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 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 outlining 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 auxiliaries. 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 finnikin stitchery, is
practically 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.
[Sidenote: TO WORK A (66).]
In sprig A the underlay is of closely-woven cloth, darker in colour than
would be advisable except 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.
[Sidenote: TO WORK B.]
The raised line at B reveals the way the stem in Illustration 86 was
worked. Two cords of smooth string (macrame, for example) are twisted
and tacked in place. Over this floss is worked in close satin-stitch.
[Sidenote: TO WORK C.]
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.
[Sidenote: TO WORK D.]
The leaf shapes at D are padded with cotton 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.
[Sidenote: TO WORK E.]
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 pattern, and it
is a point of good workmanship that 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.
[Illustration: 66. RAISED WORK SAMPLER.]
[Sidenote: TO WORK F.]
In sprig F the underlay is of cardboard, pasted 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.
[Sidenote: TO WORK G.]
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.
[Sidenote: TO WORK H.]
In sprig H the underwork consists of stitching 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, Illustration 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
consideration which the embroidress must not leave out of account. In
any case, work over stitchery is more durable than over loose padding
such as cotton wool.
[Illustration: 67. RAISED WORK SHOWING UNDERLAY.]
The 15th century work reproduced in Illustration 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 tied down at intervals by clasps of 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 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 the goldsmith.
Yet more openly in rivalry with goldsmiths' work 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
17th 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 16th 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 beautiful mantle of the Virgin
in silver and pearls upon a gold ground, which make one loth to
dogmatise.
[Illustration: 68. RAISED GOLD.]
The preciousness of gold and silver, points, in the nature of things, to
their use for church vestments and the like; and high relief gives, no
doubt, value to the metal; but the consideration of its 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 136) 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 characteristically 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 parchment or paper, and the puffy parts of the
flowers over softer padding. Allusion has already been made (page 159)
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.
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 17th
century, which degenerates at last into mere doll work--the dolls duly
stuffed and dressed in most childish fashion, their drapery, in actual
folds, projecting. 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 "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 keep down the groundwork of
your design by comparatively frequent stitches diapering it, 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.
[Illustration: 69. QUILTING, DONE IN CHAIN-STITCH FROM THE BACK.]
A cunning way of padding is first to stitch the outline of the design,
and then from the back to 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 creamy white ground made warmer
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 case of Illustration 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, colour as well as flatness.
[Illustration: 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.
Anyone, having mastered the stitches and grasped their scope, can group
them for herself, say, into stitches suited (1) 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--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.
[Illustration: 71. SATIN-STITCH IN THE MAKING.]
By way of _resume_, it may be added that for line 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 admirably, as does also darning and laid-work; and for
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 necessary 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 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 individual
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.
[Illustration: 72. STITCHES IN COMBINATION.]
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, 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 for emphasis of form, your third for contrast
of texture, or for some other 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 buttonhole 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 couching in
Illustration 91, where the gold is reserved mainly for outline, but on
occasion serves to emphasise a detail.
[Illustration: 73. FINE NEEDLEWORK UPON LINEN.]
Couched gold and surface satin-stitch are used together again in
Illustration 58, each for its specific purpose. The harmony between
applique 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. That 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.
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 not too
obtrusive pattern.
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 question 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 16th 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 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, outlined 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 or what not, 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 spikey outline is worse
than none at all.