also according to the form to be
expressed, and so arrives, almost before he is
aware of it, by way of satin-stitch, at what is
called plumage-stitch.

OFFSHOOTS FROM SATIN AND CREWEL STITCHES.

42. OFFSHOOTS FROM SATIN AND CREWEL STITCHES (BACK).

SATIN-STITCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS. 103

The distinction between the stitches so far
described is plain enough, and an all-round em-
broidress learns to work them ; but workers end
in working their own way, modifying the stitch
according to the work it is put to do, and con-
stantly arrive at results it would be difficult to
describe and pedantic to
find fault with. Even
short, however, of such
individual treatment, the
mere adaptation of the
stitch to thejines of the
design removes it from
the normal. It makes a
difference, too, whether
it is worked in a frame
or in the hand : in the
one case you see more
likeness to one stitch,
in the other to another.
The flower at B, for
example, and the leaf
at D on the sampler,
Illustration 41, are both
worked in what is commonly called " plumage," or
" embroidery " stitch, though the term ': dovetail,"
sometimes employed, is used with quite as much,
if not more, reason. Instance B, however, is worked
in the hand, and D in a frame — from which very
fact it follows that the worker is naturally disposed

THE WORKING OF B ON
SAMPLER 41.

104 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

to regard B as akin to crewel-stitch and D to satin-
stitch, between which two stitches "dovetail/' or
whatever it is to be called, may be regarded as the
connecting link.

TO WORK The petals at B are worked in the method
r" illustrated in the diagram on page 103. The first

step is to edge the shape with satin-stitches in
threes, successively long, shorter, and quite short.
This done, starting at the base again, you put your
needle in on the upper or right side of the first
short stitch, and bring it out through the long
stitch (as shown in the diagram). You then make
a short stitch by putting your needle downwards
through the material, and taking up a small piece
of it. You have finally only to draw the needle
through, and it is in position to make another long
stitch. As the concentric rings of stitching become
smaller, you make, of course, shorter stitches, and
you need no longer pierce the thread of the long
stitch.

TO WORK The working of the scroll at D on the sampler,
D* Illustration 41, needs no detailed explanation. Any

one who is acquainted with the way satin-stitch
is worked (it has already been sufficiently ex-
plained), and has read the above account of the
working of B, will understand at once how that
is worked in the frame.

It will be seen that there is a slight difference
in effect between framework and work done in the
hand, arising from the fact that the one is necessarily

SATIN-STITCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS. 105

more loosely and not quite so evenly done as the
other.

Split-stitch (C on the sampler), again, resembles To WORK
either crewel-stitch or satin-stitch, according as it SPLIT-
IS worked in the hand or on a frame. In working
in the hand, you take a rather shorter stitch back
than in crewel-stitch, piercing with the needle the
thread which is to form the next stitch. In working
on a frame, you bring your needle always up
through the last made satin-stitch in order to start
the next. Whichever way it is done, split-stitch is
often difficult to distinguish without minute exami-
nation from chain-stitch. It may be interesting to
compare it with crewel-stitch (A on the sampler),
which is also a favourite stitch for shading. Further
reference to its use is made in the chapter on
shading (page 188).

DARNING.

It is the peculiarity of DARNING and RUNNING
that you make several stitches at one passing of
the needle.

Darning and running amount practically to the
same thing. Darning might be described as con-
secutive lines of running. The difference is, in the
main, a matter of multiplication ; but the distinction
is sometimes made that in running the stitches
may be the same length on the face as on the
reverse of the stuff, whereas in darning the thread
is mainly on the surface, only dipping for the space
of a single thread or so below it.

It results from the way of working that you get
in darning an interrupted line which is characteristic
of the stitch. What is called "double darning,"
by which the breaks in the single darning are
made good, has in effect no character of darning
whatever.

Darning has a homely sound, but it is useful for
more than mending. In embroidery you use it no
longer to replace threads worn away, but to build up
upon the scaffolding of a merely serviceable material
what may be a gorgeous design in silk.

&ffit?

43. DARNING SAMPLER.

io8 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

Darning is worked, of course, in rows backwards
and forwards ; but if the stitches are long and in
the direction of the weft, it is as well not to run
the returning row next to the one just done, but
to leave space for a second course of darning after-
wards between the open rows.

The darning of the sampler, Illustration 43, is
very simple. The flower is darned in stitches of
fairly equal length, taking up one thread of the
material, and covering a space of almost a quarter
of an inch before taking up the next thread. The
outline of a petal is first worked, and successive
rows of darning follow the lines of the flower,
expressing to some extent its form. Much depends
upon the direction of the stitch.

The texture of the work depends upon the length
of the stitches, and on the amount of the stuff
showing through.

Darning is usually supplemented by outlining.
The sampler is designed to show how far one can
dispense with it. The flower stalk is defined by
darning the first row in a darker colour ; for the
rest, voiding is employed, but it is not easy to
void in darning.

The background is darned diaper fashion. It
gives, that is to say, deliberately diagonal lines. A
background irregularly darned should be irregular
enough never to run into lines the worker did not
contemplate.

In the case of large leaves, veined, the veining

44. DARNING DESIGNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS.

i io ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

should be worked first, and the stitches between
them should radiate outwards to the edge of the leaf.

More accomplished work in darning is shown in
the border by William Morris in Illustration 44,
where, however, it appears much flatter than in
the coloured silk. It is worked solid, the radiating
stitches accommodating themselves to the forms of
the leaves and petals, which, in fact, are designed
with a view to their execution in this way. They
are defined by outline-stitching — light or dark as
occasion seemed to require.

Mention has already been made of darning
a propos of canvas-stitch ; and there is a sort of
natural correspondence between the mechanism of
darning in its simplest form and the network of
open threads which gives to rectangular work like
that opposite a character which more than com-
pensates for its angularity in outline. The darning
is there quite even in workmanship, but it is, as
will be seen, of different degrees of strength —
lighter for the surface of the pattern, heavier for
the outline.

You may qualify the colour of a stuff by lightly
darning it with silk of another shade ; and very
subtle tints may be got by thus, as it were, veiling
a coloured ground with silks of various hues.

45- FLAT DARNING UPON A SQUARE MESH.

LAID-WORK.

The necessity for something like what is called
"LAID-WORK" is best shown by reference to
satin-stitch. It was said in reference to it that
satin-stitches should not be too long. There is a
great deal of Eastern work in which surface satin-
stitch, or its equivalent, floats so loosely upon
the face of the stuff that it can only be described
as flimsy. Nothing could be more beautiful in its
way than certain Soudanese embroidery, in which
coloured floss in stitches an inch or more long lies
glistening on the stuff without any interruption of
threads to fasten it down.

Embroidery of this kind, however, hardly comes
within the scope of practical work. Long, loose
stitches want sewing down. Some compromise
has to be made between use and beauty. The
problem is to make the work strong enough
without seriously disturbing its lustrous surface,
and the solution of it is " laid-work," at which we
arrive thus almost of necessity.

It involves no new stitch, but is only another
way of using stitches already described. In laid-
work, long tresses of silk, as William Morris called

46. LAID-WORK SAMPLER.

114 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

them, floss by preference, are thrown backwards
and forwards across the face of the stuff, only just
dipping into it at the edges of the forms, and up
again. These silken tresses are then caught down
and kept, I will not say close to the ground, but
in their place upon it, by lines of stitching in the
cross direction.

Laid-work is not, at the best, a very strong or
lasting kind of embroidery (it needs to be carefully
covered up even as it is worked) ; but by no other
means is the silky beauty of coloured floss so
perfectly set forth. It is hardly worth doing in
anything but floss.

Laid-work lends itself also to gradation of
colour within certain limits — the limits, that is
to say, of the straight parallel lines in which
the floss is laid ; the direction of these is deter-
mined often by the lines of sewing which are
to cross them. In any case the direction of the
threads is here more than ever important. The
sewing down must take lines and may form a
pattern.

The sampler, Illustration 46, wants little or no
explanation. It illustrates the various ways of
laying. In the leaf the floss is sewn down with
split-stitch, which forms the veining. Elsewhere it
is kept in place by " couching," a process presently
to be described (page 122). For the outlines, split-
stitch and couching are employed. The last row
of laid work in the grounding is purposely pulled

47- JAPANESE LAID-WORK.

n6 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

out of the straight by the couching in order to
give a waved edge. The diaper which represents
the seeding of the flower is not, properly speaking,
laid-work : separate threads of white purse silk are
one by one couched down with dark.

For the transverse stitching, for which also it
is best to use floss, either split-stitch may be
used, as in the leaf in the sampler, Illustration 46,
or a thread may be laid across and sewn down —
couched, that is to say — as in the flower. The
closer the cross lines the stronger the work, but
the less lustrous the effect.

Laid floss may be employed to glorify the entire
surface of a linen material, as in the sampler, or for
the pattern only, as in Illustrations 47, 48, 49, if the
ground is worth showing.

Laid-work will not give anything like modelling,
and it is not best suited to figure design, except
where it is quite flatly treated. An instance of its
use in figure work occurs in Illustration 79. It is
effective when quite naively and simply used in
cross lines which do not appear to take any account
of the forms crossed — as, for example, in Illustration
47, where the stitching does not pretend to express
more than a flat surface. The floss, however, is
there carefully laid at a different angle of inclination
in each petal, so as to give variety of colour. The
lines of sewing vary according to the lines of the
laid floss, but do not cross them at right angles.
The important thing is, of course, that they should

48. INDO-POKTUGUESE LAID-WORK.

ii8 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

catch the laid "tresses" at intervals not too far
apart. If the lines which sew down the floss have
also to express drawing, as in the case of the bird's
wings in Illustration 48, the underlying floss must
be laid in such a direction that they will cross it.
In the case of the leaves in the same piece of work,
the floss is laid in the direction in which the leaf
grows, and the stitching across, which sews it
down, is slightly curved so as to suggest roundness
in them.

A more finished piece of work is shown in
Illustration 49, where the laid floss crosses the
forms, and the sewing down takes very much the
place of veining in the flower, and of ribs in the
scroll, expressing about as much modelling as can
be expressed this way, and more, perhaps, than it
is advisable often to attempt.

The sewing down asserts itself most, of course,
when it is in a colour contrasting with the laid
floss, as it does in the leaves in the smaller sampler
overleaf (50).

The stitching down makes usually a pattern
more or less conspicuous. On this same sampler
it does so very deliberately in the case of the
broad stalk. The rather sudden variation of
the colour shown there in the leaves is harmless
enough in bold work, to which the process is best
suited. One may be too careful in gradating
the tints : timidity in this respect prevails too much
among modern needlewomen : an artist in floss

49- ITALIAN LAID-WORK.

I2O

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

should not want her work to look like a gradated
wash of colour. The Italians of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries (Illustration 49) were not
afraid of rather abrupt transition in the shades of
colour they used for laid-work.

When laid floss is kept in place by threads
themselves sewn down across it, such threads are

50. LAID SAMPLER.

called "couched," and the work itself may be
described as laid and couched. Hence arises
some confusion between the two methods of work
— laying and couching. It saves confusion to
make a sharp distinction between the two — using
the term " laid " only for stitches (floss) first loosely
laid upon the surface of the stuff and then sewn

LAID-WORK. 121

down by cross lines of stitching of whatever kind,
and " couched " for the sewing down of cords, &c.
(silk or gold), thread by thread or in pairs. Laid
floss is sewn down en masse, couched silk in single
or double threads. Accordingly laid-work answers
best for surface covering, couched work for out-
lining, except in the case of gold, which even for
surface covering is always couched.

COUCHING.

COUCHING is the sewing down of one thread by
another — as in the outline of the flower on the laid
sampler, Illustration 46. The stitches with which
it is sewn down, thread by thread, or in the case
of gold, two threads at a time, are best worked
from right to left, or, in outlining, from outside the
forms inwards. A waxed thread is often used
for the purpose. Naturally the cord to be sewn
down should be held fairly tightly in place to keep
the line even.

It is usual in couching to sew down the silk
or cord with stitches crossing it at right angles,
except in the case of a twisted cord, which should
be sewn down with stitches in the direction of
the twist.

Couching is best done in a frame ; but it may
be done in the hand by means of buttonhole-
stitch.

When a surface is covered with couching, as in
the seeding of the flower in the sampler, Illustra-
tion 46, the sewing down stitches make a pattern
— all the plainer there, because the stitching is in
a contrasting shade of colour. It is quite per-

SI. A. BULLION. B. COUCHED CORD.

124 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

missible to call attention to the stitching when
there is some artistic advantage in so doing. To
disguise it by sewing through the cord is not a
workmanlike practice. A worker should frankly
accept a method of work. There is character to
be got out of it.

Embroidresses have a clever way of untwisting
a cord before each stitch and twisting it again after
stitching through it — between the strands. This
device by which the stitching is lost to sight is rather
too clever. It shows a cord with no visible means
of attachment to the ground, which is not desir-
able, however much desired. There is no advan-
tage in attaching cords to the surface of silk so
that they look as if they had been glued on to it.
Conjuring tricks are highly amusing, but one does
not think very highly of conjurers. Personally, I
would much rather have seen more plainly the way
the cord is sewn down in the graceful cross in
Illustration 51, a design perfectly adapted to couch-
ing, and yet unlike the usual thing.

Where it is softish silk which is stitched down,
it makes a great difference whether it is loosely
held and tightly sewn, or the contrary. Contrast
the short puffy lines nearest the corners in the
sampler, Illustration 52, with the longer ones
between the broad and narrow bands. The broad
band is worked in rows of double filoselle, of
various shades, sewn down with single filoselle.
In the narrower bands twisted silk is sewn down

COUCHING.

125

with stitches in the direction of its twist. This is
more plainly seen in the upper of the two bands,
where the sloping stitches are lighter in colour than
the cord sewn down.

Characteristic use is made of rather puffy
couching in the ornament of the lady's dress in
Miss Keighley's panel, Illustration 61, where it has

52. COUCHING SAMPLER.

very much the richness of embroidery in seed
pearls.

It was a common practice in Germany in the
sixteenth century to work in solid couching upon
cloth, employing a twisted thread and sewing it
with stitches in the direction of the twist, so that
at first sight one does not recognise it as couching.
It looks like rather coarse stitching in the direction

126 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

of the forms, and expresses shading very well.
The cloth ground accounts, perhaps, for the choice
of method : the material is not otherwise a pleasant
one to embroider upon.

A rather earlier German method was to couch
in parallel lines of white upon white linen, and so
get relief and texture but no modelling, though the
drawing was helped by varying the direction of
the parallel lines.

The entire surface of a linen ground was some-
times covered with couched threads of silk or fine
wool — some of it in vertical and horizontal lines,
some of it in the direction of the pattern. This,
again, was a German practice, as may be seen in
the Hildesheim Cope at South Kensington.

All-over couching may be used with advantage
to renew the ground of embroidery so worn as to
be unsightly ; and it is more lasting than laid-work
for the purpose. It is laborious to do, but more
satisfactory when done than remounting ; and one
or the other is sometimes a necessity. The effect
of age is, up to a certain point, pleasing : rags
are not.

Couching, however (except with gold), was more
commonly used for outlining, and is quite peculiarly
suited to give a firm line. A beautiful example of
outline work in coloured silk upon white linen is
pictured in Illustration 98, in which the lines
of delicate Renaissance arabesque are perfectly
preserved. The rare practice of such work as

COUCHING IN LOOPED THREADS.

128 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

this, notwithstanding its distinguished appearance,
is sufficiently accounted for by its modesty. It
wants well-considered and definitely drawn design.
There is no possible fudging with it.

The value of a couched cord as an outline to
stitching (satin-stitch in this instance) is shown
in Illustration 99, in which the singularly well-
schemed and well-drawn lines of the ornament are
given with faultless precision. This is a portion of
an altogether admirable frame lo an altogether
foolish picture in needlework, of which a fragment
only is shown.

The appropriateness of couched cord to the out-
lining of inlay or of applique is seen in the two
examples which form Illustration 62. In the one
(A) it defines the clear-cut counterchange pattern ;
in the other (B), being of a tint intermediate between
the ground and the ornament, it softens the contrast
between them. An interesting technical point in
the design of this last is the way the cord outlining
the leaves makes a sufficiently thick stalk, coming
together, as it naturally does, double at the ends
of the leaves.

This occurs again in Illustration 63, where the
double threads which form the stalks, though
separately stitched down, are couched again at
intervals by bands crossing the two — at the spring-
ing of the stalks and tendrils, for example, where
joins inevitably occur. The cords forming the
central stalk are in one case looped.

COUCHING.

129

- f • •' /

" ' '

54. REVERSE COUCHING.

Fantastic use has
often been made
of the looping of
couched cord. The
Spanish embroid-
erers made most
ornamental use of
a wee loop at the
points of the leaves
where the cord
must turn ; but the
device of looping
may easily be used
to frivolous pur-
pose. A regularly looped line at once suggests
lace. A perplexing Chinese practice is to couch
fine cord in little loops so close together that they
touch. A surface filled in after this manner, as in
the butterflies on Illustration 53, might pass at first
sight for French knots or chain-stitch : it is really
another method of all-over couching.

A double course of couching forms the outline in
Illustration 100, one of filoselle and one of cord,
separately sewn ; but the tendrils, which are of
silver thread, are sewn down, both threads at a
time, with double stitches, very obvious in the
illustration. Over the couched silver threads
which form the main rib of the leaf a pattern
is stitched in silk.

A propos of couching, mention must be made of a
I

WX'/?3

130 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

way of working
used in the famous
Syon Cope by way
of background
(Illustration 54).
The ground stuff
is linen, twofold,
and it is worked
in silk, which lies
nearly all upon the
surface. The stitch
runs from point to

55. REVERSE COUCHING (BACK). point Qf fa^ zigzag

pattern ; there it

penetrates the stuff, is carried round a thread of
flax laid at the back of the material, and is brought
to the surface again through the hole made by the
needle in passing down. That is to say, the silken
thread only dips through the linen at the points
in the pattern, and is there caught down by a
thread of flax on the under-surface of the linen.
The reverse of the work (Illustration 55) shows
a surface of flax threads couched with silk, for
which reason the method may be described as
reverse couching. On the face it gives an admir-
able surface diaper, flat without being mechanical.
It is easily worked with a blunt needle; with a
sharp one there would be a danger of splitting the
stitch. It is a kind of work on which two persons
might be employed, one on either side of the stuff.

COUCHED GOLD.

Silk does not appear to have been couched in
the East in early days ; and, as it was the custom
to couch gold thread in Europe at least as early
as the twelfth century, it is to be presumed that
the method was first used for gold, which, except
in the form of thin wire or extraordinarily fine
thread, is not quite the thing to stitch with.
Besides, it was natural to wish to keep the precious
metal on the surface, and to let none of it be hidden
away at the back of the stuff.

A distinguishing feature about gold is that by
common consent it is used double and sewn down
two threads at a time. This is hot merely an
economy of work ; but except in the case of thick
cords or strips of gold, it has a more satisfactory
effect — why it is not easy to say. Panels A, B, C,
in the sampler, Illustration 56, are couched in
double threads, D in single cords.

Gold couching is there used, as it mostly is, to
cover a surface. In doing that, it is usual to sew
the. threads firmly down at the edges of the forms
and cut them very sharply off; but they may
equally well be carried backwards and forwards

132 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

across the face of the stuff. The slight swelling of
the gold thread where it turns gives emphasis to the
outline ; but the turning wants carefully doing, and
the gold thread must not be too thick. If you use
a large needle (to clear the way for the thread),
the turning of the gold may take place on the
back instead of on the face of the material, but
only in the case of very fine thread.

Gold threads often want stroking into position.
This may be done with what is called a " pierce " ;
but a good stiletto, or even a very large needle,
will answer the purpose. Sharply pointed scissors
are indispensable.

In solid couching the stitches run almost
inevitably into pattern ; and it is customary,
therefore, to start with the assumption that they
will do so, and deliberately to make them into
pattern — to work them, that is to say, in vertical,
diagonal, or cross lines as at A, in zigzags as
at B, or in some more complicated diaper pattern
as at C. The stitching is there purposely in pro-
nounced colour, that the pattern may be quite
clearly seen ; at D it has more its proper value,
that the effect of it may be better appreciated.
The pattern may, of course, be helped by the colour
of the stitching. In making the necessary stitches
into appropriate pattern there is scope for art.

In fact the ornamentist, being an ornamentist,
naturally takes advantage of the necessity of stitch-
ing, to pattern his metallic surfaces with diaper,

56. COUCHED GOLD SAMPLER.

134 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

using often, as in the scroll in Illustration 57, a
diversity of pattern, which gives at once varied
texture and fanciful interest to the surface. There
is quite an epitome of little diapers in that frag-
ment of needlework ; and one can hardly doubt
that the embroiderer found it great fun to contrive
them. The flat strips of metal emphasising the
backs of the curves are sometimes twisted as they
are sewn.

Relief is given to the other diapers on the
sampler, F, G, H, J, by underlying cords. They
have been purposely left bare in parts to show
the structure. These underlying cords must be
firmly sewn on to the linen ground ; and if the
stitching follows the direction of the twist in them,
the round surface is not so likely to be roughened
by it. By rights, the cords should be laid farther
apart than in the sampler, where the attempt to
force the effect (for the purpose of demonstration)
has not proved very successful. An infinity of
basket patterns, as these may be called (basket
stitches they are not), may be devised by varying
the intervals at which the gold threads are sewn
down, and the number of cords they cross at a time.

The central panel of the sampler (E) shows
a combination of flat and raised gold. The
outline of the heart is corded ; the centre of it is
raised by stitching, first with crewel wool and then
with gold-coloured floss across that (it is difficult
to prevent white stuffing from showing through

COUCHED SILVER.

136 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

gold). This gives only a hint of what may be done
in the way of raised ornament upon a flat gold
ground, and was done in mediaeval work. A single
quite thick cord may be sewn down to make a
pattern in relief — leafage, scrollwork, or what not —
which when the surface is all worked over with
gold, has very much the effect of gilt gesso. If,
for any reason, it is necessary to do heavy work of
this kind on silk or satin, that must first be backed
with strong linen.

In mediaeval and church work generally the
double threads are usually laid close together,
forming, as in the diapers on sampler, a solid
surface of gold ; and that was largely done in
Oriental embroidery too — in Chinese, for example,
where, however, the threads, instead of being
couched in straight lines, follow the outlines of
the design, and are worked ring within ring until
the space is filled, as in the dragon's face, A,
Illustration 58. There is here, as in the working
of the dragon's body, a certain economy of gold ;
a small amount of the ground is allowed to show
between the lines of double gold thread — not
enough to tell as ground, but enough to give a
tint of the ground colour to the metal. Further, in
this more open work the direction of the lines of
couching goes for more than in solid embroidery.
The pattern made by the gold thread is tiere not
only ornamental but suggestive of the scaly body of
the creature. It will be seen, too, how, in the working

>. COUCHED GOLD NOT QUITE SOLID.

138 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

of the legs, the relatively compact gold threads are
kept well within the outline, by which means any-
thing like harshness of silhouette is avoided.

That this less solid manner was not confined to
the far East is shown by the Venetian valance,
B, on the lower part of page 137, which has very
much the appearance of gold lace.

A good example of outline (single thread) in gold
is given in Illustration 59, part of an Italian housing,
which reminds one both in effect and in design
of damascening, to which it is in some respects
equivalent ; only, instead of gold and silver wire
beaten into black iron or steel we have gold and
silver thread sewn on to dark velvet. The design
recalls also the French bookbindings of the period
of Henri II., in which the tooled ornament was
precisely of this character. The resemblance is
none the less that an occasional detail is worked
more solidly ; but in the main this is outline work,
and a beautiful example of it. The art in work
of that kind is, of course, largely in the design.
Gold thread work in spiral forms has very much
the effect of filigree in gold wire.

