AN EMBROIDERY BOOK
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN,
AND PERSIAN COSTUMES AND
DECORATIONS.
By =Mary G. Houston= and =Florence S. Hornblower=.
_Containing 25 full-page illustrations, sixteen of them
in colour, and 60 line diagrams in the text._
_Small crown quarto._
In this volume the history of Costume is traced
from the earliest ages. The illustrations (which are
taken chiefly from the British Museum) are given in
facsimile from the drawings of the artists of the period,
and, where the drawing is too primitive to be easily
understood, a garment is also shown drawn in modern
style; in addition, every type of garment illustrated
is accompanied by a flat pattern showing the _cut_.
Information of this special character on Ancient
Costume is usually very difficult to obtain, and it is
anticipated that the volume will be of first-rate
importance to dress designers, to theatrical designers,
and also to the schools in which historical costume
and the history of the progress of the human race
are subjects for study.
PUBLISHED BY A. & C. BLACK, LTD., 4, 5 & 6, SOHO
SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1.
AGENTS
AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
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INDIA MACMILLAN AND COMPANY, LTD.
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309 Bow Bazaar Street, CALCUTTA
[Illustration: PLATE I.
A TABLE MAT. (_See page 41._)]
AN
EMBROIDERY
BOOK
BY
ANNE KNOX ARTHUR
GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART
CONTAINING SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
--EIGHT OF THEM IN COLOUR--AND EIGHTY-
SEVEN LINE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
A. & C. BLACK, LTD.
4, 5 & 6, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. 1.
1920
“_Go, little booke; God send thee good passage_”
TO
MY MOTHER
NOTE
The Author’s thanks are due to the owners of the pieces of
embroidery illustrated in this book who kindly lent them to her for
reproduction:--Miss Beatrice Brooks, Miss Marion Boyd, Miss Janetta
S. Gillespie, Miss Mary A. Gill, Miss Martha Stevenson, Miss Elspeth
Stewart, Miss Jessie Gibson (students of the Glasgow School of Art);
also to Miss Kay, Parkhurst, Cedars, Derby, for the loan of three
pieces worked by her pupils.
FOREWORD
Now that many of our busy working people have better regulations as
regards the hours of the day’s work, there is great need to provide
occupation for the day’s leisure; and needlework, as a leisure craft,
is one of the most refreshing and pleasant and profitable sources of
entertainment--provided always, that those who undertake it realise
that, with right thought and consideration on the part of every worker,
each should become, as it were, a law unto herself, so that she should
realise also that she need, under no circumstance, be the slave of old
traditions, if she can give fitting reasons for making a change which
is to the purpose of her work.
To be in a healthy and living state, our art should be constantly
changing its fashion; if it stands still, it is retrograde, and for
some few generations we may say this of British embroidery. What
changes it has undergone are due almost entirely to the commercial
enterprise of manufacturers of printed patterns--usually foreign
ones. The importation became very considerable with the introduction
of so-called Berlin woolwork, and since that period the British
needlewoman has set aside her own ingenious arrangements and follows
blindly where the merchant leads, and British design for needlework,
as an expression of its people, is almost a dead thing.
Most people have a superstition that in knowledge of a multitude of
stitches lies the whole mystery of needlework. This is emphatically
not the case. There really is no mystery about stitches; they are
but the letters of the needleworker’s alphabet, and the words of her
language--to be used according to her own ideas. One may embroider
poems; another may embroider prayers and praises for her church;
another may beautify a fair woman’s garment or sing a little song
in stitches for a baby’s robe; yet another may be like a treatise
on surgery, repairing and restoring that which has been damaged.
But needlework does not exist for the stitches. It is the stitches
which--as they are well or ill-used--express the worker, and, if
she is a wise worker, she can find out for herself most of the
stitches she needs. Nor is it necessary to be at great expense in
needlework, indeed, for those who take it up as a recreative craft
half the interest may lie in the fact that no material is too common
or too homely to be made into something fitting and, therefore,
beautiful--since the truest art is to make a thing pleasing to the eye
and yet entirely suited to the purpose.
The commonest failing of the designers of this country is that they
think that beauty lies in the elaboration of ornament, and this is why
the fashions of British dressmakers fall short of those abroad. It is
the little simple contrivances, that are almost no more than a sort
of loving finish to the actual construction of a piece of work, that
give the highest standard of style in garments: and the best training
a needlewoman can have is to make her seams, hems, openings and
fastenings of garments or household fitments things of beauty, while,
at the same time, she considers the uses and purpose of her work. It is
as a piece of engineering we should consider the construction of our
household hangings and covers of our garments--planning that decoration
should be coarse or fine, as fits the material, and taking thought also
for the washing and wearing of it.
