Art in Needlework: A Book about Embroidery

The horizontal lines at top and bottom of the square at A are back-stitching, the intermediate ones simply long threads carried from one side to the other; they are laced together by lines looped round them.

The band at L is begun by making horizontal bar stitches. A row of crewel-stitch and one of outline-stitch, worked on to the bars, and not into the stuff, makes the central chain.

The band at K is merely surface buttonholing over a series of slanting stitches.

The band at J is buttonhole stitching wide apart, the bars filled in with surface crewel-stitch.

Most delicate surface stitching occurs in Illustration 35, the fine net being worked only from edge to edge of the spaces it fills, and not elsewhere entering the stuff; which accounts for most of it being worn away. The flower or scroll-work is bonâ fide embroidery, worked through the stuff. The delicate network of fine stitching, which once covered the whole of the background, is for the most part neither more nor less than a floating gossamer of lacework. One cannot deny that that is embroidery, though it has to be said that lace-stitches are employed in it.

Stern embroiderers would like to deny it. Of course it is frivolous, and in a sense flimsy, but it is also delicate and dainty to a degree. It is suited only to dress, and that of the most exquisite kind. A French marquise of the Regency might have worn it, and possibly did wear it, with entire propriety—if the word is not out of keeping with the period.

The frailty of this kind of thing is too obvious to need mention, and that, of course, is a strong argument against it.

All attempt to give separate names to diapers of this kind, whether worked upon the surface or into the stuff, is futile. They ought not even to be called stitches, being, in fact, neither more nor less than stitch patterns, to which there is no possible limit, unless it be the limit of human invention. Every ingenious workwoman will find out patterns of her own more or less. They are very useful for filling in surfaces (pattern or background) which it may be inexpedient to work more solidly.

The greater part of such patterns are geometric (Illustrations 35 and 73), following, that is to say, the mesh of the material, and making no secret of it. On Illustration 3 you see very plainly how the rectangular diaperings are built up geometrically on the square lines of the mesh, as was practically inevitable working on such a ground. The relation of stitch to stuff is here obvious.

The choice of stitch patterns of this kind is invariably left to the needlewoman. The utmost a designer need do is to indicate on his drawing that a "full," "open," or "intermediate" diaper is to be used. And the alternation of lighter and heavier diapers should be planned, and not left altogether to impulse, though the pattern may be. Moreover, there is room for the exercise of considerable taste in the choice of simpler or more elaborate patterns, freer or more geometric. Many a time the shape of the space to be filled, as well as its extent, will suggest the appropriate ornament. The diaper design is not, of course, drawn on the stuff, but points of guidance may be indicated through a kind of fine stencil plate.

The patterns used for background diapering need not, as a rule, be intrinsically so interesting as those which diaper the design itself, nor are they usually so full. They take more often the form of spot or sprig patterns, not continuous, in which the geometric construction is not so obvious, nor even necessary. In either case the prime object of the stitching is not so much to make ornamental patterns as to give a tint to the stuff without entirely hiding it with work; and the worker chooses a lighter or heavier diaper according to the tint required. If the work is all in white it is texture, instead of tint, that is aimed at.

For a background, simple darning more or less open, in stitches not too regular, is often the best solution of the difficulty. The effect of the ground grinning through is delightful.

SATIN-STITCH AND ITS OFFSHOOTS.

Satin-stitch is par excellence the stitch for fine silkwork. I do not know if the name of "satin-stitch" comes from its being so largely employed upon satin, or from the effect of the work itself, which would certainly justify the title, so smooth and satin-like is its surface. Given a material of which the texture is quite smooth and even, showing no mesh, satin-stitch seems the most natural and obvious way of working upon it. In it the embroidress works with short, straight strokes of the needle, just as a pen draughtsman lays side by side the strokes of his pen; but, as she cannot, of course, leave off her stroke as the penman does, she has perforce to bring back the thread on the under side of the stuff, so that, if very carefully done, the work is the same on both sides.

Satin-stitch, however, need not be, and never was, confined to work upon silk or satin. In fact, it was not only worked upon fine linen, but often followed the lines of its mesh, stepping, as in Illustration 9, to the tune of the stuff. This may be described as satin-stitch in the making—at any rate, it is the elementary form of it, its relation to canvas-stitch being apparent on the face of it. Still, beautiful and most accomplished work has been done in it alike by Mediæval, Renaissance, and Oriental needleworkers.

To cover a space with regular vertical satin stitches (A on the sampler, Illustration 36), the best way of proceeding is to begin in the centre of the space and work from left to right. That half done, begin again in the centre and work from right to left.

In order to make sure of a crisp and even edge to your forms, always let the needle enter the stuff there, as it is not easy to find the point you want from the back.

