Encyclopedia of Needlework Part 69

THE PREPARATION OF THE STUFFS AND THE SUBDIVISION OF THE PATTERNS.--Long years of experience and practice have brought us in contact with a good many designers, many of them artists in their way, so long as it was only a question of putting their own compositions on paper but who yet found themselves confronted by real difficulties the moment they were called upon to transfer them to stuff.

We shall, as far as possible, point out to our readers the precautions to be taken in tracing patterns and must for that purpose go back to one of the first operations, namely that of p.r.i.c.king.

To begin with, the paper on which the pattern is should always be large enough for there to be a clear margin of from 4 to 5 c/m. all round the pattern, so that the pouncing instrument may never come in contact with the stuff beneath.

In transferring patterns to stuff, no lines of division should ever be made directly upon it either with lead, chalk or charcoal, as it is hardly ever possible entirely to obliterate them and they often become very confusing afterwards.

Before beginning the tracing, divide your stuff into four, then decide what the width of the border outside the pattern is to be; it is quite an exceptional thing to carry a pattern right up to the edge. Stuffs that will take a bend, such as all linen and cotton textures, can be folded in four, like the paper, the folds ought then to be pinched and pressed down so that the lines may remain clear and distinct until the tracing be finished.

After dividing it into four, mark out the diagonal lines; these are absolutely necessary in order to get the corner figures rightly placed.

Though most of our readers know how to make these lines on paper with a pencil and ruler, few, easy as it is, know how to make them upon stuff.

You have only to fold over the corner of your piece of stuff so that the outside thread of the warp or cut edge run parallel with the woof edge which marks the angle of the fold-over.

This double folding over divides the ground into 8 parts. To arrange for the outside border or margin, is easy enough if the stuff and the kind of work you are going to do upon it admit of the drawing out of threads, as then a thread drawn out each way serves as a guide for tracing the pattern, straight to the line of the stuff. It is often better however, not to draw out the threads for an open-work border till the pattern be traced. If you do not wish or are not able to draw out threads to mark the pattern and you are working on a stuff of which the threads can be counted, follow the directions given on page 128, and explained in fig.

252.

You cannot mark cloth, silk stuffs or plush by folding them in the above way, cloth and some kinds of silken textures will not take a bend and others that will would be spoiled by it.

All such stuffs should be mounted in a frame, before the pattern be traced and the ground be then divided out in the following way: take a strong thread, make a knot at one end, stick a pin into it and tighten the knot round it; with a pair of compa.s.ses, divide one of the sides into two equal parts, stick the pin with the knot round it in at the middle and the same on the opposite side, putting in a second pin by means of which you stretch the thread; carry other threads across in a similar way, in the width of the stuff and from corner to corner and you will have your ground correctly marked out, in such a manner as to leave no marks when, after pouncing in the pattern, you remove the threads.

Before finishing the pouncing of a pattern, see that it is the right size for the purpose it is intended for.

Supposing that you are tracing a border with a corner, you should measure the length it will occupy and then by a very light pouncing, you can mark the points from which the pattern will have to be repeated. It may be that a gap will be left in the middle, which, if not too large, can be got rid of without altering the pattern by pushing the whole thing a little further in and so shortening the distance between the two corners.

Should the gap however be too large for this, you will have to make a supplementary design to fill up the place. The same thing would be necessary in the case of your having to shorten a pattern.

TO TRANSPOSE AND REPEAT PATTERNS BY MEANS OF LOOKING-GLa.s.sES (fig.

885).--We have referred to the necessity that often occurs of adapting patterns to certain given proportions; this can in most cases be done easily enough without the help of a draughtsman, especially in the case of cross st.i.tch embroideries, by means of two unframed looking-gla.s.ses (Penelope mirrors, as they are called) used in the following manner.

If you want to utilize a piece only of a straight border, or after repeating it several times, to form a corner with it, you place the mirror in the first instance across it at right angles, at the place from which the pattern is to be repeated, and then exactly diagonally inwards.

