Art in Needlework Part 10

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 gla.s.s. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 65. CUT-WORK IN LINEN.]

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 Ill.u.s.tration 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 b.u.t.tonhole-st.i.tch, 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-st.i.tch, satin-st.i.tch (as in Ill.u.s.tration 65), or in b.u.t.tonhole-st.i.tch--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 st.i.tching to express veining, or give other minute details--just as the gla.s.sworker, 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 st.i.tchery, 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 princ.i.p.al of which are ill.u.s.trated 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 Ill.u.s.tration 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-st.i.tch.

[Sidenote: TO WORK C.]

In sprig C the underlay is of parchment, lightly st.i.tched in place. The use of a double underlay in parts gives additional relief. The embroidery upon this (in slightly twisted silk) is in satin-st.i.tch.

[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-st.i.tch. 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-st.i.tch. 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 st.i.tches 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 st.i.tches always in the direction of the twist. It is worked over with floss in satin-st.i.tch.

[Sidenote: TO WORK H.]

In sprig H the underwork consists of st.i.tching in soft cotton, over which thick silk is embroidered in bullion-st.i.tch. The rule is to work the first st.i.tching 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-st.i.tch, which is used also for the stalk.

In the smaller sampler of laid-work, Ill.u.s.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 underst.i.tching.

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 st.i.tchery is more durable than over loose padding such as cotton wool.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 67. RAISED WORK SHOWING UNDERLAY.]

The 15th century work reproduced in Ill.u.s.tration 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 (Ill.u.s.tration 66), but by a row of st.i.tching up the centre of each petal. The veins of the leaves in Ill.u.s.tration 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-st.i.tch, but bullion, first covering the underlay of st.i.tching 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 ill.u.s.trated at A in Ill.u.s.tration 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Ill.u.s.trations 68 and 86.

The first of these shows both flat and raised work: the latter ill.u.s.trates 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, Ill.u.s.tration 66. The patterns in which the gold is worked do not tell quite so plainly here as on Ill.u.s.tration 68, where the basket pattern is more p.r.o.nounced. 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 Pa.r.s.ees 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 st.i.tches (A, Ill.u.s.tration 51, and Ill.u.s.tration 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 overpa.s.sed 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.