Samplers and Tapestry Embroideries Part 12

The actual st.i.tchery in the old embroideries that are worked entirely, or almost entirely, in beads, is of an extremely simple description. In the majority of pieces the work is applied as in the case of the stump embroideries, the beads being threaded and sewn down on the framed linen, either flatly or over padding. In the less elaborate cla.s.s of embroideries, however, the beads are sewn directly on the satin ground; but when this plan has been adopted the design is rarely padded at all, although small portions of it, such as cravats, girdle-ta.s.sels, and garter-knots, are found to be detached from the rest of the work. This is for the most part executed with long strings of threaded beads couched down in close-set rows. Plate XXI. represents an excellent specimen of flat and raised bead-work combined with purl embroidery. See also Fig. 52.

Groundwork Tracings

The first stage of an embroidered picture is well ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 70, which is worthy of careful study. The original is a piece of satin measuring 9-1/2 8 in., and on this the design has been traced by a pointed stylus, the deep incised lines made in the thick material having been coloured black, probably by a transferring medium similar to carbonised paper. The shadows have been added with a brush, evidently wielded by an experienced hand, for not only are they gradated in the original, but there are no signs of any difficulty in dealing with the flow of colour on the absorbent textile. The subject of the picture is said to be the Princess Mary and the Prince William of Orange.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XXII.--TAPESTRY EMBROIDERY. DATED 1735.

In no Embroidery in the whole of this volume has a more determined endeavour been made to imitate Tapestry than in the little piece here ill.u.s.trated. So deftly has this been carried out that experts have declined to believe that it is needlework, or that the gradation of blues in the background have been obtained except through stain or dye. The workmanship of that portion of the sky over which the bird flies appeared also too fine for manual execution. An examination of the back has disproved both suppositions. The piece is noteworthy for the border at the top, which is a link connecting it with the Sampler. A date, 1735, can be distinguished through the stain in the upper right corner.]

Implements Used

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 70.--GROUNDWORK TRACING FOR EMBROIDERED PICTURE. 17TH CENTURY. _Mr E. Hennell._]

It is probable that some details in the picture--acorns, fruit, and the like--were worked with the aid of the curious little implements shown in Fig. 71. These are thimble-shaped moulds of thin, hard wood, which have two rows of holes pierced round their base. Through these holes are pa.s.sed the threads which form the foundation of the rows of lace or knotting-st.i.tches that are worked with the needle round and round the mould until it is completely covered. The knotted purses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were possibly made on moulds of this kind. The plate shows two of these queer little objects, as well as a long spool or bobbin with ancient silks of various colours still wound on it, the spool-case belonging to it, and two pieces of knotted-work in different stages of development.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 71.--MOULDS FOR KNOTTED OR LACE WORK, WITH SILK SPOOLS AND CASE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XXIII.--SPECIMEN OF PURL EMBROIDERY. 16TH-17TH CENTURY. _Formerly in the Author's Collection._

A specimen of st.i.tchery of various kinds, much of it in high relief, and of purl work. The reproduction, whilst translating very faithfully the colours, gives but little idea of the relief. Size, 12 16-1/2.]

II.--The St.i.tchery of Samplers, with a Note on their Materials

"Sad sewers make sad samplers. We'll be sorry Down to our fingers'-ends and 'broider emblems Native to desolation--cypress sprays, Yew-tufts and hectic leaves of various autumn And bitter tawny rue, and bent blackthorns."

_The Soldier of Fortune._--LORD DE TABLEY.

Cut and Drawn-Work

The open-work st.i.tchery, which is so important and pleasing a feature of the seventeenth-century sampler, is of two kinds; that is, _double_ cut-work--the Italian _punto tagliato_--in which both warp and woof threads are removed, save for a few necessary connecting bars, and _single_ cut-work--_punto tirato_--wherein but one set of threads is withdrawn. The first type (which is probably the "rare Italian cut-work"

mentioned in "The Needle's Excellency") is the immediate ancestor of needle-point lace, and is the kind that is oftenest met with in the oldest and finest samplers; the second approaches more nearly to the drawn-thread embroidery worked both abroad and at home at the present day.

In executing real double cut-work, after the surplus material has been cut away, the supporting or connecting threads are overcast, the edges of the cut linen b.u.t.tonholed, and the s.p.a.ces within this framework filled in with lace-st.i.tches, simple or elaborate. In the best specimens of samplers the effect is sometimes enhanced by portions of the pattern being detached from the ground, as in the upper part of the beautiful sampler ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 72.[14] These loose pieces usually have as basis a row of b.u.t.tonhole-st.i.tches worked into the linen, but in some examples the lace has been worked quite separately and sewn on. The mode of working both double and single cut-work is shown plainly in the two enlargements (Figs.