To make a square out of a straight pattern, you take two mirrors and so place them that they touch at the point where the diagonal lines meet, as represented in fig. 885, and you have your square at once.

This is all easy enough, but before beginning any large piece of work it is necessary to consider carefully which parts of the drawing will best fill the centre and which are best suited to form the corners, as it is not every part of a straight pattern that is adapted for repet.i.tion.

A few preliminary trials with the help of the mirrors will better show the importance of these explanations than anything further we can say on the subject.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 885. TO TRANSPOSE AND REPEAT A STRAIGHT PATTERN BY MEANS OF LOOKING GLa.s.sES.]

TO ALTER THE PROPORTIONS OF A PATTERN BY DIVIDING THE GROUND INTO SQUARES (figs. 886 and 887).--Cases will occur where it will be found necessary to subject the pattern to greater modifications still than those we have hitherto been dealing with.

You want, for example, to embroider a rather large running ground pattern on a piece of stuff, that is relatively too small for the subject; or a small and rather minute pattern on a large surface on which it is likely to look, either too insignificant, or too crowded and confused and the chances are, if you do not know how to draw, you will either think it necessary to get a draughtsman to help you or you will give up the piece of work altogether, deterred by the difficulties that confront you. You need not do either if you will follow the directions here given.

Take a sheet of large-sized quadrille paper which if necessary you can prepare for yourself; trace your pattern upon it, or rule the squares direct upon the drawing, as shown in fig. 886.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 886. DIVIDING THE GROUND INTO SQUARES BEFORE COPYING.]

On a second sheet of vegetable paper, rule squares, a fourth, a third or half as small again as those on the first sheet. Thus, if the sides of the first squares be 15 m/m. long and you want to reduce your pattern by one fifth, the sides of your new squares should measure only 12 m/m.

If, on the contrary, you want to enlarge the pattern by one fifth, make the sides of your squares 18 m/m. long.

Then you follow, square by square, the lines of the drawing, extending or contracting them, according to whether the pattern is to be enlarged or diminished.

To copy a pattern directly from a piece of embroidery and enlarge or diminish it at the same time, proceed as follows: fix the embroidery on a board, stretching it equally in every direction; then measure the length of the drawing, divide the centimetres by the number of units corresponding to whatever the proportions of your copy are to be, and if there be any fractions of centimetres over, subdivide them into millimetres, if necessary, into half millimetres and make your division by whatever measure you have adopted; take a pair of compa.s.ses with dry points, open them sufficiently for the opening to correspond to the number and the distance obtained by the division; plant a pin with a thread fastened to it, at the point indicated by the point of the compa.s.ses and repeat the last operation all along one side of the embroidery and, if possible a little beyond it, so that it may not be defaced by the marks of the pins. All you now have to do is to pull the threads in perfectly straight lines to the opposite side and carry other threads across them in a similar manner so that the whole surface be divided into squares.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 887. PATTERN REDUCED BY MARKING OUT THE GROUND IN SMALL SQUARES.]

It is needless to say that if you have to trace a pattern from a mounted piece of work you cannot stretch it on a board; with a little invention however some way can always be found of planting the pins so as not to injure the work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 888. PATTERN IN SOUTACHE. Original size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 889. PATTERN IN FIG. 888 DRAWN OUT IN THE WIDTH.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 890. PATTERN IN FIG. 888 COMPRESSED IN THE WIDTH.]

TO ALTER THE WIDTH OF A PATTERN RETAINING THE ORIGINAL HEIGHT (figs.

888, 889, 890).--Sometimes it is necessary to lengthen out a pattern without however altering its height. In this case you modify the shape of the square and make long or narrow squares, according to the general shape of the design you wish to reproduce. Fig. 888 represents a pattern in Soutache D.M.C, marked out in squares; in fig. 889 the squares are lengthened out a third beyond their original size and the pattern is expanded; in fig. 890, the squares are compressed to a third less than their original size.

