Chapter III: Preface (3)

Darning and running amount practically to the same thing. Darning might be described as consecutive 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 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 no longer use it to replace threads worn away, but build up upon the scaffolding of a merely serviceable material what may be a gorgeous design in silk.

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 afterwards 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 not contemplated by the worker.

In the case of large leaves, veined, the veining should be worked first, the stitches between them radiating outwards to the edge of the leaf.

More accomplished work in darning is shown in the border by William Morris in Illustration 44, where it appears, however, 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 _mecanique_ of darning in its simplest form and the network of open threads which gives to rectangular darning, like the German work in Illustration 45, character which more than compensates 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.

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 art 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 by 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 them, floss by preference, are thrown backwards and forwards across the face of the stuff, only just piercing it at the edges of the forms, and back 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 silk is laid: the direction of these is determined 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 patterns.

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. For the outlines, split-stitch and couching are employed. The last row of laid work in the grounding is purposely pulled 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: single threads of white purse silk are there 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, as it is called--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 upon a ground worth showing, as in Illustrations 47, 48, 49.

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 on 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 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 lines which they will cross. 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.

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 should not want her work to look like a gradated wash of colour. The Italians of the 16th and 17th centuries (see 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 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 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; and accordingly laid answers best for surface covering, couched for outlining, 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, and 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, Illustration 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 permissible to call attention to the stitching if it suits your artistic purpose. To disguise it by sewing _through_ the cord is not a workmanlike practice. A worker should frankly accept a method of work and get character 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, that is to say, in which the stitching is lost. The device is rather too clever. It shows a cord with no visible means of attachment to the ground, which is not desirable, however much desired. There is no advantage 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 couching, 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 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 very much the richness of embroidery in seed pearls.

It was a common practice in Germany in the 16th 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 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 sometimes 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 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 a necessity sometimes. 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 90, in which the lines of delicate Renaissance arabesque are perfectly preserved. The rare practice of such work as this, notwithstanding its distinction, is perhaps sufficiently accounted for by its modesty. It is true, it wants well-considered and definitely drawn design, and 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 91, 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 to an altogether foolish picture in needlework, of which a fragment only is shown.

The appropriateness of couched cord to the outlining 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 springing of the stalks and tendrils, for example, where joins inevitably occur. The cords forming the central stalk are in one case looped.

Fantastic use has often been made of the looping of couched cord. The Spanish embroiderers 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 purpose. 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 92, 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 way of working used in the famous Syon Cope by way of background, and figured overleaf (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 point of the 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 admirable 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.

In olden days silk does not appear to have been couched in the East. On the other hand, it was the custom to couch gold thread in Europe at least as early as the twelfth century; so that the method was probably 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 not waste it 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 not 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 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, 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, where the stitching is purposely in pronounced 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, and there is some art in making the necessary stitches into appropriate pattern.

In fact the ornamentist, being an ornamentist, naturally takes advantage of the necessity of stitching, to pattern his metallic surfaces with diaper, using often, as in the scroll in Illustration 57, a diversity of patterns, which gives at once varied texture and fanciful interest to the surface. There is quite an epitome of little diapers in that fragment 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.

The other diapers on the sampler, F, G, H, J, 56, are emphasised by the relief given to them by underlying cords, 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 purposes of explanation) 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 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 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, heavy work of this kind is to be done 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 his 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 couching the direction of the lines of couching goes for more than in solid work. The pattern made by the gold thread is here not only ornamental but suggestive of the scaly body of the creature. It will be seen, too, how, in the working of the legs, the relatively compact gold threads are kept well within the outline, by which means anything 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 the page, 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 filagree in gold wire.

The next step is where the cords of gold enclose little touches of embroidery in coloured floss, as in Illustration 91. These have the value of so many jewels or bits of bright enamel. In fact, just as outline work in simple gold thread resembles damascening or filagree, so this outlining of little spaces of coloured silk suggests enamel. 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 thread here again 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 solid 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 Spanish work of the 16th 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 much better than silk, and gives much more subtle effects.

The Flemings and Italians of the early Renaissance 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 pictorial 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 more 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 architectural background rendered by the very same double threads of gold which run through 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 two degrees of obscuring or clouding gold 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; but it resulted in a corded look, which has very much the appearance of tapestry; and there is no doubt that resemblance to tapestry was in the end consciously sought. That the method here employed was laborious needs no saying; but it gave most beautiful, if 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 were filled in with stitching. Yet another practice, and one more strictly in keeping with the onlaying of cord, was to onlay the solid also, applying, that is to say, the surface colour also in the form of pieces of silk cut to shape.

Patterns of this kind may be conceived as line work developing into 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 92). An intermediate kind is where outline and mass--couching and applique--play parts of equal importance in the scheme of design (Illustration 60).

Couched cord or filoselle is useful in covering the raw edge of the onlay, not so much masking the joints as making them sightly.

Applique 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.

The finishing 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 begun and finished in the frame.

[Sidenote: TO WORK APPLIQUE]

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 and stroked with a soft rag until it adheres, and is left to dry gently. When dry, the outlines 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 until you are sure they fit, and then 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 outlining it with a colour which goes with it (Illustration 62, B). You thin it by one which goes 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 92: the inner one next to the yellow satin applique is of gold, the outer one next the crimson velvet ground is of white 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 much mixing of methods to be desired; but if applique is to be supplemented, 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 admirable 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 piece of mediaeval stained glass, 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, which it is not. It is not a lower but another kind of needlework, in which more is made of the stuff than of the stitching. 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 beyond its scope; but 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 (figured damask) 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. It would have been possible to use two or three, joining them at the veins.

The application of leather to velvet, as in Illustration 94, allows modification in the way of execution, and of design adapted to it. Leather does not fray, and needs, therefore, no sewing over at the 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 Francois 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, which points to leather work as the possible origin of this 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 one material is not laid on to the other, but into it, both being perhaps backed by a common material. The process is, in fact, precisely analogous 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. The process is suited only to close-textured stuffs, such as cloth, which do not fray.

[Sidenote: TO WORK INLAY.]

The materials are not pasted on to linen, as in the case of applique. The cloth to be inlaid is 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.

Inlay lends itself most invitingly to COUNTERCHANGE in design, as seen in the stole at A, Illustration 62. Light and dark, ground and pattern, are there identical. You cannot say either is ground; each forms the ground to the other. And from the mere fact of the counterchanging you gather that it is inlaid, and not onlaid.

[Sidenote: TO WORK COUNTERCHANGE.]

Prior to inlaying in materials which are at all likely 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 marvellously, not only counterchanging the pattern, but inlaying the inlays with smaller patternwork, thus combining great simplicity of effect with wonderful minuteness of detail. 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.

Inlay itself is a sort of PATCHWORK. You cut pieces out of your cloth, and patch it with pieces of another colour, covering the joins perhaps, as on Illustration 64, with chain stitch, which gives it some resemblance to cloisonne enamel, the cloisons being of chain-stitch.

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, reminding one, in coloured stuffs, of what the mediaeval glaziers did in coloured glass. Admirable heraldic work was done in Germany by this method; and it is still 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.

The relation of CUT-WORK to inlay is clear--in fact, 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 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.

[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.

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.

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.