The next step is where the cords of gold enclose
little touches of embroidery in coloured floss, as
in Illustration 99. These have the value of so
many jewels or bits of bright enamel. In fact,
just as outline work in simple gold thread re-
sembles damascening or filigree, so this outlining
of little spaces of coloured silk suggests enamel.

COUCHED OUTLINE WORK.

140 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

The cord of the embroiderer answers to the
cloisons of the enameller, the surfaces of shining
floss to the films of vitreous enamel.

Applique" embroidery is constantly edged with
gold or silver thread. An effective, if rather rude,
example of this, the threads always double, is
given in Illustration 60.

In couching more than one thread at a time there
is a difficulty in turning the angles. The threads
give, of necessity, only gently rounded forms. To
get anything like a sharp point, you must stop
short with the inner thread before reaching the
extreme turning point, and take it up again on
your way back. What applies to two threads,
applies of course still more forcibly to three.

The colour with which gold thread is sewn is a
question of considerable importance. If the stitches
are close enough together to make sound work, they
give a flush of colour to the gold. Advantage is
commonly taken of this both in mediaeval and
Oriental work to warm the tint by sewing it down
with red. The Chinese will even work with a
deeper and a paler red to get two coppery shades.
White stitching pales the gold, yellow modifies it
least, green cools it, and blue makes it greener.
The closer the stitches the deeper the tint of
course.

You can get thus various shades of gold out
of the same thread, and even gradation from one
to another, as may be seen in a great deal of

6O. APPLIQUE — SATIN ON VELVET.

142 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

Spanish work of the sixteenth century, in which the
gold ornament is often quite delicately shaded
from yellowish gold to ruddy copper on the one
hand, and to bronzy green on the other. Similar
use may be made of vari-coloured silks in
couching white or other cord ; but gold reflects
the colour as silk does not, and gives proportion-
ately more subtle effects.

The Flemings and Italians of the early Renais-
sance went further. They had a way of laying
threads of gold and sewing them so closely over
with coloured silk that in many parts it quite hid
the gold. Only in proportion as they wanted to
lighten the colour of the draperies in their pic-
torial embroideries did they space the stitches
farther and farther apart, and let the gold gleam
through. Except in the high lights it did not
pronounce itself positively. The effect is not
unlike what is seen in paintings of the primitive
school, where the high lights of the red and blue
draperies are hatched with gold. The practice
of the embroiderer may be reminiscent of that, or
that may be the origin of the primitive painters'
convention. It is much as if the embroiderer
wanted to represent a precious tissue, a stuff shot
with gold.

Illustration 80 gives part of a figure worked in
this way, relieved against a more golden architec-
tural background worked, as you can see, over
the very same double threads of gold which run

COUCHED GOLD. 143

across the figures. In the architecture, however,
they are couched in stitches which are never so
near as to take away from the effect of the gold.
The different degrees to which the gold may
be obscured or clouded by oversewing are here
shown in. most instructive contrast. The cords,
as usual, are laid in horizontal courses. That
was the convenient way of working. It resulted
in a corded look, which has very much the appear-
ance of tapestry ; and there is no doubt that
resemblance to tapestry was in the end con-
sciously sought. That the method here employed
was laborious needs so saying ; but it gave most
beautiful, if at times pictorial, results.

APPLIQUE.

Embroidery, it has been shown, is much of it
on the surface of the stuff, not just needle stitches,
but the stitching-on of something — cord, gold
thread, or whatever it may be. And instances
have been given where the design of such work
was not merely in outline, but where certain
details (Illustration 59) were filled in with stitch-
ing. Yet another practice, and one more strictly
in keeping with the onlaying of cord, was to
onlay the solid too, applying, that is to say, the
surface colour also in the form of pieces of silk
or other material cut to shape.

Patterns of this kind may be conceived as
line work developing into more or less leafy
terminations, the APPLIQUE only an adjunct to
couching (Illustration 63) ; or they may be
thought of as massive work eked out with line —
the applique, that is to say, the main thing, the
couching only supplementary (Illustration 100).
An intermediate kind is where outline and mass —
couching and applique — play parts of something
like equal importance in the scheme of design
(Illustration 60).

APPLIQUE. 145

Couched cord or filoselle is used in covering
the raw edge of the onlay, not merely masking
the joints but making them sightly.

Appliqud must be carefully and exactly done,
and is best worked in a frame. It is almost as
much a man's work as a woman's. Embroidery
proper is properly woman's work ; but here,
as in the case of tailoring, the man comes in.
The getting ready for applique is not the kind
of thing a woman can do best. In the East, by
the way, embroidery is looked upon as man's
work, and so it is in Brittany.

The finishing it may sometimes be done in the
hand ; and very bold, coarse work may possibly
be worked throughout in the hand, and outlined
with buttonhole-stitch (chain-stitch is not so
appropriate) ; but when a couched outline is
employed it must be done in a frame, and,
indeed, work with any pretensions to finish is
invariably executed from first to last in the
frame.

To work applique you want, in fact, two frames
— one on which to mount the material to be
embroidered, and another on which to mount
the material to be applied. The backing in each
case should be of smooth holland. This is
stretched on to the frame, and then pasted with
stiff" starch or what not ; the silk or velvet is laid
on to it, stroked with a soft rag until it adheres,
and left to dry gently. When dry, the outlines

146 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

of the complete design are traced upon the one,
and those of the details to be applied upon the
other. (You may paste, of course, silks of two or
three colours upon one backing for this.) The
stuff to be applied is then loosened from its
frame, the details are cleanly cut out with scissors,
or, better still, a knife (in either case sharp), and
transferred to their place in the design on the
other frame. There they are kept in position by
short steel pins planted upright into the stuff, and
when you are sure they fit, tacked firmly down,
with care that the stitches are such as will be
quite covered by the final couching, chain stitch,
or whatever is to be your outline.

In the case of silk or other delicate material,
peculiar care must be taken that the paste is not
moist enough to penetrate the stuff; but an
experienced worker has no fear of that.

A firm outline is a condition of applique, and
couched cord fulfils it most perfectly. Much
depends upon a tasteful and tactful choice of
colour for it. You fatten your pattern by out-
lining it with a colour which goes with it
(Illustration 62, B). You thin it by one which
merges into the ground. Very subtle use may be
made of a double outline or of a corded line upon
couched floss. There is a double outline to the
ornament in Illustration 100 : the inner one next
to the yellow satin appliqu6 is of gold, the outer
one next the crimson velvet ground is of white

148 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

sewn with pale blue. This gives emphasis to the
bold forms of the leafage. The mid-rib there is
of silver couching ; the minor veinings are stitched
in silk, and are rather insignificant.

The less there is of extra stitching on applique"
the better as a rule. It disturbs the breadth,
which is so valuable a characteristic of onlay. In
no case is the mixing of opposite methods greatly
to be desired ; and if applique is to be supple-
mented, it had best be with couching, which is
not so much stitching as stitched down, itself
another form of applied work.

Applique of itself is not, of course, adapted to
pictorial work, but that in association with judicious
stitching and couching it may be used to admir-
able decorative purpose in figure design is shown
by Miss Mabel Keighley's panel, Illustration 61.
What an artist may do depends upon the artist.
Miss Keighley's panel indicates the use that may
be made of texture in the stuff onlaid.

Applique" is especially appropriate to bold church
work, fulfilling perfectly that condition of legibility
so desirable in work necessarily seen oftenest from
afar. Broadly designed, it may be as fine in its
way as a mediaeval stained glass window, and it
gives to silk and velvet their true worth. The
pattern may be readable as far off as you can
distinguish colour.

Applique work is thought by some to be an
inferior kind of embroidery. That is not so. It

62. A. COUNTERCHANGE.

B. APPLIQUE.

ISO ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

is not a lower but another kind of needlework, in
which more is made of stuffs than of the stitches.
In it the craft of the needleworker is not carried
to its limit ; but, on the other hand, it makes
great demands upon design. You cannot begin
by just throwing about sprays of natural flowers.
It calls peremptorily for treatment — by which
test the decorative artist stands or falls. Effective
it must be ; coarse it may be ; vulgar it should
not be ; trivial it can hardly be. Mere prettiness
is outside its scope. It lends itself to dignity of
design and nobility of treatment. Of course, it
is not popular.

A usual form of applique is in satin upon velvet.
Velvet on satin (B, Illustration 62) is comparatively
rare ; but it may be very beautiful, though there
is a danger that it may look like weaving.

Silk upon silk is shown in Illustration 63,
designed to be seen from a nearer point of view,
and less pronounced in pattern accordingly. The
strap work, applied in ribbon, is broken by cross
stitches in couples, which take away from the
severity of the lines. The grape bunches are
onlaid, each in one piece of silk, the forms of
the separate grapes expressed by couching. The
French knots in the centre of the grapes add
greatly to the richness of the surface. The leaves
are in one piece.

The application of leather to velvet as in Illus-
tration 102, allows, if it does not actually involve,

APPLIQUE — SILK ON SILK DAMASK.

152 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

some modification in the way of execution, and
of design adapted to it. Leather does not fray,
and needs, therefore, no sewing over at tjie edge,
but only sewing down, which may be done, as
in this case, well within the edge of the material,
giving the effect of a double outline. The Chinese
do small work in linen, making similar use of the
stitching within the outline, but turning the cut
edge of the stuff under ; it would not do to leave
it raw. On a bolder scale, but in precisely the
same manner, is embroidered the wonderful tent
of Frangois Ier, taken at the battle of Pavia, and
now in the Armoury at Madrid — obviously Arab
work. Something of the kind was done also in
Morocco ; and this points to leather work as the
possible origin of the method.

Another ingenious Chinese notion is to sew
down little five-petalled flowers (turned under at
the edges) with long stamen stitches radiating
from a central eye of knots.

INLAY, MOSAIC, CUT-WORK.

A step beyond the process of onlaying is INLAY,
where a material is laid not on to the other but
into it, both being perhaps backed by a common
material. The process is, in fact, precisely analo-
gous to that inlay of brass and tortoiseshell which
goes by the name of its inventor, Boule. The work
is difficult, but thorough. It does not recommend
itself to those who want to get effect cheaply ; and
it is suited only to close-textured stuffs, such as
cloth, which do not easily fray.

The materials are not pasted on to linen, as in TO WORK
the case of applique. The cloth to be inlaid is INLAY-
placed upon the other, and both, are cut through
with one action of the knife, so that the parts
cannot but fit. The coherent piece of material
(the ground, say, of the pattern) is then laid upon
a piece of strong linen already in a frame ; the
vacant spaces in it are filled up by pieces of the
other stuff, and all is tacked down in place. That
done, the work is taken out of the frame, and the
edges sewn together. The backing can then, if
necessary, be removed ; and in Oriental work it
generally was.

154 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

Inlay lends itself most invitingly to COUNTER-
CHANGE in design. In the stole (A) on page 149
the light and dark portions of the pattern are
identical. You cannot say that either is the
ground ; each forms a ground to the other. And
from the mere fact of the counterchanging you
gather that it is inlaid and not onlaid.

TO WORK Prior to inlaying in materials which are at all
CHANGE n^ely to fray, you first back them with paper, thin
but tough, firmly pasted ; then, having tacked the
two together, and pinned them with drawing-pins
on to a board, you slip between it and the stuff a
sheet of glass, and with a very sharp knife (kept
sharp by an oilstone at hand) cut out the pattern.
What was cut out of one material has only to be
fitted into the other and sewn together as before,
and you have two pieces of inlaid work — what is
the ground in one forming the pattern in the
other, and vice versa. By this ingenious means
there is absolutely no waste of stuff. You get,
moreover, almost invariably a broad and dignified
effect: the process does not lend itself to triviality.
It was used by the Italians, and more especially
by the Spaniards of the Renaissance, who borrowed
the idea, of course, from the Arabs.

In India they still inlay in cloth most marvel-
lously, not only counterchanging the pattern, but
inlaying the inlays with smaller patternwork, thus
combining great simplicity of effect with wonderful
minuteness of detail. The inlaid work of Retsht

156 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

in Persia, Illustration 64, is of a more elaborate
character. In both countries they mask the joins
with chain-stitch, the colour of it artfully chosen
with regard to the two colours of the cloth it
divides or joins. Further, they often patch together
pieces of this kind of inlay.

PATCH- Inlay itself is a sort of PATCHWORK. You

WORK. cut pieces out of your cloth, and patch it with
pieces of another colour, covering the joins perhaps
as in the Retsht work, with chain-stitch, which, by
its likeness to wire filigree, suggests cloisonne
enamel.

Where there is no one ground stuff to be
patched, but a number of vari-coloured pieces of
stuff are sewn together, they form a veritable
MOSAIC of coloured stuffs, reminding one of what
the mediaeval glaziers did in coloured glass.
Admirable heraldic work was done in Germany
by this method ; and it is still universally employed
for flag making. The stuffs used should be as
nearly as possible of one substance. In patchwork
of loosely-textured material each separate piece of
stuff may be cut large, turned in at the edge, and
oversewn on the wrong side.

CUT- The relation of CUT-WORK to inlay is clear — in

WORK. fac^ the one is the first step towards the other.
You have only to stop short of the actual inlaying,
and you have cut-work. Fill up the parts cut out
in Illustration 65 with coloured stuff, and it would
be inlay. The needlewoman has preferred to sew

158 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

over the raw edges of the stuff, and give us a
perfect piece of FRETWORK in linen. It is part of
the game in cut-work to make the fret coherent,
whole in itself. The design should tell its own
tale. " Ties " of buttonhole-stitch, or what not, are
not necessary, provided the designer knows how
to plan a fret pattern. Their introduction brings
the work nearer to lace than embroidery. The
sewing-over may be in chain-stitch, satin-stitch
(as in Illustration 65), or in buttonhole-stitch —
which last is strongest.

As, in the case of applique", inlay, and mosaic, an
embroidered outline is usually necessary to cover
the join, so in the case of cut-work sewing-over is
necessary to keep the edges from fraying. It may
sometimes be advisable to supplement this out-
lining by further stitching to express veining, or
give other minute details — just as the glassworker,
when he could not get detail small enough by
means of glazing, had recourse to painting to help
him out. But there is danger in calling in auxiliary
methods. It is best to design with a view to
the method of work to be employed, and to keep
within its limits. To worry the surface of applied,
inlaid, or cut stuff with fmnikin stitchery, is practi-
cally to confess either the inadequacy of the design
or the fidgetiness of the worker. It should need,
as a rule, no such enrichment.

EMBROIDERY IN RELIEF.

Embroidery being work upon a stuff, it is
inevitably raised, however imperceptibly, above
the surface of it. But there is a charm in the
unevenness of surface and texture thus produced ;
and the aim has consequently often been to make
the difference of level between ground-stuff and
embroidery more appreciable by UNDERLAY or
padding of some kind. The abuse of this kind of
thing need not blind us to the advantages it offers.

There are various ways of raising embroidery,
the principal of which are illustrated on the
sampler overleaf.

In sprig A the underlay is of closely-woven cloth, TO WORK
darker in colour than would be advisable except A-

for the purpose of showing what it is : it is as
well in the ordinary way to choose a cloth more
or less of the colour the embroidery is to be. The
cloth is cut with sharp scissors carefully to shape,
but a little within the outline, and pasted on to
the linen. When perfectly dry, it is worked over
with thick corded silk couched in the ordinary way.

The raised line at B reveals the way the stem in TO WORK
Illustration 86 was worked. Two cords of smooth B>

160 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

string (macrame", for example) are twisted and
tacked in place. Over this floss is worked in
close satin-stitch.

TO WORK In sprig C the underlay is of parchment, lightly
stitched in place. The use of a double underlay
in parts gives additional relief. The embroidery
upon this (in slightly twisted silk) is in satin-
stitch.

TO WORK The leaf shapes at D are padded with cotton

D- wool, cut out as nearly as possible to the shape

required, and tacked down with fine cotton. They
are then worked over with floss in satin-stitch.
The stalks are not padded with cotton wool,
but first worked with crewel wool, which, being
soft and elastic, forms an excellent ground for
working over in floss silk.

TO WORK In working a stalk like that at E, you first lay
down a double layer of soft, thick cotton, and then
work over it with flatter cotton (made expressly for
padding) in slanting satin-stitch. Three threads of
smooth round silk are then attached to one side
of the padding and carried diagonally across to
the other side, where they are sewn down with
strong thread of the same colour close to the
underlay, so that the stitches may not show.
They are then brought back to the side from
which they started, sewn down, and returned
again, and so backwards and forwards to the
end. The crossing threads make a sort of pat-
tern, and it is a point of good workmanship that

66. RAISED WORK SAMPLER.
L

1 62 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

they should cross regularly. Such pattern is more
obvious when threads of three different shades
of colour are employed. Threads of twisted silk
may, of course, be equally well used this way
without padding underneath.

TO WORK In sprig F the underlay is of cardboard, pasted
F- on to the linen. It is worked over with purse silk,

to and fro across the forms, and sewn down at the
margin with finer silk. This is a method of work
often employed when gold thread is used.
TO WORK In sprig G the underlay or stuffing is of string
sewn down with stitches always in the direction
of the twist. It is worked over with floss in
satin-stitch.

TO WORK In sprig H the underwork consists of stitching
H* in soft cotton, over which thick silk is embroidered

in bullion-stitch. The rule is to work the first
stitching in such a direction that the surface work
crosses it at right angles. The small leaf is worked
over with fine purse silk in satin-stitch, which
is used also for the stalk.

In the smaller sampler of laid-work, Illus-
tration 50, the broad stem is twice underlaid with
crewel, excellent for this soft sort of padding, on
account of its elasticity. The leaves have there
only one layer of understitching.

Raised work in white upon white is often used
for purposes which make it inevitable that sooner
or later the work will be washed. That is a con-
sideration which the embroidress must not leave

RAISED WORK SHOWING UNDERLAY.

164 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

out of account. In any case, work over stitchery
is more durable than over loose padding such as
cotton wool.

The fifteenth-century work reproduced in Illustra-
tion 67 is in flax thread on linen, and the underlay
(laid bare in the topmost flower) is of stiff linen,
sewn down, not at the margins as in the case of
the parchment on the sampler (Illustration 66), but
by a row of stitching up the centre of each petal.
The veins of the leaves in Illustration 88 are
padded with embroidery cotton and worked over
with filo-floss. The leaves themselves are not
padded, though the sewing down of the veins
upon them, as well as the fact that they are
applied on to the velvet ground, gives some
appearance of relief.

RAISED GOLD.

Our sampler of raised work is done in silk.
Underlaying is more often used to raise work in
gold, to which in most respects it is best suited.
The methods shown in the sampler would answer
almost equally well for gold, except that working
in gold one would not at H (66) use bullion-stitch,
but bullion, first covering the underlay of stitching
with smoothly-laid yellow floss.

BULLION consists of closely coiled wire. It is
made by winding fine wire tightly and closely
round a core of stouter wire. When this central
core of wire is withdrawn, you have a long hollow
tube of spirally twisted wire. This the embroidress
cuts into short lengths as required, and sews on to
the silk — as she would a long bead or bugle. Its
use is illustrated at A in Illustration 51, where the
stems of triple gold cord are clamped down at
intervals with bullion, and the leaves, again, are
filled in with the same.

It was the mediaeval fashion to encrust the
robes of kings and pontiffs with pearls and
precious stones mounted in gold : the early
Byzantine form of crown was practically a velvet

166 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

cap, on to which were sewn plaques of gorgeous
enamel and mounted stones. When to such work
embroidery was added, it was not unnatural that
it should vie with the gold setting. As a matter
of fact, its design was often only a translation into
needlework of the forms proper to goldsmith's
work.

Yet more openly in rivalry with the work of the
goldsmith was some of the embroidery of the
Renaissance, in which the idea — a most mistaken
one, of course — seems to have been to imitate
beaten metal. This led inevitably to excessively
high relief in gold embroidery. You may see in
seventeenth-century church work the height to
which relief can be carried, and the depth to which
ecclesiastical taste can sink.

The Spaniards were, perhaps, the greatest
sinners in this respect, seeking, as they did,
richness at all cost ; but it must be confessed that,
in the sixteenth century at least, they produced
most gorgeous results : there is in the treasury
of the cathedral at Toledo an altar frontal in
gold, silver, and coral, and a yet more beauti-
ful mantle of the Virgin in silver and pearls
upon a gold ground, which make one loth to
dogmatise about excessive richness.

The preciousness of gold and silver, points, in
the nature of things, to their use for church vest-
ments and the like ; and high relief gives, no doubt,
value to the metal ; but the consideration of its

68. RAISED GOLD.

168 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

intrinsic value leads quickly to display. The artistic
value of gold is not so much that it looks gorgeous
as that it glorifies the colour caught, so to speak,
in its meshes.

Admitting that there is reason for relief in gold
embroidery — it catches the light as flat gold does
not — one feels that the very slightest modelling is
usually enough. Reference was made (page 1 36)
to the effect of gilt gesso obtained in raised gold
thread : that really is about the degree of relief
it is safe to adopt in gold embroidery, the relief
that is readily got by laying on gesso with a brush,
not carving or modelling it ; and the characteris-
tically blunt forms got by that means repeat
themselves when you work with the needle.

There is ample relief in the gold embroidery on
Illustrations 68 and 86. The first of these shows
both flat and raised work : the latter illustrates not
only various degrees of relief, but several ways of
underlaying. It scarcely needs pointing out that
the flatter serrated leaves are worked over parch-
ment or paper, and the puffy parts of the flowers
over softer padding. Allusion has already been
made (page 1 59) to the way the stalk is worked over
twisted cords, as on the sampler, Illustration 66.
The patterns in which the gold is worked do not
tell quite so plainly here as on Illustration 68,
where the basket pattern is more pronounced. In
the stalk there flat gold wire is used, and again
in the broken surface towards the top of the plate.

RAISED GOLD. 169

SPANGLES of gold may be used with admirable
effect, at the risk, perhaps, of a rather tinselly look ;
but that has been often most skilfully avoided both
in mediaeval work and in Oriental. In India great
and very cunning use is made of spangles, by the
Parsees in particular, who, by the way, embroider
with gold wire.

Gold foil may be cut to any shape and sewn on
to embroidery, but spangles take mainly one of
two shapes, best distinguished as disc-like and
ring-like. The discs are flat, pierced in the centre,
and sewn down usually with two or three radiating
stitches (A, Illustration 51, and Illustration 67).
The rings may be attached by a single thread.
They can easily be made to overlap like fish scales,
and most elaborately embossed pictures have been
worked in this way. There is a vestment in the
cathedral at Granada which is a marvel to see ; but
not the thing to do, surely.

Relief is easily overdone, in figure work so easily
that one may say safety is to be found only in
the most delicate relief. To make figures look
round is to make them look stuffed. That stuffy
images are to be found in mediaeval church
work is only too true. In Gothic art one finds
this quaint, perhaps, but it is perilously near the
laughable. The point of the ridiculous is plainly
overpassed in English work of the seventeenth
century, which degenerates at last into mere doll
work — the dolls duly stuffed and dressed in most

i;o ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

childish fashion, their drapery, in actual folds, pro-
jecting. Some really admirable needlework was
wasted upon this kind of thing, which has absolutely
no value, except as an object-lesson in the frivolity
of the Stuarts and their on-hangers.

QUILTING.

