Art in Needlework Part 8

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 Ill.u.s.tration 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 Ill.u.s.tration 47, where the st.i.tching 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 Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tching across, which sews it down, is slightly curved so as to suggest roundness in them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 48. INDO-PORTUGUESE LAID-WORK.]

A more finished piece of work is shown in Ill.u.s.tration 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 a.s.serts 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 st.i.tching 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 Ill.u.s.tration 49) were not afraid of rather abrupt transition in the shades of colour they used for laid-work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 49. ITALIAN LAID-WORK.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 50. LAID SAMPLER.]

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 st.i.tches (floss) first loosely laid upon the surface of the stuff and then sewn down by cross lines of st.i.tching 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 ma.s.se_, 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, Ill.u.s.tration 46. The st.i.tches 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 st.i.tches crossing it at right angles, except in the case of a twisted cord, which should be sewn down with st.i.tches in the direction of the twist.

Couching is best done in a frame; but it may be done in the hand by means of b.u.t.tonhole-st.i.tch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 51. A. BULLION. B. COUCHED CORD.]

When a surface is covered with couching, as in the seeding of the flower in the sampler, Ill.u.s.tration 46, the sewing down st.i.tches make a pattern--all the plainer there, because the st.i.tching is in a contrasting shade of colour. It is quite permissible to call attention to the st.i.tching 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 st.i.tch and twisting it again after st.i.tching through it--between the strands, that is to say, in which the st.i.tching 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 Ill.u.s.tration 51, a design perfectly adapted to couching, and yet unlike the usual thing.

Where it is softish silk which is st.i.tched 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, Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tches in the direction of its twist. This is more plainly seen in the upper of the two bands, where the sloping st.i.tches are lighter in colour than the cord sewn down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 52. COUCHING SAMPLER.]

Characteristic use is made of rather puffy couching in the ornament of the lady's dress in Miss Keighley's panel, Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tches in the direction of the twist, so that at first sight one does not recognise it as couching. It looks like rather coa.r.s.e st.i.tching 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 53. COUCHING IN LOOPED THREADS.]

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 Ill.u.s.tration 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 54. REVERSE COUCHING.]

The value of a couched cord as an outline to st.i.tching (satin-st.i.tch in this instance) is shown in Ill.u.s.tration 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 Ill.u.s.tration 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 55. REVERSE COUCHING (BACK).]

This occurs again in Ill.u.s.tration 63, where the double threads which form the stalks, though separately st.i.tched 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 b.u.t.terflies on Ill.u.s.tration 53, might pa.s.s at first sight for French knots or chain-st.i.tch: it is really another method of all-over couching.

A double course of couching forms the outline in Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tches, very obvious in the ill.u.s.tration. Over the couched silver threads which form the main rib of the leaf a pattern is st.i.tched 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 (Ill.u.s.tration 54). The ground stuff is linen, twofold, and it is worked in silk, which lies nearly all upon the surface. The st.i.tch 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 pa.s.sing 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 (Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tch. 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 st.i.tch 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, Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tches run almost inevitably into pattern; and it is customary, therefore, to start with the a.s.sumption 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 st.i.tching is purposely in p.r.o.nounced 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 st.i.tching, and there is some art in making the necessary st.i.tches into appropriate pattern.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 56. COUCHED GOLD SAMPLER.]

In fact the ornamentist, being an ornamentist, naturally takes advantage of the necessity of st.i.tching, to pattern his metallic surfaces with diaper, using often, as in the scroll in Ill.u.s.tration 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 st.i.tching 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 _st.i.tches_ 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 57. COUCHED SILVER.]

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 st.i.tching, 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, leaf.a.ge, 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 s.p.a.ce is filled, as in the dragon's face, A, Ill.u.s.tration 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.