In working a second row of stitches, proceed as before, only planting your needle between the stitches already done. Fasten off with a few tiny surface stitches and cut off the silk on the right side of the stuff: it will be worked over.

To cover a space with horizontal satin stitches (B on sampler), begin at the top, and work from left to right. The longer stretches there are not, of course, crossed at one stitch; they take several stitches, dovetailed, as it were, so as not to give lines.

The easiest, most satisfactory, and generally most effective way of working flat satin stitch is in oblique or radiating lines (C, D, E), working in those instances, as in the case of A, from the centre, first from left to right and then from right to left.

Stems, narrow leaflets, and the like, are best worked always in stitches which run diagonally and not straight across the form.

In the case of stems or other lines curved and worked obliquely, the stitches must be very much closer on the inner side of the curve than on the outside: occasionally a half-stitch may be necessary to keep the direction of the lines right, in which case the inside end of the half-stitch must be quite covered by the stitch next following.

Satin-stitch is seen at its best when worked in floss. Coarse or twisted silk looks coarse in this stitch, as may be seen by comparing the petal D in the sampler, Illustration 36, with the petal in twisted silk here given (38). Marvellously skilful as are the needle-workers of India (Illustration 39), they get rather broken lines when they work in thick twisted silk. The precision of line a skilled worker can get in floss is wonderful. An Oriental will get sweeping lines as clean and firm as if they had been drawn with a pen, and this not merely in the case of an outline, but in voided lines of which each side has to be drawn with the needle. The voided outline, by the way, as on Illustrations 39, 40, is not only the frankest way of defining form, but seems peculiarly proper to satin-stitch; and it is a test of skill in workmanship: it is so easy to disguise uneven stitching by an outline in some other stitch. The voiding in the wings of the birds in Illustration 40 is perfect; and the softening of the voided line, at the start of the wing in one case and the tail in the other, by cross stitching in threads comparatively wide apart, is quite the right thing to do. It would have been more in keeping to void the veins of the lotus leaves than to plant them on in cord.

Satin-stitch must not be too long, and it is often a serious consideration with the designer how to break up the surfaces to be covered so that only shortish stitches need be used. You might follow the veining of a leaf, for example, and work from vein to vein. But all leaves are not naturally veined in the most accommodating manner. Treatment is accordingly necessary, and so we arrive at a convention appropriate to embroidery of this kind. It takes a draughtsman properly to express form by stitch distribution. The Chinese convention in the lotus flowers (Illustration 40) is admirable.

It is the rule of the game to lay satin-stitch very evenly. Worked in floss, the mere surface of satin-stitch is beautiful. A further charm lies in the way it lends itself to gradation of colour. Beautiful results may be obtained by the use of perfectly flat tints of colour, as in Illustration 40; but the subtlest as well as the most deliberate gradation of tint may be most perfectly rendered in satin-stitch.

Surface Satin-stitch (not the same on both sides), though it looks very much like ordinary satin-stitch, is worked in another way. The needle, that is to say, after each stitch is brought immediately up again, and the silk is carried back on the upper instead of the under side of the stuff. Considerable economy of silk is effected by thus keeping the thread as much as possible on the surface, but the effect is apt to be proportionately poorer. Moreover, the work is not so lasting as when it is solid. The satin-stitch on Illustration 58 is all surface work. It looks loose, which it is always apt to do, unless it is kept stretched on the frame, on which, of course, satin-stitch is for the most part worked. Very effective Indian work is done of this kind—loose and flimsy, but serving a distinct artistic purpose. It is to embroidery of more serious kind what scene painting is to mural decoration.

Embroidery is often described as being in "long-and-short-stitch," a term properly descriptive not of a stitch, but of its dimensions. Whether you use stitches of equal or of unequal length is a question merely of the adaptation of the stitch to its use in any given instance; there is nothing gained by calling an arrangement of alternating stitches, "long and short," or by calling them "plumage-stitch," or, which is more misleading, "feather-stitch," when they radiate so as to follow the form, say, of a bird's breast. The bodies of the birds in Illustrations 40 and 85 are in plumage-stitch so called. This adaptation of stitch to bird or other forms gives the effect of fine feathering perfectly. But why apply the term "satin-stitch" exclusively to parallel lines of stitches all of a length?

"Long-and-short-stitch," then, is a sort of satin-stitch; only, instead of the stitches being all of equal length, they are worked one into the others or between them, as in the faces in Illustrations 79 and 80.

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

The worker adapts, as a matter of course, the length of the stitch 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-stitch, at what is called plumage-stitch.

The distinction between the stitches 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 stitch 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 stitch 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 stitch, in the other to another. The flower at B, for example, and the leaf at D, on the sampler, Illustration 41, are both worked in what is commonly called "plumage," or "embroidery" stitch, 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-stitch and D to satin-stitch, between which two stitches "dovetail" may be regarded as the connecting link.