A most legitimate use of padding is in the
form of QUILTING, where it serves a useful as
well as an ornamental purpose. To quilt is to
stitch one cloth upon another with something soft
between (or without anything between). Our word
"counterpane" is derived from u contre-poinct,"
a corruption of the French word for back-stitch,
or " quilting " stitch, as it was called.

If you merely stitch two thicknesses of stuff
together in a pattern, such as that on Illustration
69, the stuff between the stitches has a tendency to
rise : the two layers of stuff do not lie close except
where they are held together . by the stitching,
and a very pleasantly uneven surface results. This
effect is enhanced if between the two stuffs there
is a layer of something soft If, now, you sew
down the groundwork of your design with small
diapering, you get a pattern in relief — more or
less, according to the substance of your padding.

Another way is to pad the pattern only, as in
Illustration 70, where the padding is of soft cord.

A cunning way of padding is first to stitch the
outline of the design, and then from the back to

» — x\ / i .>-r;>

( r^f^

\ 10 i^' I VXL/f

69. QUILTING, DONE IN CHAIN-STITCH FROM THE BACK.

QUILTING. 173

insert the stuffing. You first pierce the stuff with
a stiletto, and, having pushed in the cord, cotton,
or what not, efface as far as possible the piercing :
the stuffing has then not much temptation to
escape from its confinement.

The Persians do most elaborate quilting on fine
white linen, which they sew with yellow silk ; but
the pattern is stuffed with cords of blue cotton, the
colour of which just grins through the white
sufficiently to cool it, and to distinguish it from
the ground made creamy white by the yellow
stitching.

Quilting is most often done in white upon
colour, or in one colour upon white. Yellow silk
on white linen (as in the quilting opposite, Illus-
tration 69) was a favourite combination, and is
always a delicate one. But there is no reason
why a variety of colours should not be used in
a counterpane. When you stitch down the ground
with coloured silk you give it, of course, a tint,
besides flattening it.

70. RAISED QUILTING.

STITCH GROUPS.

There are all sorts of ways in which stitches
might be grouped : — according to the order of time
in which historically they came into use ; according
as they are worked through and through the stuff
or lie mostly on its surface ; according as they
are conveniently worked in the hand or necessitate
the use of a frame; and in other ways too many
to mention. It is not difficult, for example, to
imagine a classification according to which the
satin-stitch in Illustration 71 would figure as a
canvas-stitch.

In the Samplers they are grouped according to
their construction, that seeming to us the most
practical for purposes of description. They might
for other purposes more conveniently be classed
some other way. At all events, it is helpful to
group them. Designer and worker alike will go
straighter to the point if once they get clearly into
their minds the stitches and their use, and the
range of each — what it can do, what it can best do,
what it can ill do, what it cannot do at all.

Any one, having mastered the stitches and grasped
their scope, can group them for herself, say, into

176 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

stitches suited (r) to line work, (2) to all-over work,
(3) to shading, and so on.

These she might again subdivide. Of line
stitches, for example, some are best suited for
straight lines, others for curved ; some for broad
lines, others for narrow ; some for even lines,
others for unequal ; some for outlining, others
for veining.

And, further, of all-over stitches some give a plain
surface, others a patterned one ; some do best for
flat surfaces, others for modelled ; some look best
in big patches, some answer only for small spaces.

With regard to shading stitches, there are
various ways (see the chapter on shading) of
giving gradation of colour and of indicating relief
or modelling.

Some stitches, of course, are adapted to various
uses, as crewel, chain, and satin stitches ; and these
are naturally the most in use. Workers generally
end in adopting certain stitches as their own. That
is all right, so long as they do not forget that there
are other stitches which might on occasion serve
their purpose. Anyway, they should begin by
knowing what stitches there are. Until they know,
and know, too, what each can do, they are hardly
in a position to determine which of them will best
do what they want.

Our Samplers show the use to which the stitches
on them may be put.

By way of resume, it may be added that for line

71. SATIN-STITCH IN THE MAKING
M

178 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

work, more or less fine, crewel, chain, back and
rope stitches, and couched cord are most suitable ;
crewel for long lines especially, and rope stitch for
both curved and straight lines ; for a boundary
line, buttonhole is most emphatic ; for broader
lines, herring-bone, feather, and Oriental stitches
answer better ; ladder-stitch has the advantage
of a firm edge on both sides of it. Satin and
chain stitches, couching and laying, and basket
work make good * bands, but are not peculiarly
adapted to that purpose.

For covering broad surfaces, crewel, chain, and
satin stitches (including, of course, what are called
long-and-short and plumage stitches) serve admir-
ably, as does also darning and laid-work ; and with
gold thread, couching. French knots do best for
small surfaces only. The stitches most useful for
purposes of shading are mentioned later on.

No sort of classification is possible until the
number of stitches has been reduced to the neces-
sary few, and all fancy stitches struck out of the
list. Enquiry should also be made into the title
of each stitch to the name by which it is known ;
and the names themselves should be brought down
to a minimum.

Reduce them to the fewest any needlewoman
will allow, and they are still, if not too many, more
than are logically required. Some of them, too,
describe not stitches, but ways of using a stitch.
The term long-and-short, it has already been

STITCH GROUPS. 179

explained (page 100), has less to do with a particular
stitch than its proportion, and the term plumage-
stitch refers more to the direction of the stitch
than to the stitch itself. And so with other
stitches. It is its oblique direction only which
distinguishes stem-stitch from other short stitches
of the kind. Running, again, amounts to no more
than proportioning stitches to the mesh of the
stuff, and taking several of them at one passing
of the needle ; and darning is but rows of running
side by side. The term split-stitch describes no
new stitch, but a particular treatment to which a
crewel or a satin stitch is submitted.

The foregoing summaries of stitches are only by
way of suggestion, something to set the embroidress
thinking for herself. She must choose her own
method ; but it would help her, I think, to schedule
the stitches for herself according to her own ways
and wants. The most suitable stitch may not
suit every one. Individual preference and indi-
vidual aptitude count for something. It is not
a question of what is demonstrably best, but of
what best suits you.

ONE STITCH, OR MANY?

The first thing to be settled with regard to the
choice of stitch is whether to employ one stitch
throughout, or a variety of stitches. Much will
depend upon the effect desired. Good work has
been done in either way ; but one may safely say,
in the first place, that it is as well not to introduce
variety of stitch without good cause — there is
safety in simplicity — and in the second, that
stitches should be chosen to go together, in order
that the work may look all of a piece. When the
various stitches are well chosen, it is difficult at a
glance to distinguish one from another.

A great variety of stitches in one piece of work
is worrying, if not bewildering. It is as well not
to use too many, to keep in the main to one or
two, but not to be afraid of using a third, or a
fourth to do what the stitch or stitches mainly
relied upon cannot do.

It tends also towards simplicity of effect if you
use your stitches with some system, not haphazard,
and in subordination one to the other ; there must
be no quarrelling among them for superiority. You
should determine, that is to say, at the outset,

72. STITCHES IN COMBINATION.

182 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

which stitch shall be employed for filling, which
for outline ; or which for stalks, which for leaves,
and which for flowers. Or, supposing you adopt
one general stitch throughout, and introduce
others, you should know why, and make up your
mind to employ your second perhaps for emphasis
of form, your third for contrast of texture — each
for some quite definite purpose.

It is not possible here to point out in detail the
system on which the various examples illustrated
have been worked ; the reader must worry that
out for herself. But one may just point out in
passing how well the various stitches go together
in some few instances.

Nothing could be more harmonious, for example,
than the combination of knot, chain, and button-
hole stitches in Illustration 24 ; or of ladder,
Oriental, herring-bone, and other stitches in
Illustration 72. Again, in Illustration 85 the
contrast between satin-stitch in the bird and
couched cord for the clouding is most judicious,
as is the knotting of the bird's crest. Laid floss
contrasts, again, admirably with couched gold in
Illustrations 47, 48, 49, and satin-stitch with couch-
ing in Illustration 99, where the gold, reserved
mainly for outline, serves on occasion to emphasise
a detail.

Couched gold and surface satin-stitch are used
together again in Illustration 58, each for its
specific purpose. The harmony between applique

184 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

work and couching or chain-stitch outline has been
alluded to already.

A danger to be kept in view when working in
one stitch only is, lest it should look like a woven
textile, as it might if very evenly worked. Some
kinds of embroidery seem hardly worth doing
nowadays, because they suggest the loom. This
may be a reason for some complexity of stitch, in
which lurks that other danger of losing simplicity
and breadth. The lace-like appearance of the
needlework upon fine linen in Illustration 73,
results chiefly from the extraordinary delicacy with
which it is done, but it owes something also to
the variety of stitch and of stitch-pattern employed
in it.

In complaining of needlework that it looks like
weaving, we are apt to overlook the fact that
embroidery is after all the needlewoman's way of
doing for herself what she cannot get done, or
cannot afford to have done for her. The peasant
woman may be doing quite right in embroidering
what could just as well be woven.

OUTLINE.

The use of outline in embroidery hardly needs
pointing out. It is often the obvious way of
defining a pattern, as, for example, where there is
only a faint difference in depth of tint between the
pattern and its background ; in applique work it is
necessary to mask the joins ; and it is by itself a
delightful means of diapering a surface with pattern
of a kind which is never obtrusive.

Allusion to the stitches suitable to outline has
been made already (see Stitch-groups), as well as to
the colour of outlining (a propos of applique). It is
difficult to overrate the importance of this ques-
tion of colour in the case of outline ; but there are
no rules to be laid down, except that a coloured
outline is nearly always preferable to a black one.
The Germans of the sixteenth century were given
to indulging in black outlines, and you may see in
their work how it hardened the effect, whereas a
coloured outline may define without harshness.
The Spaniards, on the other hand, realised the
value of colour, and would, for example, outline
gold and silver upon a dark green ground in red,
with admirable effect. A double outline, for which

i86 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

there is often opportunity in bold work, may be
turned to good account. Among the successful
combinations which come to mind is an applique
pattern in yellow and white upon dark green, out-
lined first with gold cord, and then, next the green,
with a paler and brighter green. Another is a
pattern chiefly in yellow upon purple, outlined
first with yellow couched with gold, and next the
ground with silver. In the case of couched cord
or gold, the colour of the stitching counts also.

Stitches from the edge of a leaf, inwards,
alternately long and short, though they form an
edge to the leaf, are not properly outlining
This is rather a stopping short of solid work
than outlining, though it often goes by that
name.

The first condition of a good outline stitch is
that it should be, as it were, supple, so as to follow
the flow of the form. At the same time it should
be firm. Fancy stitches look fussy ; and a spiky
outline is worse than none at all.

There is absolutely no substantial ground for
the theory that outlines should be worked in a
stitch not used elsewhere in the work. On the
contrary, it is a good rule not to introduce extra
stitches into the work unless they give something
which the stitches already employed will not give.
The simplest way is always safest.

An outline affords a ready means of clearing up
edges ; but it should not be looked upon merely

OUTLINE. 187

as a device for the disguise of slovenliness. Unless
the colour scheme should necessitate an outline,
an embroidress, sure of her skill, will often prefer
not to outline her work, and to get even the
drawing lines within the pattern, by voiding. VOIDING.
She will leave, that is to say, a line of ground-
stuff clear between the petals of her flowers, or
what not ; which line, by the way, should be
narrower than it is meant to appear, as it looks
always broader than it is. It is more difficult, it
must be owned, thus to work along two sides of
a line of ground-stuff than to work a single line of
stitching ; but it is within the compass of any
skilled worker ; and skilled workers have delighted
in it even when their work was on a small scale,
which determined that the lines of voiding should
be as fine as possible (Illustrations 39 and 40).

In work on a bold scale there is no difficulty
about it ; and it would be remarkable that it is so
seldom used, were it not that the uncertain worker
likes to have a chance of clearing up ragged edges,
and that voiding implies a broader and more
dignified treatment of design than it is the fashion
to affect.

SHADING.

One arrives inevitably at gradation of colour
in embroidery : the question is how best to get
it. But, before mentioning the ways in which it
may be got, it seems necessary to protest that
shading is not a matter of course. Perfectly
beautiful work may be done, and ought more
often to be done, in merely flat needlework ; the
gloss of the silk and its varying colour as it
catches the light according to the direction of
the stitching, are quite enough to prevent a
monotonously flat effect.

Still, embroidery affords such scope for gradation
of colour, not, practically, to be got by any pro-
cess of weaving, that a colourist may well revel
in the delights of colour which silks of various
dyes allow. And so long as colour is the end in
view there is not much danger that a colourist will
go wrong.

The real use of shading in embroidery is rather
to get gradation of colour than relief of form. As
to the stitch to be employed, that is partly a
personal matter, partly a question of what is^ to
be done. The stitch must be adapted to the kind

190 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

of shading, or the shading must be designed to suit
the stitch. It makes all the difference in the world,
whether your shading is done deliberately in well-
marked shades of colour, or whether one shade
merges into another. In the best work it is always
done with decision. There is nothing vague or
casual, for example, about the shading of Mr
Crane's animals in Illustration 74. Everywhere
the shading is drawn, either in lines or as a
sharply defined mass. Given a drawing in which
the shadows are properly planned and crisply
drawn like that, and you may use what stitch
you please.

The more natural way of shading is to let the
stitches follow the lines of the drawing, and so
make use of them to express form, as with the
strokes of the pen or pencil upon paper. Thus in
mediaeval figurework prior to the fifteenth century
the faces were usually done in split-stitch, worked
concentrically from the middle of the cheek out-
ward, and so suggesting the roundness of the face
(Illustration 87). But just as there is a system
of shading according to which the draughtsman
makes all his strokes in one direction (slanting
usually), so the embroidress may, if she prefer, take
her stitches all one way ; and in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries the fashion was to work flesh
in short satin-stitches always in the vertical direc-
tion (Illustration 79). The term " long-and-short-
stitch" is frequently used by way of describing

75- SHADING IN CHAIN-STITCH.

192 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

the stitch. It does not, as I have said, help
us much. The stitches are in the first place
only satin-stitches worked not in even rows, as
in Illustration 40, but so that there is no line
of demarcation between one row and another.
And this, in the case of gradated colour, makes the
shading softer. The words long-and-short apply
strictly only to the outer row of stitches. You
begin, that is to say, with alternately long
and short stitches. If you work after that with
stitches of equal length, they necessarily alternate
or dovetail. If the form to be worked necessitates
radiation in the stitching, there results a texture
something like the feathering of a bird's breast
(Illustration 85), whence the name plumage-stitch,
another term describing not so much a stitch as
the use of a stitch.

No matter what the stitch, one must be able to
draw in order to express form : it is rather more
difficult to draw with a needle than with a pen,
that is all. True, the designer may do that for you,
and make such a workmanlike drawing that there
is no mistaking it ; but it takes a skilled draughts-
man to do it.

In flattish decorative work, where the drawing
is in firm lines, as in Illustration 87, the task of the
embroidress is relatively easy — there is not much
shading, for example, in the drapery of King
Abias, and the vine leaves are merely worked
with yellower green towards the edges. Even

76. SHADING IN SHORT STITCHES.

194 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

where there is strong shading, a draughtsman
who knows his business may make shading easy
by drawing his shadows with firm outlines. The
taste of the artist who designed the roses in Illus-
tration 75 is too pictorial to win the heart of any
one with a leaning towards severity of design ;
too much relief is sought ; but the way he
has got it shows the master workman ; he has
deliberately laid in flat washes of colour, each
with its precise outline, which the worker had
only to follow faithfully with flat tambour work.
A design like that, given the working drawing,
asks little of the worker beyond patient care : of
the designer it asks considerable knowledge.

A yet more pictorial effect is produced in much
the same way, this time in satin-stitch, in Illustra-
tion 76. The artist has for the most part drawn
his shadows with crisp brush strokes, which the
worker had no difficulty in following ; but there is
some rounding of the bird's bodies which a merely
mechanical worker could not have got. In fact,
there are indications that this is the work of a
painter embroidress more intent in rendering with
the needle the plump forms of the birds than
their feathering.

You can embroider, of course, without knowing
much about drawing ; but you cannot go far in the
direction of shading (which has not been drawn for
you, or has been but vaguely drawn) without the
appreciation of form which comes only of knowing

77- SHADING IN LONG-AND-SHORT AND SPLIT STITCHES.

196 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

and understanding. There is evidence of such
knowledge and understanding in the working of
the lion in Illustration 77. That is not a triumph
of even stitching ; but it is a triumph of drawing
with the needle. The short satin and split stitches
are not placed with the regularity so dear to the
human machine, but they express the design
perfectly. The embroiderer of that lion was an
artist, possibly the artist who designed it. " It
might be a man's work," was the verdict of an
embroidress. At all events it is the work of some
one who could draw, and only a draughtsman or
draughtswoman could have worked it.

This is not said wholly in praise of shading.
Embroidery ought, for the most part, to do very
well without it. The point to insist upon is that,
if shading is employed at all, it should mean
something, and not be mere fumbling after form.

The charm of shading in embroidery is not the
roundness of form which you get, but the grada-
tion of colour which it gives. This may be
very delicately and subtly got by split-stitch,
which is on that account so valuable in the
rendering of flesh tints. But the blending of colour
into colour which is universally admired is not
quite so admirable as people think. One may
easily employ too many shades of colour, easily
allow them to melt so imperceptibly one into the
other that the result is only unmeaning softness.
An artist prefers to see few shades employed, and

SHADING. 197

those chosen with judgment and placed with
deliberate intention. If they mean something,
there is no harm in letting it be seen where
they meet : broad masses give breadth : vagueness
generally means ignorance. That is perhaps
why one dislikes it, and why it is so common.

FIGURE EMBROIDERY.

To an accomplished needlewoman embroidery
offers every scope for art, short of the pictorial ;
and the artist is not only justified in lavishing
work upon it, but at times bound to do so, more
especially when it comes to working with materials
in themselves rich and costly. A beautiful material,
if you are to better it (and if not why work upon
it at all?), must be beautifully worked. Costly
material is worth precious work ; and there should
be by rights a preciousness about the needlework
employed upon it, preciousness of design and of
execution. To put the value into the material is
mere vulgarity.

It seems to an artist almost to go without saying,
that the labour on work claiming to be art should
be in excess of the value of the stuff which goes to
make it. What we really prize is the hand work
and the brain work of the artist ; and the more
precious the stuff we employ, the more strictly we
are bound to make artistic use of it. That does not
mean pictorial use. You can get, no doubt, with
the needle effects more or less pictorial — most often
less pictorial than the worker means to get ; but,

FIGURE EMBROIDERY. 199

when got, they are usually at the best rather inferior
to the picture of which they are a copy.

Work done should be better always than the
design for it. That was a project only, a promise :
the fulfilment should be something more. A
design of which the promise is not likely to be
fulfilled in the working-out is, for its purpose, ill-
designed. To say that you would rather have
the drawing from which it was done (and that is
what you usually feel about " needle pictures ") is
most severely to condemn either the designer or
the worker, or perhaps both. Only a competent
figure painter, for example, can be trusted to render
flesh with the needle ; her success is in proportion
to her skill with the implement, but in any case
less than what might be achieved in painting : then
why choose the needle ?

Admitting that a painter who by choice or
chance takes to the needle may paint with it
satisfactorily enough, that does not go to prove
the needle a likely tool to paint with. It is
anything but that. There was never a greater
mistake than to suppose, as some do who should
know better, that, to raise embroidery to the rank
of art, figure work is necessary. The truth is that
only by rare exception does embroidered figure
work rise to the rank of art : the rule is that it is
degraded — the more surely as it aims at picture.
And that is why, for all that has been done in the
way of wonderful picture work, say by the Italians

200 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

and the Flemings of the Early Renaissance, the
pictorial is not the form of design best suited to
embroidery.

Needlework, like any other decorative craft,
demands treatment in the design, and the human
figure submits less humbly to the necessary modi-
fication than other forms of life. Animals, for
instance, lend themselves more readily to it, and so
do birds ; fur and feathers are obviously translatable
into stitches. Leaves and flowers accommodate
themselves perhaps better still ; but each is best
when it is only the motive, not the model, of
design. If only, then, on account of the greater
difficulty in treating it, the figure is not the form
of design most likely to do credit to the needle,
and it is absurd to argue that, figure work being
the noblest form of design, therefore the noblest
form of embroidery must include it.

The embroidress entirely in sympathy with her
materials will not want telling that the needle
lends itself better to forms less fixed in their pro-
portions than the human figure ; the decorator will
feel that there is about fine ornament a nobility of
its own which stands in need of no pictorial support ;
the unbiassed critic will admit that figure design of
any but the most severely decorative kind is really
outside the scope of needle and thread ; and that
the desire to introduce it arises, not out of crafts-
manlikeness, but out of an ambition which does
not pay much regard to the conditions proper to

FIGURE EMBROIDERY. 201

needlework. Those conditions should be a law to
the needlewoman. What though she be a painter
too? She is painting now with a needle. It is
futile to attempt what could be better done with
a brush. She should be content to work the way
of the needle. Common-sense asks that much at
least of loyalty to the art she has chosen to
adopt.

Wonderful and almost incredibly pictorial effects
have been obtained with the needle ; but that does
not mean to say it was a wise thing to attempt
them. The result may be astonishing and yet
not worth the pains. The pains of flesh-painting
with the needle (if not the impossibility of it for
all practical purposes) is confessed by the habit
which arose of actually painting the flesh in water
colour upon satin. Paint on satin, if you please :
there are occasions when there is no time to stitch
and it may be necessary, perhaps, for some cere-
monial and more or less theatric purpose, to paint
what had better have been worked. The more
frankly such work acknowledges its temporary and
makeshift character the better. Scene painting is
art, until you are asked to take it for landscape
painting. Anyway, the mixture of painting and
embroidery is not to be endured ; and it is a poor-
spirited embroidress who will thus confess her
weakness and call on paint to help her out. It
does not even do that, it fails absolutely to pro-
duce the desired effect. The painting quarrels

202

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

with the stitching, and there is after all no
semblance of that unity which is the very essence
of picture.

An instance of painted flesh occurs upon Illus-
tration 99. Can any one, in view of the bordering
to the picture, doubt that the worker had much
better have kept to what she could do, and do

78. CHINESE CHAIN-STITCHING.

perfectly, ornament? An example, on the other
hand, of what may be done in the way of expressing
action in the fewest and simplest chain stitches
(if only you know the form you want to represent
and can manage your needle) is given in the wee
figures in the landscape above (78).

In speaking of the necessary treatment of the
human figure (as of other natural form) in needle-
work, it is not meant to contend that there is one

79. FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FIGURE WORK.

204 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

only way of treating- it consistently, or that there
are no more than two or three ways. There are
various ways, some no doubt yet to be devised,
but they must be the ways of the needle. The
flesh, of course, is the main difficulty. A Gothic
practice, and not the least happy one, was to
show the flesh in the naked linen of the ground,
only just working the outlines of the features in
black or brown. Another way was to work the
face in split stitch, as already explained, and
over that the markings of the features, the fine
lines in short satin-stitches, the broader in split-
stitch, as shown in the figure of King Abias in
Illustration 87.

The general treatment of the figure there is of
course in the manner of the fourteenth century,
better suited, from its severe simplicity, for render-
ing in needlework than later and more pictorial
forms of design. That needlework can, however,
in capable hands, go farther than that is shown in
Illustration 79, a rather threadbare specimen of
fifteenth-century work, in which the character of
the man's face is admirably expressed. It is first
worked in short, straight stitches, all of white, and
over that the drawing lines are worked in brown.
The artist gets her effect in the simplest possible
way, and apparently with the greatest ease.

