This cover is made of pale-brown Turkish toweling. Cut a piece of
the size to suit your table, and baste all round it, first a row of
scarlet worsted braid, then of olive, then of yellow, leaving spaces
each an inch and a half wide between the rows. Cat-stitch the braids
down on both edges with saddlers' silk, and feather-stitch between
them in silks, choosing colors which harmonize, and turning the whole
into a wide stripe brilliant and soft at the same time. The choice and
placing of the colors will be excellent practice for your eye, and
after a little while you will be able to tell, as soon as a couple
of inches are done, if you are putting the right tint into the right
place. It is infinitely more interesting to feel your way thus through
a piece of work than to follow any set pattern, however pretty, and it
is far more cultivating to the taste.