73 and 74), which are of parts of samplers probably worked about 1660.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 72--DRAWN-WORK SAMPLER. 17TH CENTURY.]

There is a third and much simpler type of open-work occasionally found on seventeenth-century samplers, which is carried out by piercing the linen with a stiletto and overcasting the resulting holes so as to produce a series of bird's-eye or eyelet st.i.tches. All three varieties of open-st.i.tch are frequently seen in combination with that short, flat satin-st.i.tch, which, when worked in a diaper pattern with white thread or silk on a white ground, is sometimes called damask-st.i.tch. This pretty combination of st.i.tches appears in Plate VI., and also in the enlargement (Fig. 74) already referred to.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 73.--CUT AND DRAWN-WORK: ENLARGEMENT FROM 17TH-CENTURY SAMPLER.]

Back-St.i.tch

This st.i.tch was largely used in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries for the adornment of articles of personal clothing, as well as of quilts and hangings, hence it is natural that it is prominent in the samplers of the period. In the older specimens the bands of back-st.i.tch patterns are worked with exquisite neatness, both sides being precisely alike; but in those of later date signs of carelessness are apparent, and the reverse side is somewhat untidy. In no sampler examined by the writer, however, has the back-st.i.tch been produced by working a chain-st.i.tch on the wrong side of the linen, as is the case in some of the embroidered garments of the period.

The samplers ill.u.s.trated in Plates III. and VII. are noticeable for their good bands of back-st.i.tching. A small section of Fig. 5 is shown on an enlarged scale in Fig. 75. In some modern text-books of embroidery, it may be added, the old reversible or two-sided back-st.i.tch is distinguished as Holbein-st.i.tch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 74.--SATIN-St.i.tCH AND COMBINATION OF TYPES OF OPEN-WORK: ENLARGED FROM THE SAMPLER REPRODUCED IN FIG. 4. 17TH CENTURY.]

Alphabet-St.i.tches

The st.i.tches used for the lettering on samplers are three in number, to wit, cross-st.i.tch, bird's-eye-st.i.tch and satin-st.i.tch. Of the first there are two varieties, the ordinary cross-st.i.tch, known in later years as sampler-st.i.tch, and the much neater kind, in which the crossed st.i.tches form a perfect little square on the wrong side. This daintiest of marking st.i.tches is rarely seen on samplers later than the eighteenth century.

The satin-st.i.tch alphabets are worked in short flat st.i.tches, not over padding, according to the modern method of initial embroidering, and the letters are generally square rather than curved in outline. The bird's-eye-st.i.tch, when used for alphabets, varies greatly in degree of fineness. In some instances the holes are very closely overcast with short, even st.i.tches, but in others the latter are alternately long and short, so that each "eyelet" or "bird's-eye" is the centre, as it were, of a star of ray-like st.i.tches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XXIV.--DARNING SAMPLER. 1788.

Darning Samplers of unpretentious form date back a long way, but those where they were conjoined to decoration, as in the specimens reproduced here, appeared to cl.u.s.ter round the end of the eighteenth century. Not only are a variety of st.i.tches of a most intricate kind set out on them, but they are done in gay colours, and any monotony is averted by delicately conceived borderings. Whilst "Darning Samplers" cannot be considered as rare, they certainly are not often met with in fine condition. They are a standing testimony to the a.s.siduity and dexterity of our grandparents in the reparation of their household napery.]

Darning-St.i.tches

The st.i.tches exemplifying the mode of darning damask, cambric, or linen had usually a sampler entirely devoted to them, and at one period--the end of the eighteenth century--it seems to have been a fairly general custom that a girl should work one as a companion to the ordinary sampler of lettering and patterns. The specimen darns on such a sampler are, as a rule, arranged in squares or crosses round some centre device, a bouquet or basket of flowers for instance, or it may be merely the initials of the worker in a shield. The two samplers (Fig. 76 and Plate XXIV.) are typical examples of their kind, although perhaps the ornamental parts of the designs are a little more fanciful than in the majority of those met with.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 75.--BACK-St.i.tCH: ENLARGEMENT OF PORTION OF SAMPLER IN FIG. 5. 17TH CENTURY. TWICE ACTUAL SIZE.]