More like painting is the head in Illustration
80, worked in short stitches of various shades,
which give something of the colour as well as the

80. SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ITALIAN FIGURE WORK,

206 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

modelling of flesh. This is a triumph in its way.
It goes about as far as the needle can go, and
farther than, except under rare conditions, embroid-
ery need go. But it may be carried to that point
and yet be essentially needlework.

Equally wonderful in their miniature way are
the faces of the little people on Illustration 81,
about the size of your finger nail. They are
worked in solid satin-stitch, and the two layers of
silk (back and front) give a substance fairly thick
but at the same time yielding, so that when the
stitches for the mouth and eyes are sewn tightly
over it they sink in, and, as it were, push up the
floss between and give relief. The nose is worked
in extra satin-stitch over the other, and the slight
depression at the end of the stitch gives lines of
drawing. This trenches upon modelling, but, on
such a minute scale, does not amount to very
pronounced departure from the flat. The method
employed does not lend itself to larger work.

The last word on the question as to what one
may do with the needle is, that you may do what
you can; but it is best to seek by means of it what
it (or you with it) can best do, and always to make
much of the texture of silk, and of the quality of
pure and lustrous colour which it gives — in short,
to work with your materials.

8l. CHINESE FIGURES.

THE DIRECTION OF THE STITCH.

The effect of any stitch is vastly varied, according
to the use made of it. Satin-stitch, it was shown
(38), worked in twisted silk, ceases to have any
appearance of satin ; and it makes all the differ-
ence whether the stitches are long or short, close
together or wide apart. More important than all
is the direction of the stitch. By that alone you
can recognise the artist in needlework.

The DIRECTION of the stitch deserves con-
sideration from two points of view — that of colour
and that of form. First as to colour. It is not
sufficiently realised that every alteration in the
direction of the stitch means variety of tone, if not
of tint. Take a feather in your hand, and turn it
about, so that now one side of the quill now the
other catches the light ; or notice the alternate
stripes of brighter and greyer green on a fresh-
trimmed lawn, where the garden roller has bent
the blades of grass first this way and then that.
So it is with the colour of silken stitches. The
pattern opposite (82) looks as if it had been
embroidered in two shades of silk ; in the work
itself it has still more that appearance ; but

210 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

it is all in one shade of brownish gold : the
difference which you see is merely the effect of
light upon it. The horizontal stitches, as it
happens, catch the light; the vertical ones do
not. Had the light come from a different point,
the effect might have been reversed. If there had
been diagonal stitches from right to left, they
would have given a third tint ; and, if there had
been others from left to right, they would have
given a fourth.

Suppose a pattern in which the leaves were
worked horizontally, the flowers vertically, and
the stalks in the direction of their growth, all in
one stitch and in one colour, there would be a very
appreciable difference in tone between leaves,
flowers, and stalks. In gold, the difference would
be yet more striking. And that is one reason
why gold backgrounds are worked in diapers ;
not so much for the sake of pattern as to get
variety of broken tint.

In the famous Syon Cope the direction of the
stitching is frankly independent of the design.
That is to say, while the pattern radiates natur-
ally from the neck, the stitches do not follow
suit, but go all one way — the way of the stuff.
This, though rather a brutal solution of the diffi-
culty, saves all after-thought as to what direction
the stitches shall take ; but it has very much
the effect of weaving. The embroiderer of the
thirteenth century was not afraid of that (aimed at

THE DIRECTION OF THE STITCH. 211

it, perhaps ?), and was, apparently, afraid of letting
go the leading strings of warp and weft.

When stitches follow the direction of the form
embroidered, accommodating themselves to it,
all manner of subtle change of tone results. You
get, not only variety of colour, but more than a
suggestion of form.

That is the second point to be considered.

The direction
taken by the stitch
always helps to
explain the drawing ;
or, if the needle-
woman cannot
draw, to show that
she cannot — as, for
example, in the tulip
herewith (83). A less
intelligent manage-
ment of the stitch
it would be hard
to find. The needle-
strokes, far from helping in the very slightest
degree to explain the folding over of the petals,
directly contradict the drawing. The flower
might almost have been designed to show how
not to do it ; but it is a piece of old work,
quite seriously done, only, without knowing.
The embroidress is free, of course, to work her
stitches in a direction which does not express

83. MEANINGLESS DIRECTION
OF STITCH.

212

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

form at all, so as to give a flat tint, in which
is no hint of modelling ; but the intention is here
quite obviously naturalistic. The rendering below
(84) shows the direction the stitches should have
taken. The turn-over of the petals is even there not
very clearly expressed, but that is the fault of the
drawing (very much on a par with the workman-
ship), from which it
would not have been
fair to depart.

A more clever
fulfilment of the
naturalistic inten-
tion is to be seen
in Illustration 76.
The drawing of the
doves is in the rather
loose manner of the
period of Marie
Antoinette ; but the
treatment of the
stitch is clever in its
way — the way, as I

have said, rather ol painting than of embroidery,
giving as it does the roundness of the birds' bodies
but no hint of actual feathering, such as you find
in the bird opposite (85). There, every stitch
helps to explain the feathering. By a discreet use
of what I must persist in calling the same stitch
(that is, satin-stitch and the variety of it known as

84. MORE EXPRESSIVE LINES
OF STITCHING.

214 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

plumage-stitch) the embroiderer has rendered with
equal perfection the sweep of the broad wing
feathers and the fluffy feathering of the breast.
It is by means of the direction of the stitch,
too, that the drawing of the neck is so perfectly
expressed.

The direction of the stitch is varied to some
purpose in the head in Illustration 80, where the
flesh is all in straight upright stitches, whilst the
hair is stitched in the direction of its growth.

The five petals on the satin-stitch sampler
(Illustration 36) — to descend from the masterly to
the elementary — show something of the difference
it makes in what direction the stitch is worked. It
matters more, of course, in some stitches than in
others ; but in most cases the direction of the
stitch suggests form, and has accordingly to be
considered.

It scarcely needs further pointing out how the
direction of the stitch may help to explain the
construction of the form, as in the case of leaves,
for example, where the veining may be suggested ;
or of stalks, where the fibre may be indicated.
There is no law as to the direction of stitch, except
that it should be considered. You may follow the
direction of the forms, you may cross them, you
may deliberately lay your stitches in the most
arbitrary manner ; but, whatever you do, you must
do it with intelligent purpose. An artist or a work-
woman can tell at once whether your stitch was

THE DIRECTION OF THE STITCH. 215

laid just so because you meant it or because you
knew no better.

Having laid your stitches deliberately, it is best
to leave them, and not to work over them with
other stitching. Stitching over stitching was
resorted to whenever elaboration was the fashion ;
but the simpler and more direct method is the
best. The way the veins are laid in cord over the
satin-stitch in the lotus leaves in Illustration 40
is the one fault to be found with an all but perfect
piece of workmanship.

The stitching over the laid silver mid-rib in
Illustration 100 is better judged. It may be said,
generally speaking, that except where, as in the
case of laid-work, the first stitching was done in
anticipation of a second, and the work would be
incomplete without it, stitching over stitches should
be indulged in only with moderation.

Stitching is sometimes done not merely over
stitches, but upon the surface of them, not pene-
trating the ground-stuff. Unless, in such a case
the first stitching is of such compact character
as to want no strengthening, it amounts almost
to a sin against practicality not to take advantage
of the second stitching to make it firmer.

CHURCH WORK.

It is customary to draw a distinction between
church or ecclesiastical, as it is called, and other
embroidery ; but it is a distinction without much
difference. Certain kinds of work are doubtless
best suited to the dignity of church ceremonial
and to the breadth of architectural decoration ;
accordingly, certain processes of work have been
adopted for church purposes, and are taken as a
matter of course — too much as a matter of course.
The fact is, work precisely like that employed on
vestments and the like (Illustration 86) was used
also for the caparison of horses and other equally
profane purposes.

Practical considerations, alike of ceremonial and
decoration, make it imperative that church work
should be effective : religious sentiment insists that
it should be of the best and richest, unsparingly
and even lavishly given ; common-sense dictates
that the loving labour spent upon it should not be
lost. And these and other such considerations
involve methods of work which, by constant
use for church purposes, have come to be classed
as ecclesiastical embroidery. But there is no

86. RENAISSANCE CHURCH WORK.

218 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

consecrated stitch, no stitch exclusively belong-
ing to the church, none probably invented by it.
For embroidery is a primitive art — clothes were
stitched before ever churches were furnished — and
European methods of embroidery are all derived
from Oriental work, which found its way west-
wards at a very early date. Phrygia (sometimes
credited with the invention of embroidery) passed
it on to Greece, and Greece to Italy, the gate of
European art.

Christianity produced new forms of design, but
not new ways of work. The methods adopted in
the nunneries of the West were those which had
already been perfected in the harems of the East.

Embroidery for the church must naturally take
count of the church, both as a building and as a
place of worship ; but, as apart from all other
needlework, there is no such thing as church
embroidery ; and the branding of one very dull
kind of thing with that name is in the interest
neither of art nor of the church, but only of
business. "Ecclesiastical art" is just a trade-
term, covering a vast amount of soulless work.
There is in the nature of things no reason why
art should be reserved for secular purposes, and
only manufacture be encouraged by the clergy.
The test of fitness for religious service is religious
feeling ; but that is hardly more likely to be found
in the output of the church furnisher (trade
patterns overladen with stock symbols), than in

CHURCH WORK. 219

the stitching of the devout needlewoman, working
for the glory of God, in whose service of old the
best work was done.

Many of the examples of old work given on these
pages are from church vestments, altar furniture,
and the like ; information on that point will be
found in the descriptive index of illustrations at
the beginning of the book ; but they are here
discussed from the point of view of workmanship,
with as little reference as possible to religious or
other use : that is a question apart from art.

The distinguishing features of church work
should be, in the first place, its devotional spirit,
and, in the second, its consummate workman-
ship. In it, indeed, we might expect to find
work beyond the rivalry of trade, controlled as that
is by conditions of time and money. Even then
it would be but the more perfect expression of the
same art which in its degree ennobled things of
civic and domestic use.

Church embroidery, as usually practised in these
days, is not only the most rigid and frigid in design,
but the hardest and most mechanical in execution.
The defect of hardness arises in great part from
the way it is done. It is not embroidered straight
upon the silk or velvet which forms the ground-
work of the design, but separately on linen. The
pattern thus worked is cut out, and either pasted
straight on to the ground-stuff, or, if the linen is
at all loose, first mounted on thin paper and then

220 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

cut out and pasted on to the velvet, where it is
kept under pressure until it is dry. In either case
the edges have eventually to be worked over.

This habit of working on linen or canvas and
applying the embroidery ready worked on to the
richer stuff, though early used on occasion, does
not seem to have been common until a period when
manufacture generally usurped the place of art.
The work in Illustration 87 was done directly on
to the silk. But at a comparatively early date
there was already a regular trade in embroidery
ready to sew on, by means of which purveyors
could turn out in a day or two what would have
taken months to embroider directly on to the stuff.

Even if it had been the invariable mediaeval
practice to work sprays or what not upon canvas
and apply them bodily to the velvet, that would
not make it the more workmanlike or straight-
forward way of working. If needle stitches are the
ostensible means of getting an effect upon a stuff,
it seems only right they should be stitched upon
that stuff. To work the details apart and then
clap them on to it, stands to embroidery very much
in the relation of applied fretwork to wood carving.
Nor is it usually happy in result. Occasionally,
as in the case of Miss Shrewsbury's vine-leaf
pattern (Illustration 88), it disarms criticism.
More often it looks stuck-on. A way of avoiding
that look is to add judicious after-stitching on the
stuff itself. This must not be confined to the sewing

GOTHIC CHURCH WORK.

222 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

on or outlining merely, but should be allowed to
wander playfully over the field, so as to draw your
eye away from the margin of the applied patch,
and lead you to infer that, some of the needlework
being obviously done on the velvet, all of it is.
But to disguise in this way the line of demarca-
tion, even if you succeed in doing it, is at best the
art of prevarication.

No doubt it is difficult to work upon velvet.
The stuff is not very sympathetic, and the stitch-
ing has a way of sinking into the pile, and being,
as it were, drowned in it. But the trailing spirals
of split-stitch which play about the applied spots
in many a mediaeval altar cloth (Illustration 89)
hold their own quite well enough to show that silk
can be worked straight on to the velvet.

That gold may be equally well worked straight
on to velvet may be seen in any Indian saddle
cloth. Heavy work of this kind may be rather
man's work than woman's; but that is not the
point. The question is, how to get the best
results ; and the answer is, by working on the
stuff.

It may be argued that in this way you cannot
get very high relief; but the occasions for high
relief are, at the best, rare. If you want actual
modelling, as in the Spanish work referred to in a
previous chapter, that must, of course, be worked
separately, built up, as it were, upon the canvas
and worked over. And there is no reason why it

224

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

should not, for in no case does it appear to be
stitching. In fact, it aims deliberately at the
effect of chased and beaten metal.

Heavy appliqu£ of any kind affects, of course,
not only the thickness but the flexibility of the
material thus enriched — an important considera-
tion if it is meant to hang in folds.

GOTHIC SPRIG APPLIQUE.

WHITE WORK.

Reference has already been made in passing to
the texture given by stitching, and to the variation
in colour produced by it according to the direction
of the stitch. In white embroidery upon white the
contrast between work and ground is entirely a
contrast of texture, which thus takes the place of
colour. And when it is remembered that in linen
damask the pattern is entirely the result of the
different direction of the warp and weft threads, it
is not surprising that the embroiderer, with the
whole range of stitches at her command, can by
texture alone, by difference of surface that is to
say, produce pattern work of very great variety.
The differences are subdued, of course ; the worker
plays in a minor key — but those who care for
delicate work enjoy it none the less that it is
played in undertones, " pianissimo," as it were.

White work gains something in effect when it is
worked in thread of different material from the
ground — in silk on linen, for example — as in some
of the old Persian work, which is singularly beauti-
ful. In Indian and Chinese work the difference of
texture is accentuated by working in floss or in

226 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

twisted silk upon crepe or " tabby." The contrast
obtained in modern embroidery by working in
cotton upon cambric is less satisfactory. There is
something rather objectionable in ornamenting one
material with another that is inferior to it ; and
cotton is a poor thread with which to decorate
linen.

Nevertheless embroidery in white on white has
been carried in our own time to a point of very
considerable accomplishment, which is the more
remarkable because it is practised not as an art
but as an industry, and apparently a paying one.
We have been able, with the assistance of Mr
James Jeffrey, to explain the stitches and processes
generally employed by the peasant women of
Down and Donegal, and to illustrate them in a
series of patterns which he has had worked for us
at Belfast, chiefly from designs devised to illustrate
the capabilities of the stitches generally in use.
The bird pattern, however, in Illustration 90 is by
Mr Jeffrey himself, designed by him in the ordinary
way of trade. The execution of these examples,
by women working for a factory, speaks better for
the ability of the needlewomen than for the public
taste which they follow. Such work as theirs under
existing conditions argues well for what even peas-
ant women might do if only they were directed by
some one whose first care and thought was for art.

There is nothing very new about the stitches
employed in white work, but they need to be

WHITE WORK. 227

chosen with a view to the effect that can be got by
texture — by the contrast, that is to say, of the

90. WHITE WORK BY JAMES JEFFREY.

surface of one stitch with the surface of another,
and of the work generally with the plain linen. It

228

ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

SATIN
STITCH.

is by leaving ample surface of this last intact, and
judiciously massing the ornament upon it, that the
most refined and beautiful results are obtained.

Of the stitches commonly employed the most
serviceable is —

Satin stitch, always more or less raised by an
under-padding of stitches in the cross direction —
" tracing " is the trade name for it. The longer the
satin stitches, the more likely they are to open out
or get loose and show the under-sewing. Broad

91. WHITE WORK ON LINEN.

WHITE WORK.

229

92. DETAILS DESIGNED TO BE WORKED CHIEFLY IN
SHORT SATIN STITCHES.

surfaces are therefore better broken up. A leaf,
for example, that is too wide to be satisfactorily
worked in single stitches — they are always carried
straight across the forms — is crossed by a double
series of stitches, in which case (as in the rose
leaves in Illustration 92) the dip between the two
stitches gives a well-defined mid-rib. The design,
in short, is affected by the method of work, and
the method of work should affect the design. The
leaves above are deliberately designed to be worked
in sufficiently short satin stitches.

230 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

The common ideal is always to make the design
stand out as much as possible from the ground,
and the relief is often excessive. Sufficient dis-
tinction between the ground and the pattern is all
that is necessary, and that is easily got in quite
low relief. Outlines (Illustration 91) are worked in
satin stitch, sometimes over a cord, but more often
over two or three strands of the same kind of thread
that is afterwards used in working over them.

Another obvious way of getting over broader
masses than it is convenient to work straight across
in satin stitch, is to employ what is known as " long

PLUMAGE and short," or "plumage" stitch (they call it
"feather" stitch in Belfast) which, as already
explained (page 100), is only another form of satin
stitch. It is in this way that the breasts of the
birds are worked in Illustration 90 ; but it is only
in design of a rather ambitious kind that there is
occasion for this ; and it is not often that there is
occasion for very ambitious design in white work.
A more minute version of the stitch is used to
suggest, for example, the texture of fur in the
rendering of heraldic animals — which there is,
artistically speaking, no need to do, though it may
be occasionally advisable to work in the finest
possible stitches.

SEEDING. Great decorative use may be made, and is made,
in white work of dots or spots, " seeding " as they
call it, which may be executed in French knots,
but is more often stitched with a double thread

WHITE WORK.

231

93. WHITE WORK WITH SEEDING AND MATTING.

from the back, the worker holding the cloth upside
down in her hoop while she does it. It is probably
only by the association of ideas that the dots of

232 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

thread thus left exposed suggest something like
seed pearls ; they are not really round, as may be
seen in the dotted leaves in Illustration 93. The
filling in of the leaves outlined in satin stitch in
Illustration 92 shows a very minute variety of seed-

MATTING. ing technically known as " matting." The value
of this kind of stitching in white work is apparent
in most of the illustrations to this chapter, where it
is used to give texture varying from just a tint, as
in Illustration 92, to a more or less conspicuously
dotted surface as in the butterfly in Illustra-
tion 96.

APPLIQUE. By means of applique the worker on fine cambric
has an opportunity of getting the effect of solid
white upon a relatively greyish tint. It is a simple
and quite a common device to plant little squares
of cambric upon cambric in the way shown in
Illustration 94. They are very often sewn down
with a sort of herring-bone stitch ; but that is for the
worker to decide, according as she may wish to
emphasise the outline or not. It will be seen
that the stitching down in Illustration 94 draws
the threads of the cambric ground apart, and
gives the sort of open outline so familiar in hem-
stitch.

EYELETS. " Eyelets " such as those forming the berries in
Illustration 92, are worked by first piercing little
holes in the cloth and then stitching round them in
satin stitch — not, as might have been supposed, in
buttonhole stitch.

WHITE WORK.

233

By piercing a number of holes very close one to SPARRING
another, and binding them together at the edges, a OR SPOKE
kind of open-work is produced which, as may be
seen in the vase shape in Illustration 91, need not

94. WHITE WORK ON CAMBRIC WITH APPLIQUE.

by any means follow the square lines of the weav-
ing, as drawn work must do. The lines, for example,
across the butterfly's body in Illustration 96 would
of necessity have been straight if they had been

234 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

" drawn," and the open pattern on the wings could
not possibly have followed their outline as it does
in this " sparring " or " spoke " stitch as they call it.
DRAWN What comes of drawn work, also largely used in
WORK. white embroidery, is shown in Illustration 95, where
the square lattice pattern is the natural result of
working on the threads of the material. A diaper
which followed the radiating lines of the design
could not possibly have been executed in drawn
work. The drawing of the threads — they are not
cut — does not, if judiciously done, appreciably
weaken the linen. There is no suggestion of
weakness, for example, in the instance given, and
such open-work is an excellent foil to the satin
stitch and applique with which it is constantly
associated.

This enumeration of the stitches employed in
County Down and Donegal, and the illustration of
the practical uses to which they may be put, is only
by way of showing the kinds of work which have
answered the purpose of white embroidery, and will
stand the wear and washing it has ordinarily to un-
dergo. It is probable, too, that women working for
their living have discovered for themselves the short-
est, simplest, and in so far the best, way of doing
what they set out to do. But they have by no means
exhausted the possibilities of workmanship in
white — there is ample evidence in old work (page
45) to the contrary. Any stitch used in coloured
work will serve, provided only that it will give the

WHITE WORK.

235

texture necessary to relieve the pattern from the
ground, and that it is firm and substantial enough

95. WHITE EMBROIDERY WITH APPLIQUE AND
DRAWN WORK.

for its purpose. No artist or amateur will think of
limiting herself to the devices current in manufac-

236 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

ture ; but to know them is to be the better prepared
to make use of the suggestions everywhere to be
found in needlework generally, no matter what its
colour may be. Our illustrations are enough to
show this. The artist in white will in the end work
out her own system. It is hardly necessary to
insist that there is room in white work for the most
delicate and delightful art — none the less delightful
that it is modest. It is 'inherently that.

96. WHITE WORK WITH SEEDING AND SPARRING.

A PLEA FOR SIMPLICITY.

The simplest patterns are by no means the
least beautiful. It is too much the fashion to
underrate the artistic value of the less pretentious
forms of needlework, and especially of flat orna-
ment, which has, nevertheless, its own very impor-
tant place in decoration. As for geometric pattern,
that is held to be beneath consideration — it is so
mechanical ! Mechanical is a word as easily spoken
as another ; but if needlework is mechanical,
that is more often the fault of the needlewoman
than of the mechanism she employs. The Orientals,
who indulged so freely in geometric device, were
the least mechanical of workers. It is our rigid
way of working it which robs geometric ornament
of its charm. The needleworker has less than
ever occasion to be afraid of geometric pattern ;
for it is peculiarly difficult to get with the needle
that appearance of rule-and-compass-work which
makes ornament so dull.

The one real objection to geometric pattern is
that it is nowadays so cheaply and so mechanically
got by weaving that, however freely it may be
rendered, there is a danger of its suggesting

238 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

mechanical production, which embroidery em-
phatically ought not to do. There is a similar
objection nowadays to some stitches, such, for
example, as chain-stitch and back-stitch : they
suggest the sewing-machine.

Embroidery does not to-day take quite the place
it once did. It was used, for example, by the early
Coptic Christians to supplement tapestry. That
is to say, what they could not weave they stitched ;
it was only to get more delicate detail than their
tapestry loom would allow, that they had recourse
to the needle. Needlework was, in fact, an adjunct
to weaving. Later, in mediaeval times, the Germans
of Cologne, for their church vestments and the
like, wove what they could, and enriched their
woven figures with embroidery.

Again, a great deal of Oriental embroidery, and
of peasant work everywhere, is merely the result
of circumstances. Where money is scarce and
time is of no account, it answers a woman's pur-
pose to do for herself with her needle what might
in some respects be even better done on the loom.
Her preference for handwork is not that it has
artistic possibilities, but that it costs her less.
She would in many cases prefer the more mechani-
cally produced fabric, if she could get it at the
same price. We do not find that Orientals reject
the productions of the power-loom — which they
would do if they had the artistic instincts with
which we credit them.

97- SIMPLE STITCHING ON LINEN.