The fashions of to-day show a very marked tendency to decorative
construction, due in great measure to a change in the needlework
for school children introduced a few years ago. The tendency shows
most interesting results, especially in the fact that the shaping
of clothing has become very simple and that garments depend almost
entirely on stitchery for their decoration, rather than on manufactured
braids and trimmings; and the styles and shapes are infinitely less
stereotyped, so that clothing for women tends to express more nearly
the personality of the wearer than it has done for many generations.
The work of the hand--as apart from that of the machine--is more and
more in demand, and decorative needlework, even in our shops, is
becoming more to be desired, for unique and personal characteristics
and expression, than it has been for a very long period. This being
the case, let our needlewoman take courage and realise that in each
mind there are possibilities of new ideas and new inventions--that
all materials open up new opportunities, and that with little labour
she may greatly enhance and beautify the things she works and find
appreciative opening for her skill. Never was there such universal
demand for handwork of every kind, and for such household fittings,
which tend towards economy and labour saving in particular, the need
is almost unlimited. Some of the most interesting embroideries done
during the last few years have been planned and carried out in some of
our Scottish schools by untrained workers--designs so simple that the
workers do not realise that they are designing at all--since they draw
largely with needle and thread alone, and have little assistance from
chalk and other markings. And it is this type of work, usually sewn in
coarse yarns and on rough canvas, flannel or homespun, that is perhaps
the most happy and most stimulating for a designer of needlework to
begin on. The work is so quickly achieved--so gallant and bright in
colour--so utilitarian in purpose and of so little cost in outlay, that
it is above all others to be recommended. It needs no experience in
stitchery to work in bright wools, if the material is firm and strong,
and the writer has pleasant experience of maid-servants and village
wives in the north country making admirable rugs, garments, and other
embroideries, which command good prices at the Artificers’ Guilds and
other places where a high artistic standard of design is required.
It is only by means of such counter attractions in stimulating leisure
crafts, which pay their way as well as give pleasure to the workers,
that we can contend with the spirit of restless excitement and craving
for mere pleasure-giving that is so marked a sign of the early days of
peace, and reconstruction can only come by countering this mischievous
tendency in young people by giving them something that gives stimulus
to their longing for brightness and yet does not unduly tax those
whose days may be occupied in strenuous employment.
How desirable it is that such gatherings of women and girls as church
sewing meetings, guilds and clubs, should take up such new ideas in
needlework and apply for a competent instructor. How almost more
desirable is it that men might realise the pleasure a needle can give
if applied to bold construction and original work.
It is by no means universal over the world that needlework is a women’s
craft; in many countries it is done quite as much, if not more, by the
men, and it is probable that if our men took up this craft, it would
show a very marked tendency to individual and original expression.
The power of invention is so great and serious a factor, that it is
almost too big a thing to touch upon here. We do not exaggerate its
importance when we say that this faculty in human beings is what we
can justly call the Holy Ghost, for it is that in us which comes, not
of ourselves, but from direct inspiration, and the first principle
of education ought to be to open our minds to it, in howsoever small
and humble a fashion it comes, and to make clear the way for its
development and growth towards greater things.
ANN MACBETH.
GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. THE ART AND CRAFT OF EMBROIDERY--THE
SIX POINTS 5
III. CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN 18
IV. DARNING STITCHES--BACKGROUNDS AND
FILLINGS 29
V. NEEDLE-WEAVING--RUSSIAN OPEN-WORK--LINKED
STITCHES 40
VI. BUTTON-HOLE AND BORDER STITCHES--HEMSTITCHING
AND OPEN FILLINGS 55
VII. LAID WORK--BASKET AND LINE STITCHES 67
VIII. COUCHING--FRENCH KNOTS AND BULLION
STITCH 79
IX. BRAIDS AND DESIGN--FAGGOTING--VEINING--ANTIQUE
SEAMS--KNOT INSERTION AND
EDGING 89
X. INSERTIONS IN NEEDLE-WEAVING--POINT DE
RÉPRISE--INTERLACING AND OPENWORK
BACKGROUND 101
XI. FRINGES AND TASSELS--HAND-MADE BRAIDS--KNOTS
AND PICOTS 114
XII. DRAWN-THREAD AND WHITE WORK--RHODIAN,
RICHELIEU AND HEDEBO 134
XIII. DECORATIVE FLOWERS AND LEAVES--EDGING
AND INSERTION 155
INDEX 179
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE FACING PAGE
I. *A TABLE MAT _Frontispiece_
II. SOME USEFUL STITCHES 17
III. A RUNNER IN CRASH 32
IV. *A PORTIÈRE 49
V. *A BUREAU SCARF 64
VI. A SIDEBOARD CLOTH 69
VII. A TABLE CENTRE IN WHITE AND BLUE 76
VIII. *A LUNCHEON MAT 81
IX. *THREE COLLARS 96
X. A TEA-COSY COVER 101
XI. A NIGHTDRESS CASE 108
XII. *THREE HAT BANDS 113
XIII. *A BAG IN CANVAS AND WOOL 128
XIV. CORNER OF COT COVERLET, UNFINISHED 149
XV. TWO SIMPLE BASKETS 156
XVI. *A CUSHION COVER 168
*These illustrations are in colour.