The petals at B are worked in the method illustrated in the diagram overleaf. The first step is to edge the shape with satin-stitches 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 stitch, and bring it out through the long stitch (as shown in the diagram). You then make a short stitch 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 stitch. As the concentric rings of stitching become smaller, you make, of course, shorter stitches, and you need no longer pierce the thread of the long stitch.

The working of the scroll at D on the sampler, Illustration 41, needs no detailed explanation. Anyone who is acquainted with the way satin-stitch 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.

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

DARNING.

It is the peculiarity of Darning and Running that you make several stitches at one passing 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 stitches 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 space 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 stitch. 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.

Darning is worked, of course, in rows backwards and forwards; but if the stitches 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 space for a second course of darning afterwards between the open rows.

The darning of the sampler, Illustration 43, is very simple. The flower is darned in stitches of fairly equal length, taking up one thread of the material, and covering a space 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 stitch.

The texture of the work depends upon the length of the stitches, 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.

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

More accomplished work in darning is shown in the border by William Morris in Illustration 44, where it appears, however, much flatter than in the coloured silk. It is worked solid, the radiating stitches 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-stitching—light or dark as occasion seemed to require.

Mention has already been made of darning à propos of canvas-stitch; and there is a sort of natural correspondence between the mécanique of darning in its simplest form and the network of open threads which gives to rectangular darning, like the German work in Illustration 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.

LAID-WORK.

The necessity for something like what is called "Laid-work" is best shown by reference to satin-stitch. It was said in reference to it that satin-stitches should not be too long. There is a great deal of Eastern work in which surface satin-stitch, 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 stitches 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 stitches 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 lustrous surface, and the solution of it is "laid-work," at which we arrive thus almost by necessity.

It involves no new stitch, but is only another way of using stitches 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 stitching 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, Illustration 46, wants little or no explanation. It illustrates the various ways of laying. In the leaf the floss is sewn down with split-stitch, which forms the veining. Elsewhere it is kept in place by "couching," a process presently to be described. For the outlines, split-stitch 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.

For the transverse stitching, for which also it is best to use floss, either split-stitch may be used, as in the leaf in the sampler, Illustration 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 lustrous 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 Illustrations 47, 48, 49.

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 Illustration 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 Illustration 47, where the stitching 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 Illustration 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 stitching across, which sews it down, is slightly curved so as to suggest roundness in them.

A more finished piece of work is shown in Illustration 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 asserts 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 stitching 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 Illustration 49) were not afraid of rather abrupt transition in the shades of colour they used for laid-work.

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 stitches (floss) first loosely laid upon the surface of the stuff and then sewn down by cross lines of stitching 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 masse, 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, Illustration 46. The stitches 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 stitches crossing it at right angles, except in the case of a twisted cord, which should be sewn down with stitches in the direction of the twist.

Couching is best done in a frame; but it may be done in the hand by means of buttonhole-stitch.

When a surface is covered with couching, as in the seeding of the flower in the sampler, Illustration 46, the sewing down stitches make a pattern—all the plainer there, because the stitching is in a contrasting shade of colour. It is quite permissible to call attention to the stitching 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 stitch and twisting it again after stitching through it—between the strands, that is to say, in which the stitching 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 Illustration 51, a design perfectly adapted to couching, and yet unlike the usual thing.

Where it is softish silk which is stitched 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, Illustration 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 stitches in the direction of its twist. This is more plainly seen in the upper of the two bands, where the sloping stitches are lighter in colour than the cord sewn down.

Characteristic use is made of rather puffy couching in the ornament of the lady's dress in Miss Keighley's panel, Illustration 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 stitches in the direction of the twist, so that at first sight one does not recognise it as couching. It looks like rather coarse stitching 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.

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 Illustration 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.

The value of a couched cord as an outline to stitching (satin-stitch in this instance) is shown in Illustration 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 appliqué is seen in the two examples which form Illustration 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.

This occurs again in Illustration 63, where the double threads which form the stalks, though separately stitched 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 butterflies on Illustration 53, might pass at first sight for French knots or chain-stitch: it is really another method of all-over couching.

A double course of couching forms the outline in Illustration 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 stitches, very obvious in the illustration. Over the couched silver threads which form the main rib of the leaf a pattern is stitched 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 (Illustration 54). The ground stuff is linen, twofold, and it is worked in silk, which lies nearly all upon the surface. The stitch 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 passing 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 (Illustration 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 stitch. 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 stitch 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, Illustration 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 stitches run almost inevitably into pattern; and it is customary, therefore, to start with the assumption 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 stitching is purposely in pronounced 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 stitching, and there is some art in making the necessary stitches into appropriate pattern.