240 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

It results from our conditions of to-day that
there are some kinds of needlework we admire,
which yet are seldom worth our doing, such, for
example, as the all-over work, which does not
amount to more than simple diaper, and which
really is not so much embroidering on a textile as
converting it into one of another kind. Glorified
instances of this kind of work occur in the shawl
work of Cashmere, and in those beautiful bits of
Persian stitching which remind one of carpet-work
in miniature, if they are not in fact related to
carpet-weaving.

Embroidery was at one time the readiest, and
practically the only, means of getting enrichment
of certain kinds. To-day we get machine em-
broidery. As machinery is perfected, and learns
to do what formerly could be done only by
the needle, handworkers get pushed aside and
fall out of work. Their chance is, in keeping
always in advance of the machine. There is this
hope for them, that the monotony of machine-
made things produces in the end a reaction in
favour of handwork — provided always it gives us
something which manufacture cannot. Possibly
also there is scope for amateurs and home-artists
in that combination of embroidery and hand-
weaving with which the power-loom, though it has
superseded it, does not enter into competition.

It is not so much for geometric ornament as
for simple pattern that the~plea is here made for

98. SIMPLE COUCHING ON LINEN.

242 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

that reticent work of which so much was at one
time done in this country — mere back-stitching,
for example, or what looks like it, in yellow silk
upon white linen ; or the modest diaper, archaic, if
you like, but inevitably characteristic, in which the
naiVete" of the sampler seems always to linger ; or
again, the admirably simple work in Illustration 97.
This last does not show so delicately in the photo-
graphic reproduction as it should, because, being
in grey and yellow on white linen, the relative
value of the two shades of colour is lost in the
photograph. In the original the broader yellow
bands are much more in tone with the ground, and
do not assert themselves so much. Such as it is,
only an artist could have designed that border-
work ; and any neat-handed woman could have
embroidered it.

Think again of the delicate work in white or
in self colour, which makes no loud claim to be
art, but is content to be beautiful ! Is that to be
a thing altogether of the past now that we have
Art Needlework ? Art needlework ! It has helped
to put an end to the patience of the modern
worker, and to inspire her too often with ambi-
tions far beyond her powers of fulfilment.

What one misses in the work of the present day
is that reticent and unpretending stitchery, which,
thinking to be no more than a labour of loving
patience, is really a work of art, better deserving
the title than much that is done in the name of

A PLEA FOR SIMPLICITY. 243

"art needlework." We plume ourselves too much
upon our art. Is any one nowadays modest
enough to do work such as the couching in
outline in Illustration 98? Yet what distinction
there is about it !

EMBROIDERY DESIGN.

Perfect art results only when designer and
worker are entirely in sympathy, when the
designer knows quite what the worker can do
with her materials, and when the worker not only
understands what the designer meant, but feels
with him. And it is the test of a practical
designer that he not only knows the conditions
under which his design is to be carried out, but is
ready to submit to them.

The distinction here made between designer
and embroiderer is not casual, but aforethought,
notwithstanding the division of labour it implies.
Enthusiasm has a habit of outrunning reason.
Because in some branches of industry subdivision
of labour has been carried to absurd excess, it is
the fashion to demand in all branches of it the
autograph work of one person. That is no less
absurd. To try and link together faculties which
Nature has for the most part put asunder, is
futile.

To insist that designer and worker should be
one and the same person is to set up an ideal
for the most part impossible of fulfilment. When

EMBROIDERY DESIGN. 245

that happens (Illustrations 61 and 88) it is well.
But the attempt to realise it commonly works
out in one of two ways : either a good design is
spoilt in the working for want of executive skill
on the part of the designer, or good workman-
ship is spent on poor design, as good, perhaps,
as one has any right to expect of a needleworker,
skilful as she may be.

The fact is, you can only make out all the world
to be designers by reducing design to what all the
world can do. And that is not much. There is
a point of view from which it does not amount to
design at all.

The study of design forms part of the education
of an embroidress, not so much that she may
design what she works, but that she may know in
the first place what good design is, and, in the
second, be equal to the ever-recurring occa-
sion when a design has to be modified or
adapted. If, in thus manipulating design not
hers, she should discover a faculty of invention,
she will want no telling to exercise it. A
designer wants no encouragement to design —
she designs.

There would be no occasion to dwell upon
this, were it not for the prevalence at the present
moment of the idea that a worker, in whatever art
or handicraft, is in artistic duty bound to design
whatever she puts hand to do. That is a theory
as false as it is unkind : let no embroidress be dis-

246 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

couraged by it. Let her, unless she is inwardly
impelled to invent, remain content to do good
needlework. That is her art. Her business as
an artist is to make beautiful things. Co-operation
in the making of them is no crime.

And what, then, about originality ? Originality
is a gift beyond price. But it is not a thing which
even the designer should struggle after. It comes,
if it is there. There is a revengeful consolation
for the pain we suffer from design about us writh-
ing in the endeavour to be up-to-date, in the
thought that its contortions tell what pain it cost
to do it. The birth of beauty is a less agonising
travail ; and the thing to seek is beauty, not
novelty. Whoever planned the lines of the border
in Illustration 99, or treated the leafage in Illus-
tration loo, was not trying to be original, but
determined to do his best. Artists and workers
of individuality and character are themselves,
without being so much as aware that originality
has gone out of them.

To assume, then, that every needlewoman is,
or can ever be, competent to design what she
embroiders, is to make very small account of
design. How is it possible to take design seri-
ously and yet think it is to be mastered without
years of more serious study than workwomen
can or will as a rule devote to it ? Any cultivated
woman may for herself invent (if it is to be called
invention) something better worth working than

RENAISSANCE ORNAMENT.

248 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

is to be bought ready to work. And that may
do for many purposes, so long as it does not
claim to be more than it is ; but in the case of
really important work, to be executed at con-
siderable cost not only of material but of patient
labour, surely it is worth giving serious thought
to its design. The scant consideration commonly
given to it hardly suggests a worker very much in
earnest. Of has she thought? And is she per-
suaded that her artless spray of flowers, or the
ironed-off pattern she has bought, is all that art
could be? It would be rude to tell her she was
wasting silk !

A worker should know what is worth working ;
and the only way of knowing is to study, to
look at good work, old work by preference ; it is
worth no one's while to praise that unduly. And
if in all that is now so readily accessible she finds
nothing to admire, nothing which appeals to
her, nothing which inspires her, then her case is
hopeless. If, on the other hand, she finds only
so much as one style of work sympathetic to
her, studies that, lets its spirit sink into her, tries
to do something worthy of it, then she is on the
right road. Measure yourself with the best, not
with the common run of work ; if that should
put you out of conceit with your own work, no
great harm is done ; sooner or later we have got
to come to a modest opinion of ourselves, if ever
we are to do even moderately good things.

100. LEAF TREATMENT IN APPLIQUE.

250 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

But the " best " above referred to does not
necessarily mean the most masterly. The best
of a simple kind is not calculated to discourage
any one — rather, it looks as if it must be easy to
do that ; and in trying to do it we learn how
much goes to the doing it. Good design need not
be of any great importance or pretensions. It
may be quite simple, if only it is right ; if the lines
are true, the colour harmonious ; if it is adapted
to its place, to its use and purpose, to execution
not only with the needle but in the particular
kind of needlework to be employed.

There has of late years been something of a
revival of needlework design in schools of art,
and some very promising and even most ac-
complished work has been done ; but in many
instances it is rather design which has been
translated into needlework, than design clearly
made for execution with the needle. A really
appropriate and practical design for embroidery
should be schemed not merely with a view to
its execution with the needle, but with a view
to its execution in a particular stitch or stitches
—possibly by a particular embroidress. To be
safe in designing work so minute as that on
Illustration 101, one must be sure of the needle-
woman who is to execute it.

Reference to old work must not be taken to
imply that design should be in imitation of what
has been clone, or that it should follow on those

IOI. DELICATE SATIN-STITCH — WORKED BY MISS BUCKLE.

252 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

lines. Design was once upon a time traditional ;
but the chain of tradition has snapped, and now
conscious design must be eclectic — that is to say,
one must study old work to see what has been
done, and how it has been done, and then do
one's own in one's own way. It is at least as
foolish to break quite away from what has been
done as to tether yourself to it. And in what has
been done you will see, not only what is worth doing,
but what is not. That, each must judge for herself.
To the lover of ornament it will seem that the thing
best worth doing in embroidery is ornament. Any
way, this much is certain (and you have only to
go to the nearest museum to prove it), that there
is no need for needleworkers, unless their instinct
draws them that way, to take to needle painting,
to pictures in silk, or even to flower stitching.

The limitations of embroidery are not so rigidly
marked as the boundaries of many another craft.
There is little technical difficulty in representing
flowers, for example, very naturally — too naturally
for any dignified decorative purpose. Embroiderer
or embroidery designer will, as a matter of fact, be
constantly inspired by flower forms, and silk gives
the pure colour of their petals as nearly as may be.
But, though the pattern be a veritable flower
garden, the embroidress will not forget, to use
the happy phrase of William Morris, that she is
gardening with silks and gold threads.

Let the needleworker study the work of the

EMBROIDERY DESIGN. 253

needle in preference to that of the brush ; let her
aim at what stuff and threads will give her, and
give more readily than would something else.
Let her work according to the needle, and take
that for her guide, not be misled by what some
other tool can do better, but do what the needle can
do best, and be content with that. That is the way
to Art in Needlework, and the surest way.

EMBROIDERY MATERIALS.

Embroidery is not among the things which
have to be done, and must be done, therefore,
as best one can do them. It is in the nature
of a superfluity : the excuse for it is that it is
beautiful. It is not worth doing unless it is
done well, and in material worth the work done
on it. If you are going to spend the time you
must spend to do good work, it is worth while
using good stuff, foolish to use anything else.
The stuff need not be costly, but it should be the
best of its kind ; and it should be chosen with
reference to the work to be done on it, and vice
versa. A mean ground-stuff implies, if it does not
necessitate, its being embroidered all over, ground-
work as well as pattern ; a worthier one suggests
that it should not be hidden altogether from view ;
a really beautiful one asks that enough of it should
be left bare of ornament that its quality may be
appreciated.

STUFFS. It goes without saying, that for big, bold
stitching a proportionately coarse ground-stuff
should be used, and for delicate work, one of
finer texture — whether it be linen, woollen cloth,
or silk, your purpose will determine.

EMBROIDERY MATERIALS. 255

Linen is a worthy ground-stuff, which may be STUFFS.
worked on with flax thread, crewel, or silk, but
they should not be mixed. Cotton is hardly
worth embroidering. Of woollen stuffs, good
plain cloth is an excellent ground for work in
wool or silk, but it is not pleasant to the touch
in working. Serge, if not too loose, may serve
for curtains and the like, but it is not so well
worth working upon. Felt is beneath contempt.

The nobler the material, the more essential it is
that it should be of the best. Poor satin is not
" good enough to work on " ; it looks poorer than
ever when it is embroidered.

Satin should be stretched upon the frame the
way of the stuff, and it should not be forgotten
that it has a right and a wrong way up. If it is
backed, the linen should be fine and smooth : on
a coarse backing, the satin gets quickly worn
away, as you may see in many a piece of old
work that has gone ragged.

" Roman satin " and what is called " satin de
luxe" (perhaps because it is not so luxurious as it
pretends to be) are effective ground-stuffs easy
to work upon ; but there is an odour of pretence
about satin-faced cotton.

A corded silk is not good to embroider ; the work
on it looks hard ; but a close twill answers very
well. Silk damask makes an admirable ground,
beautifully broken in colour, if only it is simple
and broad enough in pattern. Generally speaking.

256 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

you can hardly choose a design too big and
flat ; but something depends upon the work to
be done on it. In any case, the pattern of the
damask ought not to assert itself, and if you can't
make out its details, so much the better.

Brocade asserts itself too much to form a good
background. There is a practice of embroidering
the outlines, or certain details only, of damask
and brocade patterns. That is a fair way of
further enriching a rich stuff ; but it is embroidery
merely in the sense that it is literally embroidered :
the needlework is only supplementary to weaving.

Tussah silk of the finer sort is easy to work in
the hand. The thinner and looser quality needs
to be worked in a frame, and with smooth silk
not tightly twisted.

THREAD. With regard to the thread to work with : The
coarser kinds of flax are best waxed before using.
The crewel to be preferred is that not too tightly
twisted. Filoselle is well adapted to couching, and
may be laid double (24 threads). French floss is
smooth, and does well for laid work ; for fine
work bobbin floss, or what is called " church
floss," is better ; the slight twist in filo-floss is
against it ; very thick floss may be used for
French knots.

For couching gold, a very fine twisted silk does
well. Purse silk, thick and twisted, lends itself
perfectly to basket work. Working in coloured
silks, one should take advantage of the quality

EMBROIDERY MATERIALS. 257

of pure transparent colour which silk takes in
the dyeing. The palette of the embroiderer in
silk is superlatively rich.

The purest gold is generally made on a founda- GOLD.
tion of red silk. Japanese gold does not tarnish
so readily as " passing," which is in some respects
superior to it. For stitching through, there is a
finer thread, called " tambour." Flat gold wire is
known by the name of " plate," and various twisted
threads by the name of " purl."

A not very promising substance to embroider CHENILLE
with is chenille. It came into use in the latter
half of the seventeenth century, and was still in
fashion in the time of Marie Antoinette. The use
of it is shown in Illustration 75, where the darker
touches of the roses are worked in it. Chenille
seems to have been used instead of smooth silk,
much as in certain old-fashioned water-colour
paintings gum was used with the paint, or over
it, to deepen the shadows. The material is used
again in the wreath on Illustration 76. It is
worked there in chain-stitch with the tambour
needle : it may also be worked in satin-stitch ; but
the more obvious way of using it is to couch it,
cord by cord, with fine silk thread. There is
this against chenille, that its texture is not
sympathetic to the touch, and that there is a
stuffy 'look about it always. Nor does it seem
ever quite to belong to the smooth satin ground
on which it is worked.

258 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

RIBBON. There is less objection to embroidery in ribbon,
which also had its day in the eighteenth century.
It was very much the fashion for court dresses
under Louis Seize. " Broderie de faveur" it was
called, whence our " lady's favour "—faveur being
a narrow ribbon. Beautiful work of its kind was
done in ribbon, sometimes shaded ribbon. Shaded

SHADED silk, by the way, may be used to artistic purpose.
There is, 'for example, in the treasury of Seville
Cathedral a piece of work on velvet, thirteenth
century it is said, rather Persian in character, in
which the forms of certain nondescript animals
are at first sight puzzlingly prismatic in colour.
They turn out to be roughly worked in short
stitches of parti-coloured silk thread. The result
is not altogether beautiful, but it is extremely
suggestive.

RIBBON. The effect of ribbon work is happiest when it is
not sewn through the stuff after the manner of
satin-stitch, but lies on the surface of the satin
ground, and is only just caught down at the ends
of the loops which go to make leaves and petals.
The twist of the ribbon where it turns gives
interest to the surface of the embroidery, which
is always more or less in relief upon the stuff.
It is easy to crush, and of limited use therefore.

An effect of ribbon work, but of a harder kind,
was produced by onlaying narrow strips of card
or parchment upon a silken ground, twisted about
after the fashion of ribbon. These, having been

260 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

stitched in place, were worked over in satin-stitch.
The work has the merit of looking just like what
it is. But neither it nor ribbon embroidery is of
any very serious account.

Passing reference has been made to other
materials to embroider with besides thread. Gold
wire, for example, and spangles, coral and pearls,
which have been used with admirable discretion,
as well as to vulgar purpose. Jewels also were
lavished upon the embroidery of bishops' mitres,
gloves and other significant apparel, and in default
of real stones, imitations in glass, and eventually
beads (or pearls) of glass, in which we have possibly
the origin of knots. Bead embroidery is at least
as old as ancient Egypt. Even atoms of looking-
glass, sewn round with silk, are used to really
beautiful effect (barbaric though it may be) in
Indian work. The question almost occurs : with
what can one not embroider? In Madras they
produce most brilliant embroidery upon muslin
with the cases of beetles' wings. In the Mauritius
they use fish-scales ; in North America, porcu-
pine quills ; and everywhere savage tribes use
seeds, shells, feathers, and the teeth and claws of
animals.

To return to more civilised work, there is
embroidery in gold and silver wire, allied to the art
of the goldsmith, and on leather (Illustration 102),
allied to the art of the saddler. It would be
difficult to set any limit to the directions in which

EMBROIDERY MATERIALS. 261

embroidery may branch out, impossible to describe
them all. Happily, it is not necessary. A skilled
worker adapts herself to new conditions, and the
conditions themselves dictate the necessary modi-
fication of the familiar way.

A WORD TO THE WORKER.

A good workwoman will not encumber herself
with too many tools ; but she will not shirk the
expense of necessary implements, the simplest by
preference, and the best that are made.

NEEDLES. Embroidery needles should have large eyes : the
silk is not rubbed in threading them, and they
make way for the thread to pass smoothly through
the stuff. For working in twisted silk, the eye
should be roundish ; for flat silk, long ; for surface
stitching or interlacing, a blunt " tapestry needle "
is best ; for carrying cord or gold thread through
the stuff, a " rug needle."

THIMBLE. For a thimble, choose an old one that has been
worn quite smooth.

SCISSORS. For scissors, be sure and have a strong, short,
sharp and pointed pair — the surgical instrument,
not the fancy article. Nail scissors would not be
amiss but for the roughness of the file on the
blades.

PINS. For pins, use always steel ones ; and for tacks,

those which have been tinned ; or they will leave
their mark behind them.

For a frame, get the best you can afford; a cheap

A WORD TO THE WORKER. 263

one is no economy ; but a stand for it is not FRAMES.
always necessary. It should be rather wider than
might seem necessary, as the work should never
extend to the full width of the webbing. A
tambour frame is also useful, even though you have
no intention of doing tambour work.

In stretching silk (not backed with linen) upon To

a frame, some preliminary care is necessary. The STRETCH
stuff should first be bordered with strips of linen
or strong tape, and into the two sides of this
border which are to be laced up a stout string
should be tacked, to prevent it from giving when
the work is drawn tight.

The way to put embroidery material (thus FRAMING.
bordered or not) into a frame is : first to sew it
to the webbing (top and bottom), then to put the
laths or screws into the bars, tightening them
evenly, and lastly to lace it to the sides with fine
string and a packing needle.

The ordinary ways of transferring a design to TRANS-
embroidery material are well known : the outline FERRING-
may be traced down with a point over transfer
paper ; it may be pricked upon paper and pounced
upon the stuff in chalk or charcoal, and then traced
in with a brush or pen ; or it (still the outline only)
may be stencilled. In any case, the outline marked
upon the stuff should be well within what is to be
the actual outline of the embroidery when worked.
Another way, more peculiarly adapted to needle-
work, is to trace the outline in ink upon fine

264 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

tarlatan (leno muslin will do for very coarse work),
and, having laid this down upon the stuff, to go
over the lines again with a ruling pen and Indian
ink or colour. On a light stuff it is possible to
use, instead of a pen, a hard pencil. On a dark
material one must use Chinese white, to which it
is well to add, not only a little gum (arabic), but
a trace of ox-gall, to make it work easily. One
gets by this method naturally rather a rotten line
upon the ground-stuff, but it is enough for all
practical purposes.

KEEPING Delicate work is easily rubbed and soiled in the
CLEAN. working. It is only reasonable precaution to pro-
tect it by a veil or covering of thin, soft, white,
glazed lining, tacked round the edges on to the
stuff. On this you mark the four lines enclosing
the actual embroidery, and, cutting through three
of them, you have a flap of lining, which you raise
and turn back when you are at work. If the work
is very delicate, you may make instead of one flap
a succession of little ones ; but you see then only
a portion of your work at a time, and cannot so
well judge its effect.

STARTING In starting work, do not begin by making a

FINISH- knot in your thread ; run a few stitches (presently

ING. t0 be worked over) on the right side of the stuff.

In finishing, you run them at the back of the stuff;

for greater security still, one may end with a

buttonhole-stitch.

There is less danger of puckering the stuff if

A WORD TO THE WORKER. 265

you hold it over two fingers (at least), keeping it PUCKER-
taut and the thread loose.

Working without a frame, it often comes
handiest to hold the stuff askew, and there is
a natural inclination to pull it in that direction.
This temptation must be resisted, or puckering
is sure to result.

In working with double silk or wool, it is better DOUBLE
not to double back a single thread, but to pass two THREAD-
separate threads through the eye of the needle.
The four threads (where these are turned back
near the eye) make way through the stuff for the
double thread, which passes easily ; moreover, the
thread by this means is not pulled too tight, and
the effect is richer.

The stitch wants always adaptation to the work
it has to do. In working a curved line, for example,
say in herring-bone-stitch, one is bound always to
take up a larger piece of stuff on its outside than
on its inner edge.

When a thread runs short, it is better not to go
on working with it, but to take another ; and, in
finishing off, remember to run the thread in the
direction opposite to that from which you are
going to run the new one. In starting the new
stitch, you naturally bring your needle out as if
it were a continuation of that last made.

If your work is faulty, cut it out and do it again. UNDOING.
Unpicking is not so satisfactory : it loosens the stuff
to drag the thread back through it, and the thread

266 ART IN NEEDLEWORK.

saved is of no further use. Beginners find it
hard to undo work once done ; but a really good
needlewoman never hesitates about it — her one
thought is to get the thing right. Don't break
your thread ever : that pulls it out of condition :
always cut it.

In working, it is well to keep strictly to the
stitch you have chosen, but not to the point of
bigotry. One may finish off darning, for example,
at the edges with a satin-stitch. The thing to
avoid is fudging. Moreover, stitches should be
laid right at once; there should be no boggling
and botching, no working-over with stitches to
make good — that is not playing fair.

SMOOTH- When the needlework is done, do not finish it
with a flat iron. That finishes it in more senses
than one. But suppose it is puckered ? In that
case, stretch it and damp it. To do this, first
tack on to it (as explained on page 263) a frame of
strong tape. Then, on a drawing-board or other
even wooden surface, lay a piece of clean calico,
and on that, face downwards, the embroidery, and,
slightly stretching it, nail it down by the tape with
tin-tacks rather close together. If now you lay
upon it a damp cloth, the embroidery will absorb
the moisture from it, and when that is removed,
should dry as flat as it is possible to get it.

A rather more daring plan is to damp the back
of the stuff with a wet sponge. The work, instead
of being nailed on to a board, may just as well be

A WORD TO THE WORKER. 267

laced to a frame by the tape. In the case of raised
embroidery there must be between it and the wood,
not a cloth merely, but a layer of wadding.

The damping above described may take the form
of a thin paste or stiffening but upon silk or other
such material this wants tenderly doing.

One last word as to thoroughness in needlework.
Those who have really not time to do much, should
be satisfied with simple work. The desire to make
a great show with little work is a snare. Ladies
make protest always, " There is too much work in
that." Well, if they are not prepared to work,
they may as well give themselves up to their play.
There was no labour shirked in the old work
illustrated in these pages ; and nothing much worth
doing was ever done without work, hard work, and
plenty of it. Should that thought frighten folk
away, they may as well be scared off at once.
Art can do very well without them.

INDEX.