The best worked--not necessarily the most elaborately embellished--of this particular cla.s.s of sampler has small pieces of the material actually cut out and the holes filled up with darning, but in inferior ones the stuff is left untouched, and the darn is simply worked on the linen, tammy cloth, or tiffany itself. This is a very much easier method and the appearance is better; but the darns so made are, after all, but imitations of the real thing. For the damask darns fine silk of two colours is invariably used, and in the properly worked examples both sides are alike, save, of course, for the reversal of the damask effect, as in woven damask.

The centre designs in the two samplers ill.u.s.trated are worked in fine darning-st.i.tches of divers kinds, outlined with chain and stem st.i.tches.

Here and there a few other st.i.tches are introduced, as in the stem of the rose in Fig. 76, where French knots are used to produce the mossy appearance. The centre basket in this sampler is worked in lines of chain-st.i.tching crossing each other lattice fashion. Both the samplers have the initials of their workers, and in that shown in Fig. 76 the date (1802) also, neatly darned into one of the crosses formed by the damask patterns.

Darning-samplers are usually square, or nearly square, in shape, and are simply finished with a single line of hem-st.i.tching at the edge, but some of the older ones are ornamented with a broader band of drawn-work as border; while a few have examples of drawn-work, alternating with squares and crosses of darning, in the body of the sampler. A small section of such a sampler, dated 1785, is ill.u.s.trated on an enlarged scale in Fig.

77. It has a series of small conventional leaf patterns worked in single drawn-work, and edged with a scalloping worked in chain-st.i.tch with green silk. The ground of this particular sampler is thin linen, but the muslin-like stuff known as tiffany is that used for the foundation of nine darning-samplers out of ten.

Tent and Cross St.i.tches

Neither tent-st.i.tch nor tapestry-st.i.tch appears to have been largely introduced in sampler-embroidery at any period; still, portions of a few specimens worked during the early and middle years of the eighteenth century are executed in one or other of these st.i.tches. Tent-st.i.tch, for instance, plays an important part in the wreath border of Fig. 8. The beautifully shaded leaves are all worked in this way, as are many of the flowers, other varieties of grounding or cushion-st.i.tches being used for the rest of the border. The Commandments, which the wreath enframes, are worked in cross-st.i.tch. This last-named st.i.tch in its earliest form is worked over a single thread, and produces a close and solid effect when closely ma.s.sed, or, as may be seen in many sampler maps, very fine lines when worked in single rows. Ordinary cross-st.i.tch taken over two threads is, of course, the familiar st.i.tch in which nineteenth-century samplers are entirely worked, whence arises its second name of sampler-st.i.tch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 76.--DARNING SAMPLER. SIGNED M. M., T. B., J. F. DATED 1802. _The late Mrs Head._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 77.--ENLARGED PORTION OF A DARNING SAMPLER. DATED 1785.]

A pretty and--in sampler embroidery--uncommon st.i.tch is that in which the crowned lions in the samplers of Mary and Lydia Johnson (Figs. 35 and 36) are worked. This st.i.tch is formed of two cross-st.i.tches superimposed diagonally, and since its revival in the Berlin wool era has been known by the names of star-st.i.tch and leviathan-st.i.tch.

Various St.i.tches

Besides the st.i.tches already enumerated and described, sundry and divers others are found on samplers of various periods. Satin-st.i.tch, for instance, is used for borders and other parts of designs, as well as for alphabets. Long-and-short st.i.tch, frequently very irregularly executed, seems to have been popular for the embroidery of the wreaths and garlands that make gay many of the later eighteenth-century samplers. Stem-st.i.tch, save for such minor details as flower-stalks and tendrils, is not often seen; but the wreath-borders of a limited number of eighteenth-century samplers are done entirely in this st.i.tch, worked in lines round and round, or up and down, each leaf and petal until the whole is filled in.

Stem-st.i.tch, it should be explained, is, to all intents and purposes, the same as "outline" or "crewel" st.i.tch. The latter name, however, is likewise applied to long-and-short or plumage st.i.tch by some writers on embroidery.

Laid-st.i.tches may also be included in the list of st.i.tches occurring occasionally in samplers, although it is rarely met with in its more elaborate forms. A sampler dated 1808 has two baskets (of flowers) worked in long laid-st.i.tches of brown silk couched with yellow silk, the effect of wicker-work being produced with some success by this plan, and similar unambitious examples appear in some samplers of rather earlier date.

The portion of a sampler shown in Fig. 2 is interesting by reason of the fact that it is worked in knots, a form of st.i.tchery comparatively rare, save in those uncla.s.sifiable pieces of embroidery which are neither pictures nor samplers, but possess some of the features of both.