This method of subdividing patterns greatly facilitates the alterations they have so often to undergo and we are sure that there are few amongst those who have any real apt.i.tude for needlework, who cannot draw enough to be able to copy the contents of a square.

TO PREPARE THE PASTE FOR APPLIQUe WORK.--It may seem strange to devote a separate paragraph to such an apparently simple operation; but in applique work it is a most important one, as not only the stuff on which the work is done but all the expensive accessories are liable to be spoilt by paste that has been badly prepared.

Put some wheaten (not rice) starch into a vessel with a rounded bottom, pour on just enough water to dissolve the starch and stir it with a wooden spoon till it becomes perfectly smooth.

In the meantime put about 1/4 of a pint of clean water on the fire to boil and when it boils add to it a little powdered pitch or carpenter's glue, in quant.i.ty about the size of a pea and pour in the starch, stirring it the whole time. When the mixture has boiled up several times take it off the fire and go on stirring it till it gets cold, otherwise lumps will form in it, which as we specially pointed out in the preceding chapter, must never be allowed to get in between the stuff and the paper.

This kind of paste makes no spots and does not injure even the most delicate colours as it contains no acid. In winter it will keep for several days, but in hot weather it very soon begins to ferment and should then on no account be used.

Gum arabic ought never to be used for applique work, as it becomes so hard that it is impossible to get the needle through, whilst the saccharine it contains almost always causes ugly spots to appear in the stuff when it dries.

When the work is finished it is a good plan to spread a very thin layer of paste over the entire back of it with a fine brush made of hog's bristles, and not to take it out of the frame until it is perfectly dry.

TO STIFFEN NEW NEEDLEWORK.--In the chapter on Irish lace, page 441, we said that new needlework of that kind had to be ironed; this should be done in the following manner: when the lace has been taken off its foundation, lay it, face downwards, on a piece of fine white flannel; then dip a piece of very stiff new organdie muslin into water, take it out again almost immediately and wring it slightly, so that no drops may fall from it, and then dab the wrong side of the lace all over with this pad of damp muslin and iron it with a hot iron which should be moved slowly forwards so that the moisture which the organdie has imparted to the lace may evaporate slowly. Not until you are quite sure that the lace is dry should it be taken off the board.

There is no better way than this of giving new lace that almost imperceptible degree of stiffness by which alone it is often to be distinguished from old. Water only does not stiffen the thread sufficiently and it is difficult with starch to hit upon exactly the right consistency, whereas the organdie muslin supplies just the needful quant.i.ty.

Embroidered network can be stiffened in the same manner and should be damped in the frame on the wrong side and not taken off until it is quite dry.

We even recommend embroidery on linen being treated in the same way but when the linen is very creased, cover it with a damp cloth and iron upon that first, then take the cloth away and iron the embroidery itself so as to dry it completely.

TO WASH ORDINARY LACE.--Wind it round a bottle the same width top and bottom and cover it entirely with muslin, fastened to the lace by a few st.i.tches. Fill the bottle half full of sand, so that it may not get knocked about too violently when the water boils.

Immerse the bottle in a saucepan of cold water with a piece of soap the size of a nut in it, and if the lace be very dirty, a small pinch of salt, and let it boil for about an hour pouring off the water as it gets dirty and adding clean.

When all the dirt has been boiled out of the lace, which you will know to be the case when the water remains perfectly clear, rinse out the soap before you take the lace off the bottle, by plunging it into cold water.

TO WASH REAL LACE.--The process is the same as the above, but as real lace is so seldom washed and is generally very yellow and fragile, particularly if it has been roughly used, it is rather difficult to clean.

If stained or greasy, it should be left to soak for some hours or even days, in good olive oil. This restores to the thread that softness and smoothness which use and bad washing had impaired. After the oil bath it should be washed on a bottle in the manner already described.