PAGE

ADAPTATION of stitch 103,

1 88, 265

ANTiQUE-stitch - - 66

(See also Oriental-stitch.)
APPLIQUE 140, 144 et seq., 220,
222, 224, 232, 233
ARAB work - - - 152
ARTLESS art - - 37, 248
ATTACHMENT of cord - 124

BACKSTITCH 30, 37, 41, 53,
83, 86, 172, 238, 242
BASKET patterns - - 134
BEADS - - - - 260
BEGINNING & FINISHING 264
BLANKET-STITCH - - 56
BRAID-STITCH -. 42, 43
BROAD surfaces (covering) 178
BROCADE 256

BULLION 165

BULLION-STITCH 75, 76, 162,

165
BUTTONHOLE-STITCH 8, 55 et

seq., 69, 122, 145, 158,

178, 182

BUTTONHOLING (lace) 84, 86
BYZANTINE embroidery 12, 24

PAGE

CABLE-CHAIN - - - 42

CANVAS - - - - 7, 25

CANVAS stitches - 12 et seq.

CANVAS-STITCH embroidery 22

CARD underlay - 162, 258

CASHMERE embroidery • 240

CASHMERE-STITCH - - 18

CHAIN-STITCH 38 et seq., 61,

83, 129, 145, 156, 158,

178, 182, 202, 238, 257

CHENILLE - - - 257

CHINESE embroidery 78, 96

129, 136, 140, 152

CHURCH work 41, 136, 148

166, 216 et seq.

CLASSIFICATION of stitches 9,

CLOTH - 125, 126, 159, 255

COLOUR - - - 1 10, 208

COLOUR gradation 98, 114, 118

COLOUR and outline 146, 185

COMBINATION of stitches - 182

COPTIC embroidery - 12, 238

,, tapestry - - 2

CORAL - - - 166, 260

CORD - - 122

,, (couched) 128, 144, 178

182

270

INDEX.

PAGE

CORD (attachment of) - 124

COTTON - ... 255

COUCHED cord 128, 144, 178,

182

,, gold 131 et seq., 182

,, outline - - 146

COUCHING 22, 114, 120, 121,

122 et seq , 256

,, (reverse)- - 130

COUNTERCHANGE - - 154

CRETAN embroidery - 12
CRETAN-STITCH - - 61

(See also Ladder-stitch. )

CREWEL - ... 256

CREWEL-STITCH 26 et seq. , 83,

86, 103, 105, 178,

,, (surface)- 86

CREWEL work- - 26, 36, 37

CROSS-STITCH- - 12, 14, 16

CROSSED buttonhole-stitch 56

CUSHION-STITCH - 20, 21

CUT-WORK - - - 156

DAMASK- - - 255, 256

DAMPING - - 266, 267

DARNING 8, 22, 83, 90, 106

et seq., 178, 179

,, (Japanese) - 86

,, (surface) - - 84

DESIGN - 150,219,245^^.

,, traditional - 250, 252

DESIGN and stitch - 10, 250

DESIGNER and embroiderer

244, 245

DIAPERS 87, 88, 108, 132, 134,
210

DIRECTION of stitch 92,95,108
114, 136, 190, 208 et seq., 225

PAGE

DOUBLE darning - - 106
,, thread - - 265
DOVETAIL-STITCH - 103, 104
(See also Embroidery and

Plumage Stitches. )
DRAWING with the needle 192,
194, 196, 199, 211
DRAWN work - - 2, 4, 234

EASTERN embroidery. (See

Oriental. )

EFFECT and stitch - 36, 78
EIGHTEENTH century em-
broidery - - 220, 258
EMBROIDERY and painting

201, 202
EMBROIDERY-STITCH - 103

(See also Phimage-stitch. )
ENGLISH embroidery 34, 36,
169
EYELETS- - - - 233

FEATHER-STITCH 62 et seq.,
83, loo, 178, 230
FELT ,- • - 255

FIFTEENTH century em-
broidery - - 24, 164
FIGURE work 116, 169, 190,
198 et seq.
FILLING-IN patterns - 24

FlLO-FLOSS - - 164, 256

FILOSELLE 124, 144, 256

FISHBONE - 21, 47, 51

FLAX thread - - 164, 256
FLEMISH embroidery 142, 200
FLESH - - - 204, 206

INDEX.

271

PAGE

FLORENTINE-STITCH 18, 21

(See also Cushton-sti(ch.)
FLOSS 95, 114, 116, 118, 120,
256

FORM and stitch 44, 47, 100,

118, 176, 211, 265

FRAMING work - - 263

FRENCH embroidery 88, 257

,, floss - - - 256

„ knots 77, 129, 150,

178, 256

GEOMETRIC pattern- - 237

GERMAN embroidery no, 125,

126, 156, 185, 238

,, knot-stitch - 72

GOBELIN-STITCH - - 18

GOLD - - 210, 222, 257

,, (couched) 1311/^,182

,, (raised) - 134, 136, 165

,, thread - - 131, 257

,, tinted by couching

stitches - - 142
,, wire - - 169, 260

HALF-CROSS-STITCH - 20

HEMSTITCH - - - 233

HERALDIC embroidery - 156

HERRING-BONE-STITCH 8, 22,

47 et seq.t 83, 178, 182, 233

HILDESHEIM cope (the) - 126

HUNGARIAN embroidery - 2

stitch - - 1 8

INDIAN embroidery 41, 46, 61,

95, 98, 154, 169, 222, 260

INDIAN herring-bone - 48

PAGE

INLAY ... - 153

INTERLACING stitches 83

ITALIAN embroidery 22, 24,

37, 46, 138

ITALIAN embroidery (Re-
naissance) 22, 41, 1 20,
142, 154, 199

JAPANESE darning - 86, 87

,, embroidery - 80

gold - - 257

JEWELS - - - 165, 260

KNOT-STITCHES 72 etse?., 182

LACE - - - - i, 2
LACE stitches - - 84 et seq.
LADDER-STITCH 59, 61, 182
LAID-WORK ii2etseq., 162, 178
LEATHER - - - 260
LEATHER on velvet - - 150
LENGTH of stitch - 96, 100
LIMITATIONS of embroidery 252
LINE work 176, 178

LINEN - - - 164, 255
,, (embroidery on) - 24
LONG-AND-SHORT-STITCH 36,

98, ioo, 178, 190, 192, 230

MAGIC-STITCH - -41
MATERIAL (influence of on

stitch) 12, 13, 16, 18, 24,

88,91

MATERIALS - - 242 et seq.
MATTING - - 232

MECHANICAL embroidery 237

272

INDEX.

MEDIEVAL work 92, 136, 140,
190

MILANESE-STITCH - - 18
MODELLING - - - 222
MODEST work - - 242, 243
MOORISH-STITCH - 18, 21
MOROCCO embroidery - 152

NEEDLE (tambour) - 38, 257

NEEDLE pictures - - 201

NEEDLES - - - 262

NET passing 86

OLD ENGLISH KNOT-STITCH 75

OPUS Anglicanum - - 9

ORIENTAL embroidery 2, 22,

61, 92, 112, 136, 140,

153, 238

,, stitch 66 ef set?., $3,
178, 182

ORIGINALITY - - - 246

OUTLINE 22,77, 108, 146, 158,

178, 184, 185 et seq.

,, (couched) 126, 128,

146

(double) 146,185,186

,, (stepped) - 1 6, 24

,, (voided) - 96, 187

OUTLINE embroidery - 138

,, stitch 29, 30, 32, 86

PADDING - - 159, 172
PAINTING - 201, 202

PARCHMENT - 160, 168, 258
PARISIAN-STITCH - - 18
PATCHWORK - - - 156
PEARLS - - 165, 166, 260

PAGE

PEASANT work 12, 13, 238

PERSIAN embroidery 7, 24, 41,

174, 240

PICTORIAL effect 198, 199, 201
PICTURES (tent-stitch) 14, 20
PIERCE - - - - 132
PINS - - 146, 262

PLAIT-STITCH - - 21

PLATE - - - 257

PLUMAGE-STITCH 62, 100, 103,
178, 179, 192, 212, 230
PRECIOUSNESS - - 198
PURL .... 257
PURSE silk - - 116, 162

QUILTING
RAISED gold

- 172 et seq.

134, 136, 165
ct seq.

„ work - 134, 136, 159
et seq.

RELIEF - i$get seg., 166,

1 68, 169, 172, 222, 230

RENAISSANCE embroidery 41,

92, 142, 154, 166

RENEWING ground - - 126

REVERSE-couching - - 130

RIBBON - - . 150, 258

RIBBON work - - 258

ROLL-STITCH 75

(See also Bullion- stitch.}
ROMAN satin - - - 255
ROPE-STITCH - ' 71 et seg., ifS
RUNNING - 83, 106, 179

SATIN

"deluxe"
on velvet

255
255
105

INDEX.

273

PAGE

SATIN-STITCH - 24, 91 et seq.
103, 112, 128, 158, 160,
162, 175, 178, 182, 192,

206, 212, 228, 229, 230,
234, 257

SATIN-STITCH (surface) 98, 182
SATIN- STITCH in the making 91
SCISSORS - - - 262
SEEDING - - 230, 231
SERGE .... 255
SEVENTEENTH century

embroidery - 14, 166
SHADED silk - - - 258
SHADING 34,176,188^^.
SILK - - 146, 255

,, (tussah) - - - 256
„ (twisted) - 95, 124, 125
,, on silk - - - 150
SILKS .... 256
SILVER - - 135, 138, 166
SIMPLICITY - 180, 248, 250
, , (a plea for) 237 et seq.

SIXTEENTH century em-
broidery 22, 120, 125, I42}
185, 199

SOLID chain-stitch - 43, 44

,, crewel-stitch - 32, 34

SOUDANESE embroidery - 112

SPANGLES - - 169, 260

SPANISH embroidery 129, 142

154, 1 66, 185

SPANISH-STITCH - 18, 22

(See also Plait-stitch. )
SPARRING - - - 234
SPLIT-STITCH - 38, 100, 105
114, 179, 190, 196, 222
SPOKE-STITCH - - 234
SPOT-STITCH 30

STEM-STITCH - 32

STEMS -

STEPPED outline- •
STILETTO -' - -
STITCH (definition of)

PAGE

- 95
1 6, 24

- 174

,, adaptation 103, 188,
265

,, and effect - 36, 78

,, and form 44, 47, 100,

118, 176, 211, 265

„ and stuff 12, 13, 16, 18,

24, 88, 91

,, groups 9, 175^ seq.

,, names - - 8, 9

,, patterns - 87, 88

,, and design - 10, 250

STITCHES - - - 7

STITCHING over stitching 215

STRETCHING work - 263, 266

STRING - - 159, 160, 162

STROKE-STITCH - - 16

STUFFS .... 254

SURFACE crewel-stitch - 86

,, darning - - 84

,, satin-stitch 98, 182

,, stitches - - 84

SYON COPE, (the) 7, 130, 210

TAILORS' buttonhole - 56

TAMBOUR - - 257

,, frame - - 44

needle - 38, 257

,, stitch - 38

„ work - 44, 194

TAPESTRY i, 2, 4, 143, 220

TAPESTRY-STITCH - - 53

TENDRILS - - - 13°

TENT-STITCH - - 14, 18

274

INDEX.

PAGE

TEXTURE given by stitch-
ing - - 225, 226, 227
THIMBLE - - - 262
THREAD - - - 256
"TRACING" - - •-. - 228
TRADITIONAL design . 250, 252
TRANSFERRING design - 263
TURKISH embroidery - 22
TUSSAH silk - - - 256
TWISTED silk - 95, 124, 125

UNDERLAY
UNPICKING

159, 1 60, 165, 228
- - - 265

PAGE

VANDYKE chain - - 42
VARIETY of method 148,158
,, of stitch iSoetse?.
VELVET - - - 150, 222
VENETIAN embroidery - 138
VOIDING - - 96, 187

WEAVING ... 2

WHITE on white 162, 225 et

seq., 242

WOOL. (See Crewel.}
WOOLLEN stuffs - - 255

Printed at THE DARIEN PRESS, Edinburgh.

A CATALOGUE

°F STANDARD BOOKS ON

DECOM/EART

ORNAMENT, £

DESIGN

PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY

B.T BATSFORD

94, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON

A List of Standard Books

ORNAMENT & DECORATION,

INCLUDING FURNITURE,
WOOD-CARVING, METAL WORK, DESIGN, &c.,

PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY

B. T. BATSFORD,

94, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON, W.C.

THE ART OF THE PLASTERER. An Account of its
Decorative Development, chiefly in England, from the
XVI. — XVIII. Centuries, with Chapters on the Stucco of
the Classic Period and of the Italian Renaissance, also on
Sgraffito, Pargetting, Scottish, Irish and Modern Plaster-
work. By GEORGE P. BANKART, Architect and Craftsman.
Containing about 100 full- page and many smaller Illustra-
tions chiefly from specially taken Photographs, or of specially
prepared Sections and Mouldings, comprising in all over 500
Examples, and one Plate in Colour. Demy 4to (12 ins.
by 8J ins.), cloth gilt, price 255. net. [In the Press.

A book of exceptional interest and value to Plasterers, Architects,
Modellers, and all interested in the Practice or Development of the
Decorative Arts, forming an exhaustive collection of the choicest
English Renaissance Ornament.

OLD LACE. A Handbook for Collectors. An Account of the
different styles of Lace, their History, Characteristics, and
Manufacture. By M. JOURDAIN, Joint Editor of Palliser's
"History of Lace." Containing upwards of 120 Pages, with
nearly 100 Plates comprising over 150 Historic Examples
from Photographs. Large square 8vo (8J ins. by 6J ins.),
cloth gilt, price los. 6d. net.

This book is designed to provide, in a handy and inexpensive form,
a guide to the different varieties of Lace. The Author gives a brief
history of each style, sketches the characteristics of its design and the
method of its manufacture. Some of the best specimens from public
and private collections in England and abroad are described and
illustrated from Photographs. Special attention is devoted to English
and Irish Laces.

CONTENTS. — Introduction — Early History of Lacemaking— Tests for
Real Lace — Lacis — Cutwork — Early Italian Pillow Lace (Punto in
Aria) — Venetian and Burano Lace — Rosepoint — Milanese and Cretan
Lace —Flanders, Bruges, and Brussels Lace — Valenciennes — Dutch
— Argentan and Alen9on — Lille — Chantilly — English Needlepoint
Lace — Honiton — Devonshire Trolley — Midland — Irish Laces, —
Blondes — Glossary of Terms — Index,

DECORATIVE PLANT AND FLOWER STUDIES. Uni-
form with " Decorative Flower Studies " (to which it forms a
Second Series). By J. FOORD. For the use of Artists,
Designers, Students, &c. Containing 40 Coloured Plates
printed in facsimile of the original drawings, with a Descrip-
tion and Sketch of each Plant and 450 Studies of Growth
and Detail. Imperial 4to, handsomely bound in cloth gilt,
with an attractive cover design by the Author, price 305. net.

Extract front Introductory Note by Lewis F. Day : — The author has made careful
choice of the most beautiful features of the plant and rendered it simply and broadly in
outline and flat tints. Her studies are to be trusted. They are drawn with care and exact-
ness, and with a firm line there is no mistaking.

" This exquisitely printed and coloured book will prove the most desirable of all Yuletide
publications."— The Daily Telegraph.

DECORATIVE FLOWER STUDIES for the use of Artists,
Designers, Students and others. A series of 40 Coloured
Plates, printed by hand by a stencil process in facsimile of
the original drawings, accompanied by 350 Studies of Detail
showing the Development of the Plant in successive stages
of growth. With Descriptive Notes. By J. FOORD. Imperial
4to, handsomely bound in cloth gilt, price 2$s. net.

STUDIES IN PLANT FORM. For the use of Students,
Designers, and Craftsmen. By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD,
R.E., Hon. A.R.C.A. Containing 25 Photo-lithographic
Plates, size 17 \ x 13, reproduced in black and white from
the author's drawings, illustrating upwards of 60 varieties
of Plants, together with over 80 Illustrations of Detail.
Folio, in cloth portfolio, price 20^. net.

A HANDBOOK OF PLANT FORM FOR STUDENTS OF
DESIGN. By ERNEST E. CLARK, Art Master, Derby
Technical College. Containing 100 Plates (size roj x yj in.),
illustrating 6 1 varieties of Plants with numerous figures in the
text, comprising in all 800 Illustrations. With an Introductory
Chapter on Design, Notes on the Plants, and a Glossary of
Botanical Terms. Large 8vo, cloth, price 5^. net.

6TUDE DE LA PLANTE, SON APPLICATION AUX INDUSTRIES
D'ART. By M. P. VERNEUIL. Comprising 120 Drawings of
Natural Plants and 280 Conventional Designs all coloured
after Water-colour Drawings, with French text. Large 4to,
cloth, price £2 los. net.

FLOWERS AND THEIR DECORATIVE DESIGN. By
Professor G. FRAIPONT. A Series of examples, delicately
printed in colours, entitled "Decorations Florales." Com-
prising 20 full-page Plates (15 in. x n in.), with 20 examples
of the natural flower, and over 100 decorative compositions.
4to, in cloth portfolio, price 125. 6d. net.

. MR. LEWIS F. DAY'S

HANDBOOKS OF ORNAMENTAL DESIGN.
ENAMELLING. A Comparative Account of the Development
and Practice of the Art. For the Use of Artists, Craftsmen,
Students, &c. By LEWIS F. DAY, Author of " Pattern
Design," "Ornament and its Application," "Alphabets," &c.
Containing 214 Pages of Text, with 115 Illustrations, repro-
duced from Special Drawings and Photographs. Demy 8vo,
cloth gilt, price 75. 6d. net.

The plan of Mr. Lewis Day's new book is not quite that of any other
work on Enamelling. It does not set out to be a learned history of the
subject, though it endeavours to put into concise and easily intelligible
form the gist of what learned historians have to tell us. Neither does it
pretend to teach the beginner how to enamel, though it goes very
thoroughly into the processes employed. What it does undertake is,
first, to show what has been done and where it was done ; and,
secondly, to explain how it was done, and why it was done so. The
result is a very comprehensive survey of the course of enamelling, both as
an art in itself and as a branch of the jeweller's craft. The book should
appeal to all who practise enamelling, and to those who only take an
interest in it.

PATTERN DESIGN. A Book for Students, treating in a
practical way of the Anatomy, Planning, and Evolution of
Repeated Ornament. By LEWIS F. DAY. Containing 300
pages of text, with upwards of 300 Illustrations, chiefly from
drawings by the author. Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, price js. 6d. net.

" Every line and every illustration in this book should be studied carefully and
continually by everyone having any aspiration toward designing. It would probably be
going a little too far to assert that anyone studying this book throughout would become
designer, but it is certainly a fact that designing would be rendered comparatively easy to
those having a complete knowledge of its contents ; while it is equally true that the best
artists could not produce designs of any value unless they understood the principles so clearly
explained and admirably illustrated in this work." — The Decorator.

"The book is a serious contribution to the question of pattern designing, and is written
expressly for the designer. It may be strongly commended to all who are studying the
designing of textiles or wall papers, as the counsel it gives is the result of long years of
experience. " — The Journal of Decorative A rt,

ORNAMENT AND ITS APPLICATION. A Book for
Students, treating in a practical way of the Relation of
Design to Material, Tools, and Methods of Work. By
LEWIS F. DAY. Containing 320 pages, with about 300 full-
page and other Illustrations of Decorative Objects and
Ornament, reproduced from photographs and drawings.
Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, price Ss. 6d. net.

Mr. WALTER CRANE in the Manchester Guardian. — "The author brings not only his
extensive knowledge of historic styles, but also the results of his ripe and varied practical
experience as a designer to the exposition of the nature of ornament itself, and the necessary
conditions of its design. His illustrations are extremely rich and varied. . . . The work
can be confidently commended as a most workmanlike and accomplished treatise not or.ly
to all students of design, but to artists and craftsmen generally."

" It bears the unmistakable impress of originality and practical utility . . . It deals with
its subject far more fully than any previous publication, whilst the numerous excellent illus-
trations will be an invaluable aid to teacher and student." — The Studio.

MR. LEWIS F. DAY'S WORKS— continued.
NATURE AND ORNAMENT. Being a new treatise founded
on the author's "Nature in Ornament," which is now in-
corporated in it. By LEWIS F. DAY. Two vols., medium
8vo (9 ins. by 6 ins.), cloth lettered.

Vol. I. — NATURE THE RAW MATERIAL OF ORNAMENT.
With special reference to Plant Form. Containing
1 20 pages and 350 illustrations, including full-pages,
comprising 500 examples, and a fine series of
specially drawn plates of plant form, growth, and
detail. Price 5*. net.

Vol. II. — ORNAMENT THE FINISHED PRODUCT OF NATURE.
With very numerous full-page and smaller illustra-
tions, either new or re-drawn, of the treatment of
Natural form in Design and Decoration.

[/n preparation.
An invaluable Review of the Art and Practice of Embroidery.

ART IN NEEDLEWORK: A BOOK ABOUT EMBROIDERY.
For the use of Needleworkers and other Students of Em-
broidery, and Designers for it. By LEWIS F. DAY and MARY
BUCKLE. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. Containing
8 1 Plates reproduced from photographs, and 39 text Illustra-
tions, of Historical Examples, special Stitches, and Samplers
of executed Work in Various Stages, with a Special Chapter
(new to this edition) on White Work, with Illustrations.
Crown 8vo, cloth, price 55. net.

11 No worker's table can be considered complete without a copy." — Home Art Work.

"An extremely valuable book, forming a much-needed addition to the library of needle-
workers, and one which will grow in value the longer and the more closely it is consulted." —
The Queen.

WINDOWS.— A BOOK ABOUT STAINED AND PAINTED
GLASS. By LEWIS F. DAY. Third Edition, revised and
enlarged, containing 60 full-page Plates and over 200 Illus-
trations in the text, all of Old Examples. 400 pages, large
8vo, cloth gilt, price 2is. net. The plates have been entirely
reproduced afresh, and many are new to this edition.

The Most Handy ', Useful, and Comprehensive Work on the Subject.

ALPHABETS, OLD AND NEW. Containing over 200 complete
Alphabets, 30 Series of Numerals, and numerous Facsimiles
of Ancient Dates. Selected and arranged by LEWIS F. DAY.
Preceded by a short account of the Development of the
Alphabet. With Modern Examples specially Designed by
R. ANNING BELL, WALTER CRANE, MUCHA, E. GRASSET,
J. WALTER WEST, PATTEN WILSON, the Author, and others.
Second Edition, revised and enlarged, with many additional
examples. Crown 8vo, art linen, price $s. 6d. net.

" We receive so many applications asking us to recommend a good reliable book on
Alphabets, that it is a pleasure to note the issue of this second edition, which, with its
additional alphabets, appears to meet almost every want." — The Decorator.

MR. LEWIS F. DAY'S WORKS— continued.
LETTERING IN ORNAMENT. An Enquiry into the Decora-
tive Use of Lettering, Past, Present and Possible. By LEWIS
F. DAY. With 200 full-page and smaller Illustrations from
photographs and drawings. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 55. net.
This work is uniform in size and style with the author's " ALPHABETS,
OLD AND NEW," and is at once a companion and a sequel to it.
But, whereas that dealt only with the forms of letters, this has to do with
their use in ornament, the way they have been and are to be employed in
decoration.

CONTENTS — The Printed and Written Page, Inscriptions, Scrolls and
Labels, Monograms, Cyphers, Combinations, Initial Letters, Decorative
Lettering, &c.

MOOT POINTS : Friendly disputes upon Art and Industry
between WALTER CRANE and LEWIS F. DAY. Demy 8vo,
90 pages, with 8 Ornamental and very amusing Caricatures of
the artists by WALTER CRANE. In paper wrapper, price ii.net
SUBJECTS : The Ideal Artist ; Designer and Executant ; the Artist
and his Livelihood ; Art and Industry ; Work and Pleasure ; the Pro-
fession of Art ; Poetic Ornament ; the Living Interest in Ornament.