AN EMBROIDERY BOOK
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
“Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her
in the gates.”
Needlework, as an artistic and practical craft, is highly interesting
from a decorative point of view, and well within the scope of any
intelligent worker. It has distinct advantages over most crafts--it
neither requires great initial outlay for apparatus or materials, nor
does it demand a special workshop; thus, as a domestic art, it commends
itself to many of us on account of its adaptability to the conditions
of life, as well as for its decorative value--as a means of adding
grace and beauty to our daily surroundings.
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries England was famed
for the beauty and magnificence of its ecclesiastical embroideries.
These wonderful works found their way into many countries and were
eagerly sought after by patrons of the beautiful; many pieces still
exist, preserved in our museums, churches, or in private collections,
to show us what extraordinary ability and invention these ancient
embroiderers must have had. After the Reformation, when there was
no longer the great demand for ecclesiastical work--embroiderers
turned their attention to the decoration of garments to be worn by the
wealthier classes. In the “Golden Days of Good Queen Bess,” and for
some time later, all the ingenuity and skill formerly applied solely
to church work was bestowed on the decoration and beautifying of
personal clothing--dresses, cloaks, coats, waistcoats, caps, gloves,
etc.; neither time, labour, nor expense was spared, the worker’s ideal
evidently being to obtain the highest result of which he or she was
capable. Some of the quaint pattern books of those days still exist,
and they consist mostly of elements--dainty flower sprays, sprigs,
fruits, birds, animals, fishes, border patterns and geometrical
forms--all intended to assist the workers in the composition and
building up of their designs and patterns.
In the busy world of nowadays, we cannot hope ever to attain to such
perfection, nor to regain for embroidery the high position it once held
in this country; but we still have many clever needlewomen who could
produce beautiful work provided they had a better knowledge of how to
set about it.
This book has been planned with the hope that it may be of use to many,
and that it may create in both girls and women the desire to construct
and decorate for themselves those simple articles of daily use which
cost so much to buy and which can be made and embroidered, in simple
patterns, with a little knowledge of construction and stitchery, at a
moderate expenditure of time and money.
Perhaps the reason why so many workers buy their materials already
stamped with a design, which often proves unsuitable to the purpose
for which it is intended, and which gives small satisfaction when
embroidered, is because of a certain distrust of themselves, a want of
knowledge of their own powers of invention and ingenuity; or it may be
a lack of energy and initiative, a reluctance to plan and create for
themselves, due to the fact that they have never been taught to express
their own ideas, but rather to depend on those of others. Nevertheless,
the sense of beauty is, in a greater or less degree, common to us all.
Why, therefore, should a needleworker not develop her own ideas rather
than those of other workers? The designer, for example, who may have
as little knowledge of stitchery as the needlewoman has of design, and
who, therefore, cannot realise the labour involved in its execution,
may lose much of his effect and may waste the time of the embroiderer.
It is generally agreed that no two people have the same ideas; it is
surely, then, of considerable importance that each one should at least
make some attempt to express his or her own. If scope is given to the
creative and inventive powers they, like other faculties, will grow
in a most inspiriting manner; new ideas, inherent instincts, perhaps
dormant hitherto, will spring up like flowers to encourage the beginner
on the upward path, and as interest becomes keener and confidence
grows, difficulties which at first appeared insurmountable will quietly
disappear as the worker plans and thinks out a piece of embroidery from
the foundation. How interesting and attractive it will be to execute
such a piece of work, which will express the personality of the
worker in all parts, design, colour and stitchery. Greater technical
excellence, as well as charm, must accrue; the embroideress will work
with more judgment and understanding, and because it has gained so much
in interest to her, she will be able to express herself more freely,
and her work will convey and suggest more to others.