Art in Needlework Part 11

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 st.i.tch 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-st.i.tch, or "quilting" st.i.tch, as it was called.

If you merely st.i.tch two thicknesses of stuff together in a pattern, such as that on Ill.u.s.tration 69, the stuff between the st.i.tches has a tendency to rise: the two layers of stuff do not lie close except where they are held together by the st.i.tching, 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 st.i.tches 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 Ill.u.s.tration 70, where the padding is of soft cord.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 69. QUILTING, DONE IN CHAIN-St.i.tCH FROM THE BACK.]

A cunning way of padding is first to st.i.tch 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 st.i.tching.

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 Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tch down the ground with coloured silk you give it, of course, colour as well as flatness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 70. RAISED QUILTING.]

St.i.tCH GROUPS.

There are all sorts of ways in which st.i.tches 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 cla.s.sification according to which the satin-st.i.tch in Ill.u.s.tration 71 would figure as a canvas st.i.tch.

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 cla.s.sed 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 st.i.tches 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 st.i.tches and grasped their scope, can group them for herself, say, into st.i.tches suited (1) to line work, (2) to all-over work, (3) to shading, and so on.

These she might again subdivide. Of line st.i.tches, 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 st.i.tches 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 s.p.a.ces.

With regard to shading st.i.tches, there are various ways (see the chapter on shading) of giving gradation of colour and of indicating relief or modelling.

Some st.i.tches, of course, are adapted to various uses, as crewel, chain, and satin st.i.tches--naturally the most in use. Workers generally end in adopting certain st.i.tches as their own. That is all right, so long as they do not forget that there are other st.i.tches which might on occasion serve their purpose. Anyway, they should begin by knowing what st.i.tches 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 st.i.tches on them may be put.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 71. SATIN-St.i.tCH IN THE MAKING.]

By way of _resume_, it may be added that for line work, more or less fine, crewel, chain, back and rope st.i.tches, and couched cord are most suitable; crewel for long lines especially, and rope st.i.tch for both curved and straight lines; for a boundary line, b.u.t.tonhole is most emphatic; for broader lines, herring-bone, feather, and Oriental st.i.tches answer better; ladder-st.i.tch has the advantage of a firm edge on both sides of it. Satin and chain st.i.tches, 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 st.i.tches (including, of course, what are called long-and-short and plumage st.i.tches) serve admirably, as does also darning and laid-work; and for gold thread, couching. French knots do best for small surfaces only. The st.i.tches most useful for purposes of shading are mentioned later on.

No sort of cla.s.sification is possible until the number of st.i.tches has been reduced to the necessary few, and all fancy st.i.tches struck out of the list. Enquiry should also be made into the t.i.tle of each st.i.tch 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 st.i.tches, but ways of using a st.i.tch. The term long-and-short, it has already been explained (page 100), has less to do with a particular st.i.tch than its proportion, and the term plumage-st.i.tch refers more to the direction of the st.i.tch than to the st.i.tch itself. And so with other st.i.tches. It is its oblique direction only which distinguishes stem-st.i.tch from other short st.i.tches of the kind. Running, again, amounts to no more than proportioning st.i.tches to the mesh of the stuff, and taking several of them at one pa.s.sing of the needle; and darning is but rows of running side by side. The term split-st.i.tch describes no new st.i.tch, but a particular treatment to which a crewel or a satin st.i.tch is submitted.

The foregoing summaries of st.i.tches 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 st.i.tches for herself according to her own ways and wants. The most suitable st.i.tch may not suit every one. Individual preference and individual apt.i.tude count for something. It is not a question of what is demonstrably best, but of what best suits you.

ONE St.i.tCH, OR MANY?

The first thing to be settled with regard to the choice of st.i.tch is whether to employ one st.i.tch throughout, or a variety of st.i.tches. 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 st.i.tch without good cause--there is safety in simplicity--and in the second, that st.i.tches should be chosen to go together, in order that the work may look all of a piece. When the various st.i.tches are well chosen, it is difficult at a glance to distinguish one from another.

A great variety of st.i.tches 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 st.i.tch or st.i.tches mainly relied upon cannot do.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 72. St.i.tCHES IN COMBINATION.]

It tends also towards simplicity of effect if you use your st.i.tches 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 st.i.tch 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 st.i.tch 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 ill.u.s.trated have been worked; the reader must worry that out for herself. But one may just point out in pa.s.sing how well the various st.i.tches go together in some few instances.

Nothing could be more harmonious, for example, than the combination of knot, chain, and b.u.t.tonhole st.i.tches in Ill.u.s.tration 24; or of ladder, Oriental, herring-bone, and other st.i.tches in Ill.u.s.tration 72. Again, in Ill.u.s.tration 85 the contrast between satin-st.i.tch 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 Ill.u.s.trations 47, 48, 49, and satin-st.i.tch with couching in Ill.u.s.tration 91, where the gold is reserved mainly for outline, but on occasion serves to emphasise a detail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 73. FINE NEEDLEWORK UPON LINEN.]

Couched gold and surface satin-st.i.tch are used together again in Ill.u.s.tration 58, each for its specific purpose. The harmony between applique work and couching or chain-st.i.tch outline has been alluded to already.

A danger to be kept in view when working in one st.i.tch 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 st.i.tch, in which lurks that other danger of losing simplicity and breadth. The lace-like appearance of the needlework upon fine linen in Ill.u.s.tration 73, results chiefly from the extraordinary delicacy with which it is done, but it owes something also to the variety of st.i.tch and of st.i.tch-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 st.i.tches suitable to outline has been made already (see st.i.tch-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 st.i.tching counts also.

St.i.tches 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 st.i.tch 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 st.i.tches look fussy; and a spikey outline is worse than none at all.

There is absolutely no substantial ground for the theory that outlines should be worked in a st.i.tch not used elsewhere in the work. On the contrary, it is a good rule not to introduce extra st.i.tches into the work unless they give something which the st.i.tches already employed will not give. The simplest way is always safest.

An outline affords a ready means of clearing up edges; but it should not be looked upon merely as a device for the disguise of slovenliness.

Unless the colour scheme should necessitate an outline, an embroidress, sure of her skill, will often prefer not to outline her work, and to get even the drawing lines within the pattern, by VOIDING. She will leave, that is to say, a line of ground-stuff clear between the petals of her flowers, or what not; which line, by the way, should be narrower than it is meant to appear, as it looks always broader than it is. It is more difficult, it must be owned, thus to work along two sides of a line of ground-stuff than to work a single line of st.i.tching, but it is within the compa.s.s of any skilled worker; and skilled workers have delighted in voiding even when their work was on a small scale necessitating fine lines of voiding (Ill.u.s.trations 39 and 40).

In work on a bold scale there is no difficulty about it; and it would be remarkable that it is so seldom used, were it not that the uncertain worker likes to have a chance of clearing up ragged edges, and that voiding implies a broader and more dignified treatment of design than it is the fashion to affect.