PROFESSOR MEYER'S TEXTBOOKS.

A HANDBOOK OF ORNAMENT. With 300 Plates, contain-
ing about 3,000 Illustrations of the Elements and Application
of Decoration to Objects. By F. S. MEYER. Third Edition,
revised by HUGH STANNUS, F.R.I.B.A. Thick 8vo, cloth
gilt, price 12S. 6d.

"A Library, a Museum, an Encyclopaedia and an Art School in one. To rival it as a
book of reference, one must fill a bookcase. The quality of the drawings is unusually high,
the choice of examples is singularly good. . . . The work is practically an epitome of a
hundred Works on Design." — Studio.

"Asa treasury of ornament drawn to scale in all styles, and derived from genuine
concrete objects, we have nothing in England which will not appear as poverty-stricken as
compared with Professor Meyer's book." — Architect.

A HANDBOOK OF ART SMITHING. For the use oi
Practical Smiths, Designers, and in Art and Technical
Schools. By F. S. MEYER, Author of "A Handbook of
Ornament." With an Introduction by J. ST \RKIE GARDNER.
Containing 214 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth, price 6s.

" A most excellent manual, crowded with examples of ancient work. The Introduction
is by Mr. Starkie Gardner, and students know what that name implies." — The Studio.

AN ALPHABET OF ROMAN CAPITALS, together with
three sets of lower-case letters selected and enlarged from
the finest examples and periods. Prepared for the use of
Schools. By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD, R.E., HON. A.R.C.A.,
Lond. Each letter 7 in. square, with descriptive text, printed
on strong drawing paper. In stout envelope, price 2s. 6d. net.

LETTERING AND WRITING. A series of Alphabets and
their Decorative Treatment, with examples and notes illus-
trative of Construction, Arrangement, Spacing and Adapta
tion of Letters to Materials. By PERCY J. SMITH, Instructor
in Writing and Illuminating at theL.C.C. Camberwell School
of Arts and Putney School of Art. Containing 16 Plates in
line, reproduced to a large scale from sheets entirely drawn
and written by the Author. Printed on stout boards for
purposes of teaching, study, &c. Large quarto (13 J ins. by
8J ins.), in stout cardboard case, price 35. 6d. net.

SOME TERMS COMMONLY USED IN ORNAMENTAL
DESIGN, their Explanation Defined and Explained. By
T. ERAT HARRISON and W. G. PAULSON TOWNSEND,
Examiners to the Board of Education. With numerous
illustrations, including many beautiful examples of design.
Large 8vo, cloth, price $s. 6d. net.

DECORATIVE BRUSHWORK AND ELEMENTARY
DESIGN. A Manual for the Use of Teachers and
Students in Elementary, Secondary and Technical Schools.
By HENRY CADNESS, Second Master of the Municipal
School of Art, Manchester. With upwards of 450 Examples
of Design on Plates. Second Edition, revised and enlarged.
Crown 8vo, cloth, price 3^. 6d. net.

" One of the most instructive books we have ever seen on this subject. Design is here
treated in a masterly way, the author going to the best available sources for his illustrations,
all of which are admirable." — The Sclioolmaster.

A MANUAL OF HISTORIC ORNAMENT, being an
Account of the Development of Architecture and the
Historic Arts, for the use of Students and Craftsmen. By
RICHARD GLAZIER, A.R.I.B.A., Headmaster of the Man-
chester School of Art. Containing 500 Illustrations. Second
edition, enlarged. Demy 8vo, cloth, price 6s. net.

" Not since the publication of Owen Jones' celebrated ' Grammar of Ornament ' have we
seen any book, brought out on popular lines, that could compare with Mr. Glazier's ' Manual.'
In many ways it is the better book of the two. ... It simply abounds with beautiful,
delicately-drawn illustrations, and forms a perfect treasury of designs." — The Bookseller.

THE PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN. A Textbook for Students
and others, especially designed to meet the requirements of
the Board of Education Examination Syllabus on " Principles
of Ornament." By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD, Hon. A.R.C.A.
With 1 6 photographic Plates and over 350 diagrams drawn
by the author, on 60 Plates. Large crown 8vo, art linen,
gilt, price 6s. net.

" Certainly no one is better qualified to write such a book. . . . The illustrations, con-
sisting of photographic reproductions and several hundred line drawings by the Author, are
excellent. The few specimens of Mr. Rhead's own work as a decorative designer, which he
introduces, makes one wish for more of them ; they remind one of the thorough equipment of
this admirable artist to speak with authority on his subject." — Arts and Crafts,

PLASTERING— PLAIN AND DECORATIVE. A Practical
Treatise oh the Art and Craft of Plastering and Modelling.
With chapters on the History of the Art, illustrated by
numerous fine examples. By WILLIAM MILLAR. With an
Introduction by G. T. ROBINSON, F.S.A. Third Edition
revised, containing 550 Illustrations, of which 50 are full-
page Plates. Thick 410, cloth, price iS^net.

" Mr. Millar's book is in all respects admirable ; written in a simple, effective style,
dealing with the whole field of the art, and showing in its criticisms no lack of historical

perspective It is full of technical information, while the illustrations contain some

good examples of the best work of all kinds." — The Studio.

THE ART OF BRASS REPOUSS& A Manual of Practical
Instruction for the Use of Amateurs. By T. G. and W. E.
GAWTHORP, Art Metal Workers to His Majesty. Fourth
Edition, revised and enlarged, with 50 Illustrations. Cr. 8vo,
paper cover, price is. net.

"DER MODERNE STIL." (THE MODERN STYLE.) An
International Review of Art applied to Industry as represented
in the best productions of leading decorative artists in
England, France and Germany. Containing a rich collection
of Illustrations of Art- Work and Design of all kinds, includ-
ing Wall Papers, Textiles, Lace, Embroidery, Bookbinding,
Pottery, Furniture, Carving, Stained Glass, Metal Work, &c.
Each volume is complete in itself and is sold separately : —
VOLUME I. — With 815 Illustrations on 120 Plates. Large

4to, boards, cloth backs, price 20$. net.
VOLUMES II.-VIL, each containing 96 Plates, exhibiting
600 to 800 Illustrations. 4to, boards, price 1 51. net each.

OLD CLOCKS AND WATCHES AND THEIR MAKERS.
Being an Historical and Descriptive Account of the different
Styles of Clocks and Watches of the Past in England and
Abroad, with a List of 10,000 Makers. By F. J, BRITTEN.
Second Edition, much enlarged, containing 740 pages with
700 Illustrations of choice and curious specimens, mostly
reproduced from photographs. Medium 8vo, cloth gilt,
price 151. net.

THE DECORATION OF HOUSES. By EDITH WHARTON
and OGDEN CODMAN, Architect. With 56 full-page Photo-
graphic Plates of Interior Views, Doors, Ceilings, Chimney-
pieces, examples of Furniture, &c. Large square 8vo, cloth
gilt, price i2s. 6d. net.

This volume describes and illustrates in a very interesting way the
Decorative treatment of Rooms during the Renaissance period, and
deduces principles for the decoration, furnishing, and arrangements of
Modern Houses.

OLD ENGLISH WOOD-CARVING PATTERNS— from Oak
Furniture of the Jacobean Period. A series of examples
selected and drawn in facsimile from rubbings, for the use of
Teachers, Students and Classes. By MARGARET F. MALIM.
Comprising 30 Examples on 20 Plates, reproduced by photo-
tint process. Imperial 4to, in portfolio, price 85. 6d. net.

This work has been undertaken in the hope of meeting the increased
demand for simple wood-carving patterns. The rubbings have been
taken from the best specimens of Jacobean furniture, and the details
have been drawn in and shaded most carefully in order to reproduce the
effect of the carving as accurately as possible. For the purpose of
making her selection, the Author has visited many important private
collections. The Introduction gives a clear explanation of the method
of reproduction and also many valuable suggestions.

"To the amateur wood-carver and elementary student in the craft, this collection or
thirty simple examples will be extremely useful. They are confined almost entirely to a flat
form of decoration, therefore admirable exercises for beginners." — Art Workers' Quarterly.

WOOD-CARVING DESIGNS. A Series for Students, Teachers,
Designers and Amateurs. By MURIEL MOLLER. With a
Foreword by WALTER CRANE. Six Imperial Sheets com-
prising 31 Working Drawings of Panels, Frames, &c., 12
Reproductions of Photographs from the Carved Objects, and
20 Examples of Furniture suitable for them, designed in con-
junction with A. W. SIMPSON. Large Imperial 8vo, in cloth
portfolio, price 6s. net.

Extract from Foreword by Walter Crane.

Miss MURIEL MOLLER is an accomplished carver in wood, who has also had
extensive experience in teaching the craft. In drawing these sheets of patterns she
has had in view the need of a clearly defined outline of design for tracing on to the
wood for the carver. A useful feature is the sheet of the elevations to scale of
executed furniture designs which accompany the patterns and indicate the position
and relation of the carved work in use.

ENGLISH INTERIOR WOODWORK of the XVI., XVII., and
XVIII. Centuries. A series of 50 Plates of Drawings to
scale and Sketches, chiefly of Domestic Work, illustrating a
fine series of examples of Chimney Pieces, Panelling, Sides
of Rooms, Staircases, Doorways, Screens, &c., with full
practical details and descriptive text. By HENRY TANNER,
Jun., A.R.I. B. A., Joint Author of "Some Architectural
Works of Inigo Jones." Folio, cloth gilt, price 36*. net.

" The book contains fifty well-produced plates from ink and pencil drawings, which are
excellently done, and the series gives a fairly consecutive view of some of the best wood-work
to be found in England." — The British Architect.

" Mr. Tanner is certainly a skilled draughtsman, and to the illustrations in the book
before us no exception could possibly be taken. The minutest details are given with the
greatest exactitude, rendering the book of the utmost value to those who desire to study or
possess a record of the styles represented." — The Cabinet Maker.

REMAINS OF ECCLESIASTICAL WOOD -WORK. A
Series of Examples of Stalls, Screens, Book-Boards, Roofs,
Pulpits, &c., beautifully engraved on 21 Plates from drawings
by T. TALBOT BURY, Archt. 4to, half-bound, price IQS. 6d.

The Most Artistic and Practical Volume on the craft by a
well-known leading Authority.

PRACTICAL WOOD CARVING. A Book for the Student,
Carver, Teacher, Designer, and Architect. By ELEANOR
ROWE. With 112 Illustrations from Photographs, and 55
from line drawings of Old and Modern Carvings, including
Photographs of work in successive stages, and of Carving
Methods and Processes in Action. Demy 8vo, cloth, con-
taining about 240 pages, price about 7*. 6d. net.

This is a comprehensive book on the subject, showing the evolution of
wood-carving from the simple gouge-cut pattern to the elaborate Renas-
cence panel. It is hoped that the Student who is compelled to learn wood-
carving without a master will find all necessary for beginning his studies.

CONTENTS:— The Wood-Carver's Outfit— Various Woods used by the Carver-
Construction— The Outcome of the Tool— Flat Carving— Strap-work and Low-relief—
High-relief—Gothic Carving and Mouldings — Renascence Carving and Mouldings —
Lettering — Pierced Carving — Treatment and Design.

FRENCH WOOD CARVINGS FROM THE NATIONAL
MUSEUMS. A Series of Examples printed in Collotype
from Photographs specially taken from the Carvings direct.
Edited by ELEANOR ROWE. Parti.: Late i5th and Early
1 6th Century Examples; Part II.: i6th Century Work;
Part III. : lyth and 1 8th Centuries. The Three Series Com-
plete, each containing 18 large folio Plates, with descriptive
letterpress. Folio, in portfolios, price I2S. each net; or
handsomely bound in one volume, price £2 $s. net.

" Students of the Art of Wood Carving will find a mine of inexhaustible treasures in this
series of illustrations. . . . Each plate is a work of art in itself." — The Queen.

11 Needs only to be seen to be purchased by all interested in the craft, whether archaeo-
logically or practically." — The Studio.

HINTS ON WOOD CARVING FOR BEGINNERS. By
ELEANOR ROWE. Fourth Edition, revised and enlarged.
With 23 full-page Illustrations. 8vo, paper cover, price is.

" The most useful and practical small book on wood -carving we know of." — Builder.

HINTS ON CHIP CARVING. (Class Teaching and other
Northern Styles.) By ELEANOR ROWE. 40 Illustrations. 8vo,
paper cover, price is.

"Full of sound directions and good suggestions." — Magazine of Art.

DETAILS OF GOTHIC WOOD CARVING of the

Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. By FRANKLYN A.
CRALLAN. Containing 34 large Photo-lithographic Plates,
illustrating some of the finest specimens extant. With intro-
ductory and descriptive text. Large 4to, in cloth portfolio,
or bound in cloth gilt, price 2%s.

ENGLISH FURNITURE DESIGNERS OF THE XVIIIxH
CENTURY. By CONSTANCE SIMON. Containing upwards
of 200 pages, with 62 full-page Illustrations of choice and
little-known Specimens, beautifully reproduced in half-tone
from special Photographs. Imperial 8vo, cloth gilt, price
15^. net.

"This is a book of unusual excellence, for which students of Miss Simon's fascinating
but obscure subject will have very good cause to be grateful. So little is known of the lives
and personalities of the great cabinet-makers of the Georgian period that the additions to
our knowledge which her industry and research have enabled her to make are not only of
substantial value in themselves, but will entitle her book to a distinguished place in furniture
literature. The illustrations add most appreciably to the value of this well-informed, original,
and authoritative piece of work, in which nothing is slurred over, and nothing taken for
granted."— The Standard.

11 Miss Simon's book is decidedly most attractive in form and appearance, and its
copious illustrations from choice specimens in private collections are particularly excellent
and interesting." — The Times.

FURNITURE DESIGNING AND DRAUGHTING. A

Practical Manual on the Preparation of Working Drawings
of Furniture. By A. C. NYE. Comprising Notes on the
Elementary Forms, Methods of Construction, and Dimen-
sions of Common Articles of Furniture. Fully illustrated
by 152 Diagrams. Large 8vo, cloth, price los. net.

COLONIAL FURNITURE IN AMERICA. An Historical
and Descriptive Account of the Old English and Dutch
Furniture taken out or manufactured by the early Colonists.
By LUKE VINCENT LOCKWOOD. With 300 photographic
Illustrations of typical examples of Chests, Couches, Sofas,
Tables, Chairs, Settees, Clocks, Cupboards, Sideboards,
Mirrors, Chests of Drawers, Bedsteads, Desks, Escritoires,
&c. 4to, art linen, price 255. net.

THE FURNITURE OF OUR FOREFATHERS. Being
Examples of Old Furniture of the Early Colonists in New
England. By ESTHER SINGLETON. With critical descriptions
by RUSSELL STURGIS. Containing over 600 pages of text,
upwards of 150 Plates, reproduced in photogravure and half
tone, and 200 line drawings in the text, exhibiting in all
some 500 pieces of Furniture of the Stuart, Queen Anne
and Georgian Periods. 2 vols., imperial 8vo, art canvas,
price £2 los. net.

THE DECORATIVE WORK OF ROBERT AND JAMES
ADAM. Containing 30 large folio Plates illustrating
about loo examples of Rooms, Ceilings, Chimney-pieces,
Tables, Chairs, Vases, Lamps, Mirrors, Pier-glasses, Clocks,
&c., by these famous 18th-century Designers. Large folio,
handsomely bound in old style, price 30^. net.

CHIPPENDALE'S THE GENTLEMAN AND CABINET-
MAKER'S' DIRECTOR. A complete facsimile of the
3rd and rarest Edition (1762), containing 200 Plates of
Designs. Folio, strongly bound in half-cloth, price £$ 15*.
net.

HEPPLEWHITE'S CABINET - MAKER AND UPHOL-
STERER'S GUIDE. A facsimile reproduction of this rare
work, containing 300 charming Designs on 128 Plates. Small
folio, cloth gilt, old style, price £2 IQS. net. (1794.)
Original copies ivhen met with fetch from £ij to

EXAMPLES OF FURNITURE AND DECORATION
DESIGNED BY THOMAS SHERATON. Containing a
selection of 167 typical specimens reproduced on 16 Plates
(18 inches by 12 inches), from his rare " Cabinet Maker and
Upholsterer's Drawing Book," published 1791 — 1802. Folio,
enclosed in portfolio, price 15^. net.

OLD OAK ENGLISH FURNITURE. A Series of
Measured Drawings, with some examples of Architectural
Woodwork, Plasterwork, Metalwork, Glazing, &c. By J. W.
HURRELL, Architect. Containing no full-page photo-
lithographic Plates. Folio, cloth gilt, price £2 2s. od. net.

USEFUL DETAILS IN SEVERAL STYLES. Containing
1400 examples of Furniture and Decorative Details in
various Historic Styles on 144 Plates. By HERBERT
BINSTEAD, Editor of the "Furniture Record. Tall 8vo
(rij x 4^), price 3^. 6d. net.

The book is the cheapest and most concise guide to the styles of
furniture and decoration which has ever appeared.

PRACTICAL DRA.PERY CUTTING. A Handbook on
Cutting and Fixing Curtains, Draperies, &c., with Descrip-
tions and Practical Notes, for the use of Decorators,
Upholsterers, Cutters, and Apprentices. By E. NOETZLI,
formerly Instructor in Upholstery at the Municipal School
of Technology, Manchester. Containing 30 Plates, com-
prising over 1 60 illustrations. Large imperial 8vo, cloth
gilt, price I2S. 6d. net.

This work is written and arranged on very practical lines, and simply
planned. The variety of subjects illustrated is great, and they include
practically all the forms of drapery which occur in ordinary work.

HERALDRY AS ART. An Account of its Development and
Practice, chiefly in England. By GEORGE W. EVE. Con-
taining 320 Pages, with 300 Illustrations of Typical Heraldic
Design, Old and New, from Photographs and Drawings.
Demy 8vo, cloth gilt, price 1 25. 6d. net.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. — The Origin, Uses, and Aims of Heraldry
— The Evolution of Shield Forms — Heraldic Rules — Animals and Mon-
sters— Heraldic Birds and other Figures — Helm, Crest, and Mantling —
Armorial Accessories — Methods and Materials— Architectural Decora-
tion— Embroidered Heraldry — Some Miscellaneous Charges — Marks of
Cadency.

ORNAMENT IN EUROPEAN SILKS. By ALAN S. COLE,
C.B., Author of Ancient Needlepoint and Pillow Lace and
Cantor Lectures on the Art of Lace Making, The Art of
Tapestry Making and Embroidery, &c. Containing 220
pages, with 169 full-page and smaller Illustrations of choice
specimens, chiefly reproduced from Photographs. 4to, art
linen, gilt, price 155". net.

OLD AND NEW LACE (DENTELLES, ANCIENNES ET
MODERNES). An Illustrated Catalogue of the choicest
specimens displayed at the International Exhibition of Lace,
held at the Museum of Decorative Art, Haarlem, comprising
examples from Important Public and Private Collections,
edited, with Short Historical and Descriptive Text in French,
by JOHANNA W. A. NABER. Containing 60 fine Specimens
on 30 large Folio Plates (size 19 in. x 14 in.), reproduced
from Photographs, in Portfolio, price 305. net.

FIFTEENTH - CENTURY ITALIAN ORNAMENT, chiefly
taken from Brocades and Stuffs found on pictures in the
National Gallery, London. By SIDNEY VACHER, Architect.
A Series of 30 fine folio Plates of characteristic Textile
Patterns from Dresses, Draperies, Brocades, Hangings, &c.,
shown to a good size, and printed in gold and colours. With
descriptive Text. Folio, half vellum, in ornamental cover, 245.
The few remaining copies of this interesting work have been privately
purchased, and are now offered. The work has long been out of print.

ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH WROUGHT IRONWORK.
A Series of Examples of English Ironwork of the best
period, with which is included most that now exists in
Scotland. By BAILEY SCOTT MURPHY, Architect. Con-
taining 80 fine Plates (size 21 J in. by 14^ in.), 68 reproduced
from measured drawings, and the remaining 12 from photo-
graphs specially taken. With Descriptive Text. Imperial
folio, buckram, gilt, price ^£3 3^. net.

"This volume stands alone as a unique collection of the best work in wrought iron done
in Great Britain. It is replete with exact delineations and precise dimensions technically
and thoroughly realised for the student and practical craftsman." — The Building News.

OLD SILVERWORK, CHIEFLY ENGLISH, FROM THE
XVth TO THE XVIIIth CENTURIES. A series of choice
examples selected from the unique loan collection exhibited
at St. James's Court, London. Edited, with Historical and
Descriptive Notes, by J. STARKIE GARDNER, F.S.A. Con-
taining 121 beautiful collotype Plates reproduced from photo-
graphs in the most effective manner. Folio, buckram, gilt,
price ^5 55. net.

The edition of this work is limited to 500 copies, of which very few
now remain for sale.

"All lovers of old silver will welcome the appearance of this sumptuous volume. The
illustrations throughout are admirable, and the whole work deserves great praise."—
The Connoisseur.

"The illustrations are as faultless as the resources of reproduction and ot the typo-
graphical art can make them." — The Daily News.

THE TREATISES OF BENVENUTO CELLINI ON METAL
WORK AND SCULPTURE. From the Marcian Codex,
with an Introductory Account of the Origin and Object of
the Treatises, and of Cellini's Position as Craftsman and
Author. By C. R. ASHBEE, M. A. Illustrated by i T Plates
of Jewels, Seals, Coins, Medals, Ornamental Figures, &c.,
and 7 Practical Diagrams. Small folio, finely printed at the
Essex House Press. In buckram, price 25^. net.

This translation is intended for the workshop, to bring home to English
craftsmen the methods of the master goldsmith of the Renaissance. It
abounds in information concerning the processes employed by metal-
workers and sculptors in the time of Cellini, as well as with those
specially introduced by him.

THE ART OF THE JAPANESE STENCIL CUTTER:
THE BOOK OF DELIGHTFUL AND STRANGE DESIGNS, BEING
ONE HUNDRED FACSIMILE ILLUSTRATIONS OF JAPANESE
STENCILS. With an Introduction by ANDREW W. TUER,
F.S.A. Containing a series of reproductions to a reduced
scale of these extremely decorative compositions, including
clever conventionalised renderings of foliage, insects, animals,
fishes, birds, waves, &c., and ingenious geometric patterns.
With descriptive notes. Oblong 4to, boards, price 45. 6d.

NATIVE JAPANESE STENCILS. -^Mr. BATSFORD has
recently secured an extensive collection of stencils, including
clever designs suitable for all decorative work. The stencils
are all in good condition, and ready for use. They will be
found of interest to art students as exquisite decoration and
marvels of stencil cutting. The sizes of the stencils range
from 7 in. by 12 in. to 10 in. by 14 in., and they are offered
in series of 12 Plates, each different, for 3^ 6d. net, or
25 for 6s. net.

JAPANESE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DESIGN.

BOOK I. — Containing over 1,500 engraved curios, and
most ingenious Geometric Patterns of Circles, Medallions,
&c., comprising Conventional Details of Plants, Flowers,
Leaves, Petals, also Birds, Fans, Animals, Key Patterns, &c.,
&c. Oblong i2mo, fancy covers, price 25. net.

BOOK II. — Containing over 600 most original and effective
Designs for Diaper Ornament, giving the base lines to the
design, also artistic Miniature Sketches. Oblong i2mo,
price 25. net.

These books exhibit the varied charm and originality of conception ol
Japanese Ornament, and form an inexhaustible field of design.

