Art in Needlework Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: 40. CHINESE SATIN-St.i.tCH.]

Embroidery is often described as being in "long-and-short-st.i.tch," a term properly descriptive not of a st.i.tch, but of its dimensions.

Whether you use st.i.tches of equal or of unequal length is a question merely of the adaptation of the st.i.tch to its use in any given instance; there is nothing gained by calling an arrangement of alternating st.i.tches, "long and short," or by calling them "plumage-st.i.tch," or, which is more misleading, "feather-st.i.tch," when they radiate so as to follow the form, say, of a bird's breast. The bodies of the birds in Ill.u.s.trations 40 and 85 are in plumage-st.i.tch so called. This adaptation of st.i.tch to bird or other forms gives the effect of fine feathering perfectly. But why apply the term "satin-st.i.tch" exclusively to parallel lines of st.i.tches all of a length?

"Long-and-short-st.i.tch," then, is a sort of satin-st.i.tch; only, instead of the st.i.tches being all of equal length, they are worked one _into_ the others or _between_ them, as in the faces in Ill.u.s.trations 79 and 80.

A little further removed from satin-st.i.tch is what is known as "split-st.i.tch," in which the needle is brought up _through_ the foregoing st.i.tch, and splits it. The way of working this st.i.tch is more fully given on page 105.

The worker adapts, as a matter of course, the length of the st.i.tch to the work to be done, directing it also according to the form to be expressed, and so arrives, almost before he is aware of it, by way of satin-st.i.tch, at what is called plumage-st.i.tch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 41. OFFSHOOTS FROM SATIN AND CREWEL St.i.tCHES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 42. OFFSHOOTS FROM SATIN AND CREWEL St.i.tCHES (BACK).]

The distinction between the st.i.tches so far described is plain enough, and an all-round embroidress learns to work them; but workers end in working their own way, modifying the st.i.tch according to the work it is put to do, and produce results which it would be difficult to describe and pedantic to find fault with. Even short, however, of such individual treatment, the mere adaptation of the st.i.tch to the lines of the design removes it from the normal. It makes a difference, too, whether it is worked in a frame or in the hand: in the one case you see more likeness to one st.i.tch, in the other to another. The flower at B, for example, and the leaf at D, on the sampler, Ill.u.s.tration 41, are both worked in what is commonly called "plumage," or "embroidery"

st.i.tch, though the term "dovetail," sometimes used, seems to describe it better. Instance B, however, is worked in the hand, and D in a frame--from which very fact it follows that the worker is naturally disposed to regard B as akin to crewel-st.i.tch and D to satin-st.i.tch, between which two st.i.tches "dovetail" may be regarded as the connecting link.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WORKING OF B ON SAMPLER 41.]

[Sidenote: TO WORK B, 41.]

The petals at B are worked in the method ill.u.s.trated in the diagram overleaf. The first step is to edge the shape with satin-st.i.tches in threes, successively long, shorter, and quite short. This done, starting at the base again, you put your needle in on the upper or right side of the first short st.i.tch, and bring it out through the long st.i.tch (as shown in the diagram). You then make a short st.i.tch by putting your needle downwards through the material, and taking up a small piece of it. You have finally only to draw the needle through, and it is in position to make another long st.i.tch. As the concentric rings of st.i.tching become smaller, you make, of course, shorter st.i.tches, and you need no longer pierce the thread of the long st.i.tch.

[Sidenote: TO WORK D, 41.]

The working of the scroll at D on the sampler, Ill.u.s.tration 41, needs no detailed explanation. Anyone who is acquainted with the way satin-st.i.tch is worked (it has already been sufficiently explained), and has read the above account of the working of B, will understand at once how that is worked in the frame.

It will be seen that there is a slight difference in effect between the two, arising from the fact that work done in the hand is necessarily more loosely and not quite so evenly done as that on a frame.

[Sidenote: TO WORK SPLIT-St.i.tCH C, 41.]

Split-st.i.tch (C on the sampler), again, resembles either crewel-st.i.tch or satin-st.i.tch, according as it is worked in the hand or on a frame. In working in the hand, you take a rather shorter st.i.tch back than in crewel-st.i.tch, piercing with the needle the thread which is to form the next st.i.tch. In working on a frame, you bring your needle always up through the last-made satin-st.i.tch in order to start the next. Whichever way it is done, split-st.i.tch is often difficult to distinguish without minute examination from chain-st.i.tch. Further reference to its use is made in the chapter on shading. It may be interesting to compare it with crewel-st.i.tch (A on the sampler), which is also a favourite st.i.tch for shading.

DARNING.

It is the peculiarity of DARNING and RUNNING that you make several st.i.tches at one pa.s.sing of the needle.

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 st.i.tches 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 s.p.a.ce 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 st.i.tch. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 43. DARNING SAMPLER.]

Darning is worked, of course, in rows backwards and forwards; but if the st.i.tches 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 s.p.a.ce for a second course of darning afterwards between the open rows.

The darning of the sampler, Ill.u.s.tration 43, is very simple. The flower is darned in st.i.tches of fairly equal length, taking up one thread of the material, and covering a s.p.a.ce 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 st.i.tch.

The texture of the work depends upon the length of the st.i.tches, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 44. DARNING DESIGNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS.]

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

More accomplished work in darning is shown in the border by William Morris in Ill.u.s.tration 44, where it appears, however, much flatter than in the coloured silk. It is worked solid, the radiating st.i.tches 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-st.i.tching--light or dark as occasion seemed to require.

Mention has already been made of darning _a propos_ of canvas-st.i.tch; 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 Ill.u.s.tration 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 45. FLAT DARNING UPON A SQUARE MESH.]

LAID-WORK.

The necessity for something like what is called "LAID-WORK" is best shown by reference to satin-st.i.tch. It was said in reference to it that satin-st.i.tches should not be too long. There is a great deal of Eastern work in which surface satin-st.i.tch, 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 st.i.tches 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 st.i.tches 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 l.u.s.trous surface, and the solution of it is "laid-work," at which we arrive thus almost by necessity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 46. LAID-WORK SAMPLER.]

It involves no new st.i.tch, but is only another way of using st.i.tches 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 st.i.tching 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, Ill.u.s.tration 46, wants little or no explanation. It ill.u.s.trates the various ways of laying. In the leaf the floss is sewn down with split-st.i.tch, which forms the veining. Elsewhere it is kept in place by "couching," a process presently to be described. For the outlines, split-st.i.tch 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 47. j.a.pANESE LAID-WORK.]

For the transverse st.i.tching, for which also it is best to use floss, either split-st.i.tch may be used, as in the leaf in the sampler, Ill.u.s.tration 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 l.u.s.trous 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 Ill.u.s.trations 47, 48, 49.