A NEW SERIES OF BIRD AND FLOWER STUDIES.
BY WATANABE SIETEI, the leading living Artist in Japan.
In three Books, containing numerous exceedingly artistic
Sketches in various tints. 8vo, fancy covers, price los. net.

A DELIGHTFUL SERIES OF STUDIES OF BIRDS, IN
MOST CHARACTERISTIC AND LIFE-LIKE ATTITUDES, SUR-
ROUNDED WITH APPROPRIATE FOLIAGE AND FLOWERS. By

the celebrated Japanese Artist, BAIREI KONO. In three
Books, each containing 36 pages of highly artistic and
decorative Illustrations, printed in tints. Bound in fancy
paper covers, price los. net.

" In attitude and gesture and expression, these Birds, whether perching or soaring,
swooping or brooding, are admirable." — Magazine of Art.

SHIN-BIJUTSUKAI. The New Monthly Magazine of Decora-
tive Designs by famous Japanese Artists of to-day. Published
in Tokio. A complete set of the 40 numbers published,
containing 800 Plates, printed in gold and colours, forming a
veritable treasury of ornamental designs. 40 volumes, 8vo,
in fancy wrappers, enclosed in box, price £4 net. ONLY
10 SETS FOR SALE.

SHIN-BIJUTSUKAI. A set of 12 numbers as published, con-
taining 240 plates. 12 volumes, 8vo, in fancy wrappers,
price 25^. net.

A BOOK OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS. Containing 50 exquisite
studies of this extremely decorative flower, printed in the
beautiful variety of colours for which it is famous : ranging
from snowy white, delicate pinks, bright yellows and orange,
to rich dark reds. 2 vols. (12 in. by 9 in.), fancy covers
price 14-r. net.

JAPANESE ARTISTS' SKETCH BOOK. A series of 5 books
illustrating (i) Fishes, Shells, &c. ; (2) Birds and Flowers;
(3) Landscapes and Water Scenes ; (4) Insects and Foliage ;
(5) Scenes from Japanese Life Each contains 46 pages of
illustration, drawn in a decorative spirit. Fancy covers,
js. 6d. net.

JAPANESE PATTERN BOOK, Containing 114 fascinating
designs, for Embroideries, Textiles, Wall-papers, and Decora-
tive Painting, printed in colours and gold 2 vols. 8vo,
fancy wrappers, price 7-f. 6d. net.

THE FLORAL ART OF JAPAN. Being a second and
revised edition of the " Flowers of Japan, and the Art of
Floral Arrangement." By JOSIAH CONDER, F.R.I. B.A.
With 69 full-page Plates, 14 of which are delicately printed -
in colours. 4to, cloth gilt, price £2 $s. net.

ART PRINCIPLES IN PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHY.
Composition ; Treatment of Backgrounds, and the Processes
involved in Manipulating the Plate. By OTTO WALTER BECK.
With 1 38 full-page and smaller Illustrations, reproduced from
specially taken Photographs and Original Diagrams. Large
8vo, cloth gilt, price i2s. 6d. net.

" The book deals very ably with the limitations and with the possibilities of the camera
in portraiture. Too often the photographer has neither received any serious artistic training
nor had the opportunity for intelligent study. While I do not think there is any short
cut to success in Pictorial Portraiture, the book cannot fail to be most helpful and conducive
to good if followed out."— MR. FURLEY LEWIS, F.R.P.S.

" The book contains many hints and suggestions which would be useful to the profes-
sional photographer, and intelligently carried out would certainly make the present average
photographic portrait more interesting." — MR. FRED HOLLYER.

" After reading the text and examining the delightful essays and experiments in personal
control with which the work abounds, I have no hesitation in proclaiming its value in helping
the ambitious photographer to lift his likenesses from the dead level of mechanical
dreariness to a height of pictorialism which should make for a wide measure of apprecia-
tion."—HECTOR MACLEAN, in the Morning Post.

PICTORIAL COMPOSITION AND THE CRITICAL
JUDGMENT OF PICTURES. A Handbook for Students
and Lovers of Art. By H. R. POORE. With about 150
Illustrations, chiefly reproduced from photographs of cele-
brated pictures, including numerous elucidatory diagrams.
Large 8vo, art linen, price JS. 6d. net.

One of the best works of its kind. Of particular value to the artist,
to the art student, and to all interested in understanding the merits of a
picture. The book is, in fact, a liberal education in art.

THE APPRECIATION OF PICTURES. An Historical and
Critical Handbook of Ancient and Modern Art for the Artist,
Student, and Connoisseur. By RUSSELL STURGIS, M.A.
With 73 full-page Photographs after famous Pictures. Large
8vo, art linen, price 75. 6d. net.

" This book is so well founded in the study of the masters, old and new ; so faithful to
the true idea of the graphic arts, and so well written, that it could be read with interest and
sympathy by anybody who loves paint." — The Scotsman.

THE APPRECIATION OF SCULPTURE. A Popular Hand-
book for Students and Amateurs. By RUSSELL STURGIS,
M.A. With 64 full-page Photographic Illustrations of some
of the most notable Examples of the Sculptor's Art. Large
8vo, art linen, price 75. 6d. net.

"This interesting and instructive volume, with its admirably chosen illustrations, its
skilful criticisms, and its cultured survey of the history of the fine art with which it deals,
cannot but prove helpful to any reader who wishes to form well reasoned opinions on its
subject." — The Scotsman.

HOW TO JUDGE ARCHITECTURE. A Popular Guide to
the Appreciation of Buildings. By RUSSELL STURGIS, M.A.
With 84 full-page Illustrations, reproduced in half-tone, from
photographs of some of the chief buildings of the world.
Large 8vo, art linen, price 7^. 6d. net.

"The greatest achievement amongst these three books is the treatise on architecture, a
really masterly effort of selection, for in truth it is no easy matter to pick out, from the mass
of traditions and influences which make the architectural criterion, those leading aspects of
form and thought which will guide an untechnical reader into the way of knowing how to
bepin to know." — The Art Journal.

HOME ART MANUALS. By MARY WHITE. B. T. BATSFORD
is pleased to announce that he has taken up the sale in
England of this fascinating series of American handbooks
which has met with such great appreciation amongst Teachers
and amateurs.

Each volume is fully illustrated by clearly drawn diagrams
and reproductions of photographs. Crown 8vo, artistically
bound in canvas, price 5*. net each,

HOW TO DO BEAD-WORK. Crown Svo, 140 pp. This
volume deals with the many fascinating branches of the craft
and the remarkable effects achieved by the Indian workers.

HOW TO MAKE BASKETS. Crown 8vo, 194 pp. Miss
WHITE here describes in detail the few necessary implements
and materials, and then tells how to weave — first the simpler
forms, next the more difficult patterns, and finally the com-
plicated and beautiful work for which the Indians were once
famous.

MORE BASKETS AND HOW TO MAKE THEM. Crown
Svo, 1 60 pp. The success of Miss WHITE'S first volume has
led to this companion work, which treats of more advanced
basket making, shapes and weaves of greater beauty and intri-
cacy, with new appliances, unusual materials, and numberless
other matters not included in the initial volume.

HOW TO MAKE POTTERY. Crown Svo, 180 pp. This
volume describes, in simple language, the various materials,
tools, and processes connected with the art.

THE GATE BEAUTIFUL, BEING PRINCIPLES AND
METHODS IN VITAL ART EDUCATION. By Pro-
fessor JOHN WARD STIMSON, formerly Director of Art
Education at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Containing about 500 pages, copiously illustrated with repro-
ductions of original drawings, charts, rare and famous studies,
drawings and paintings by the old masters. Large 410, in
stiff paper covers, price 1 7 s. 6d. net.

ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION. An Attempt to order
and phrase Ideas which hitherto have been only felt by the
instinctive taste of Designers. By J. BEVERLEY ROBINSON,
Architect, some time Lecturer on Architecture, Columbia
University. Illustrated by Reproductions of 173 Photo-
graphs and line drawings of Ancient and Modern Buildings.
Large 8vo. los. net.

Mr. ROBINSON formulates in an extremely clear and able manner the
most approved practice of architects in designing the exterior of
buildings, and illustrates his subject by many apt examples. His book
is divided into seventeen chapters as follows : — The Standard of Taste —
What is Architecture ? — Unity — Individuality — Similarity — Subordina-
tion— Analysis of Buildings — Primary Masses — Secondary Masses —
Details — Horizontal Division— Proportion — Contrast — Practical Appli-
cations— Asymmetrical Composition — Flexibility of Types — Comparison
and Criticism.

A CONCISE HISTORY OF ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE
FROM THE ROMANESQUE PERIOD TO MODERN
TIMES, being the Congress Number of the Architectural
Review, July, 1906. Comprising three papers on English
Architecture, each richly illustrated by photographic repro-
ductions and line drawings: (i) Mediaeval; (2) Early
Renaissance; (3) Later Renaissance.; also illustrations of
the work of living Architects. Foolscap (12 ins. by 8j ins.),
in stiff paper covers, price 55. net, postage 6d. extra.

AN ARTISTIC AND USEFUL SERIES OF FRENCH
BOOKS ON ILLUMINATION AND DESIGN AS FOLLOWS .—
ILLUMINATED ORNAMENTS FROM MANUSCRIPTS
AND BUILDINGS OF THE VTH TO THE XVIIlTH
CENTURIES. A Series of Six Volumes, each containing
15 Plates, well printed in gold and colours, illustrating over
100 Examples. Oblong 8vo, fancy covers, 2S. 6d. net each.
Vol. i — FROM VTH TO XIlTH CENTURIES; Vol. 2— XIIlTH
CENTURY ; Vol. 3 — XIVTH CENTURY ; Vol. 4 — XVm
CENTURY ; Vol. 5 — ELEMENTS OF FRENCH ORNAMENTATION
OF THE XVlTH CENTURY; Vol. 6— ELEMENTS OF FRENCH
ORNAMENTATION OF THE XVIlTH & XVIIlTH CENTURIES.

The above six can be had bound in one handsome volume, vellum sides
leather back, price l6s. net.

BUNGALOWS AND COUNTRY RESIDENCES. A Series
of Designs and Examples of executed Works. By R. A.
BRIGGS, F.R.I.B.A. 5th and enlarged Edition, containing
47 Photo-lithographic Plates, many of which are new to
this edition. With descriptions, including the actual cost of
those which have been built, and the estimated cost of those
not yet erected. 4to. cloth, price 125. 6d.

•"' Economy, convenience, and comfort in small country houses are important elements,
and these have been studied with an artistic appreciation of effect and rural charm in
Mr. Briggs' designs." — The Building News.

A BOOK OF COUNTRY HOUSES. Containing 62 Plates,
reproduced from Photographs and Drawings of Perspective
Views and Plans of a variety of executed examples, ranging
in size from a small Suburban House to a fairly large Man-
sion. By ERNEST NEWTON, Architect. Imperial 4to (15 in.
by ii in.), price 2 is. net.

The houses Illustrated in this volume have been planned during the
last ten years, and may be taken as representative of the English Country
House of the present day. They offer much variety in their size, their
sites, the character of the materials in which they are constructed,
and their types of plans.

The illustrations comprise 41 perspective views, reproduced from
photographs and drawings in black-and-white and water-colours, to-
gether with 22 plans drawn to a large scale, whilst a few main features
and interior views are included.

HOMES FOR THE COUNTRY. A Collection of Designs
and Examples of recently-executed works. By R. A. BRIGGS,
Architect, F.R.I.B.A., Soane Medallist. Containing 48 full-
page Plates of Exterior and Interior Views and Plans.
With Descriptive Notes. Demy 4to, price los. 6d. net.

" Every example given is an illustration of very considerable skill. The plans are all
excellent — well devised on economical yet convenient lines, well lit, comfortable, and with
every little point thought put ; while the elevations are pleasing without being extravagant.
Such a book is admirable in its suggestiveness, and useful to all." — The Architect's Magazine.

' ' The arrangement of the plans generally reveals a master hand at this class of architec-
ture."— The Pall Mall Gazette.

MODERN SUBURBAN HOUSES. A Series of Examples
Erected at Hampstead, Bickley, Purley, and elsewhere, from
Designs by C. H. B. QUENNELL, Architect. Containing
44 Plates (13! in. by loj in.) of Exterior and Interior
Views, and large scale Plans, reproduced from special Pho-
tographs and the Author's Drawings. Large 4to, cloth gilt,
price i6s. net.

The houses illustrated in this volume are of the best type of suburban
house, generally semi-detached, and of limited frontage — a type upon
which very little information has been published, although it is one
of which the better class estates are largely composed. Skilfully planned,
of quiet, refined design, and financially successful (all the examples
having been built for sale , and sold), they clearly demonstrate that archi
tecture in the suburbs, even when controlled by speculative builders,
may be as refined and beautiful as in the country.

MODERN COTTAGE ARCHITECTURE, Illustrated from
Works of well-known Architects. Edited, with an Essay on
Cottage Building, and descriptive Notes on the subjects, by
MAURICE B. ADAMS, F.R.I. B. A. Containing 50 Plates
reproduced from the architects' drawings, with the plans of
each subject. Royal 4to, price los. 6d. net.

THE COUNTRY HOUSE. A Practical Manual of the Plan-
ning and Construction of the American Country Home and
its surroundings. By C. E. HOOPER. Illustrated by E. E.
SODERHOLTZ. 330 pages fully Illustrated by over 300 Photo-
graphs of Exterior and Interior Views, Details and Gardens,
with typical Plans of some of the finest Colonial and Modern
Examples. Royal 8vo, cloth, price 155". net.

ARCHITECTURAL SKETCHING AND DRAWING IN
PERSPECTIVE. A progressive series of 36 Plates, illus-
trating the Drawing of Architectural Details and Sketching
to Scale ; including chapters on the Plan and Measuring
Point Methods, the Simplification of Perspective by R's
method, and on Figures, Foliage, &c. By H. W. ROBERTS,
Author of " R's Method." Large imperial 8vo, price js. 6d. net.

THE PRINCIPLES OF ARCHITECTURAL PERSPEC-
TIVE. Prepared for the use of Students, &c., with chapters
on Isometric Drawing and the Preparation of Finished Per-
spectives. By G. A. T. MIDDLETON, A.R.I.B.A. With
many Diagrams and Plates, including a series of finished
perspective views of buildings by various Architects. Second
Edition revised, with additional Diagrams. Demy 8vo,
cloth, price 2S. 6d. net.

THE ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE : GREEK, ROMAN AND
ITALIAN. A selection of typical examples from Normand's
" Parallels" and other Authorities, with Notes on the Origin
and Development of the Classic Orders and descriptions of
the plates, by R. PHENE SPIERS, F.S.A., Master of the
Architectural School of the Royal Academy. Fourth Edition,
revised and enlarged, containing 2 7 full-page Plates. Imperial
4to, cloth gilt, price IQS. 6d.

CLASSIC ARCHITECTURE. A series of Ten Plates (size
20 in. x 15 in.) of examples of the Greek and Roman
Orders, with full details and a selection of Classic Ornament.
By CHARLES F. MITCHELL and GEORGE A. MITCHELL,
Lecturers on Architecture, Regent Street Polytechnic, W.
With descriptive letterpress, in portfolio, price 6s. net, or the
Set of 10 plates without text or portfolio, price 5*. net.

EXAMPLES OF CLASSIC ORNAMENT FROM GREECE
AND ROME. Drawn from the Originals by LEWIS
VULLIAMY, Architect, Gold Medallist, and Travelling Student
of the Royal Academy (1790 — 1871). A Series of 20 Selected
Plates, with Introductory and Descriptive Notes by R. PHENE
SPIERS, F.S. A., F.R.I.B.A., Author of "The Orders of Archi-
tecture," " Architecture, East and West," &c. Royal Folio
(19^ ins. by 13! ins.), in strong portfolio, I2S. 6d. net; or
strongly bound in cloth boards, 15^. net.

This volume contains a selection of the most characteristic and useful
plates from the rare folio work of Vulliamy, first published in 1825, and
long since out of print and practically unobtainable. The plates display
in their spirited execution an intimate appreciation of the refinement and
vigour which characterizes the best work in Athens and Rome, and form
an exceptionally fine series of illustrations of the choicest examples. It
is believed the series will prove to be of great value to students, not only
on account of the large scale to which the drawings are made, but
because they include elaborate examples of Greek carving which are not
to be found elsewhere.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF GREECE AND ROME. A
SKETCH OF ITS HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT. By WILLIAM J.
ANDERSON, Author of "The Architecture of the Renaissance
in Italy," and R. PHENE SPIERS, F.S. A., Author of "The
Orders of Architecture." Second Edition revised and
enlarged. Containing 350 pages of text, and 255 Illustra-
tions from photographs and drawings, including many full-
page Plates, of which 24 are finely reproduced in collotype.
Large 8vo, cloth gilt, price iSs. net.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE RENAISSANCE IN
ITALY. A General View for the Use of Students and
Others. By W. J. ANDERSON, A.R.I.B.A., Director of Archi-
tecture, Glasgow School of Art. Third Edition, containing 64
full-page Plates and 100 Illustrations in the text from photo-
graphs and drawings. Large 8vo, cloth gilt, price 1 2 s. 6d. net.

HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE ON THE COM-
PARATIVE METHOD. By BANISTER FLETCHER,
F.R.I. B. A., late Professor of Architecture in King's College,
London, and BANISTER F. FLETCHER, F.R.I.B.A. Fifth
Edition, revised and greatly enlarged. With about 2000
Illustrations from photographs and drawings. Demy 8vo,
cloth gilt, price 2 is. net.

ESSENTIALS IN ARCHITECTURE. An Analysis of the
Principles and Qualities to be looked for in Buildings. By
JOHN BELCHER, A.R.A., Fellow and Past President of the
Royal Institute of British Architects. With 74 Illustrations
(mostly full-page) of Old and Modern Buildings. Demy
8vo, cloth gilt, price 51. net.

Mr. R. NORMAN SHAW, R.A., writes :— " I have read the proofs of this work with the

greatest interest. I am quite sure it will arouse enthusiasm in hundreds of readers, but if it

..attracted only a dozen, it would not have been written in vain. Mr. Belcher wishes his

Dreaders to think of Architecture — architecturally; tells them how to do so, and no one is

more competent to teach them."

" Excellently printed and generously illustrated by many beautiful photographs of well-
chosen subjects, it is a pleasure to the eye. Perhaps it may be best described as a series ol
charming conversations on his chosen art addressed to the general reader by a veteran
architect of great ability, deeply anxious to stimulate a higher standard of appreciation on
the part of. the public." — The Athenaum.

11 This attractive and beautifully equipped volume is ... full of charming photo-
graphs, supplying in themselves the materials of a sound architectural education." — The
Daily Telegraph.

A HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE. Having Special Regard
to the Natural Artistic Results of Construction and those
Methods of Design which are the Result of Abstract Think-
ing and of the Pure Sense of Form. By RUSSELL STURGIS,
M.A., Ph.D., Editor of "A Dictionary of Architecture,"
Author of " How to Judge Architecture," &c. 3 vols., Imp.
8vo, cloth gilt, price ^£3 15*. net, the set.

The first volume, "ANTIQUITY," is now ready. Volumes II. and III.,
dealing with the Mediaeval and Renaissance Periods, will be published
during 1908. Each volume will contain about 500 pages, with some
350 full-page and smaller illustrations, reproduced in collotype, half-
tone, and line, from special photographs and drawings.

"A very full and finely-illustrated treatise, very interesting to read, and likely to appeal
to a large circle of people outside of the profession of architecture. ... It is a brilliant
production, the result of very wide and comprehensive study of the subject ; and in print,
illustrations, and general make-up, it is a credit to the publishers." — The Builder.

THE PETIT TRIANON, VERSAILLES. Illustrated by a
Series of Measured Drawings and Photographs of the Exterior
and Interior, including Furniture and Iron Work and Brass
Work, together with an Historical Account and Descriptions.
By J. A. ARNOTT and J. WILSON, Architects. Three Parts,
each part containing 31 Plates, size 19 J ins. by 14^ ins., in
portfolio. Just completed. Price ^£3 3^. net, complete in
three portfolios, or bound in half morocco ^3 13*. 6d. net.
The Palace of the Petit Trianon is a complete example of the best
I period of the i8th century. It was designed by 3 pupil of Mansard
called Gabriel, and is one of the purest and most perfect examples of
that time, and the exterior, the interior, and furnishing are in thorough
harmony.

"The authors are to be heartily congratulated on both the conception and execution of
their undertaking. No more useful work can be done than the complete and careful study of
a particular building .... the Petit Trianon remains an almost perfect example of the
purest and best work of the late eighteenth century in France. The drawings are beautifully
executed and excellently reproduced, the plates of the carving and wrought metal work
drawn to a large scale being particularly good." — The Athenceum.

AN EPOCH-MAKING BOOK.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND. An Analysis
of the origin and development of English Church Archi-
tecture, from the Norman Conquest to the Dissolution of
the Monasteries. By FRANCIS BOND, M.A., Hon. A.R.I.B.A.
Containing 800 pages, with 1,254 Illustrations, comprising
785 photographs, sketches, and measured drawings, and 469
plans, sections, diagrams, and moldings. Imperial 8vo,
cloth gilt, price 3 is. 6d. net.

" The fullest and most complete illustrated treatise on the subject which has yet

appeared It is a book which every student of architecture, professional or amateur,

ought to have.1' — The Builder.

" Perfectly orderly, and most complete and thorough, this great book leaves nothing to
be desired."— The Building News.

" This is, in every sense of the word, a great book It is a book that at once

steps to the front as authoritative, and it will be long before it is superseded." — The A thenau m.

EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE IN ENGLAND.
An Historical and Descriptive Account of the Tudor,
Elizabethan and Jacobean Periods, 1500-1625. By J. ALFRED
GOTCH, F.S.A. With 88 Collotype and other Plates and
230 Illustrations in the text from Drawings and from
Photographs. Royal 8vo, cloth gilt, price 2is. net.

" The book is quite a storehouse of reference and illustrations, and should be quite indis-
pensable to the architect's library." — The British Architect.

EXAMPLES OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL FOLIAGE AND
COLOURED DECORATION. By JAS. K. COLLING,
Architect, F.R.I.B.A. Taken from Buildings of the Xllth
to the XVth Century. Containing 76 Lithographic Plates,
and 79 Woodcut Illustrations, with text. Royal 4to, cloth,
gilt top, price \$s. net (published at £2 2S.).

Dedicated by Special Permission to Sir Edward J. Poynter, P.R.A.

EXAMPLES OF GREEK AND POMPEIAN DECORA-
TIVE WORK. Measured and Drawn by J. CROMAR WATT.
Containing 60 Collotype Plates, reproduced from the original
Pencil Drawings of the author, comprising Architectural
Details and Ornament, Terra Cotta, and Ornamental Bronze
Work, &c. A handsome folio volume, cloth, price £\ IO.T. net.

SOME ARCHITECTURAL WORKS OF INIGO JONES.
Illustrated by a Series of Measured Drawings of the Chief
Buildings designed by him, together with Descriptive Notes.
By H. INIGO TRIGGS and HENRY TANNER, Junr., A.R.I.B.A.
Containing 40 full-page Plates and over 40 Illustrations in
the text. Large folio, cloth gilt, price 305. let.

"The plates are quite perfect as specimens of draughtsmanship, and possess a crispness
and freedom of handling which differentiate them from ordinary measured drawings."— A. A.
Notes.

B. T. BATSFORD, 94, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON.

BINDING DBPT. JUL 1 1959

PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE
CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY

NK
J9206

1907

C.I

ROBA

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