Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving | Page 4

dress," proverbially bad, well deserves its reputation. There is a great difference in the quantity of work that may be put into dress decoration; this may be simply an embroidered vest, collar, and cuffs, or it may be actually an integral part of the costume, which as a much bigger and more difficult undertaking is correspondingly finer in effect when successfully carried out.
Amongst larger objects that well repay the labour of embroidery, hangings of various kinds, quilts, screens, furniture coverings, altar frontals, church vestments, may be mentioned; amongst smaller, are bags, boxes, book-covers, gloves or mittens, bell-pulls, cushions, mirror frames, all kinds of household linen, infants' robes, and so on, and for church use such things as alms-bags, book-markers, stoles, pulpit and lectern frontals. Then a panel may be worked with the deliberate intention of framing it to hang on a wall. There is no reason why the painter should have the monopoly of all the available wall space, for decorative work is undoubtedly in place there; a piece of embroidered work might well fill a panel over a mantel-piece. There is no need to discuss what not to do, but, if the attraction to embroider a tea-cosy is too strong to resist, it should surely be of washable materials.
Embroidery has distinct practical advantages over some other crafts practised nowadays--no special studio need be devoted to its use, for most work can be done in any well-lighted room, which indeed will be rendered more attractive by the presence of an embroidery frame, for this is in itself a characteristic and dainty piece of furniture. It need but seldom interfere with one of our pleasant traditions, genial converse with, and about, our neighbours, for it is a distinctly sociable occupation. Work of this kind can be put down and taken up at leisure; the necessary outlay in materials need not be extravagant, and so on. Many other points might be thought of, but the claims of the art do not demand any special pleading, for it is pleasant in the actual working, and can produce an infinite variety of most interesting results.
CHAPTER II
TOOLS, APPLIANCES, AND MATERIALS
Needles--Scissors--Thimbles--Frames--Stand and Frame combined--Tambour Frame--Cord-making Appliance--Requisites for Transferring Patterns--Pricker--Knife--Spindle--Piercer--Suitable Materials for Embroidering upon--Threads of all Kinds--Stones, Beads, &c.
Good workmanship takes a prominent, though not the first, place. Technical excellence in needlework, as in all other artistic crafts, is a question of the worker's perseverance and her ability in the use of tools. In embroidery these are few and simple, and are as follows:--
Needles.--For most purposes needles known as long-eyed sharps are used. Tapestry needles, similar to these, but with blunt points, are useful for canvas work and darned netting. For gold work a special needle can be procured with sharp point and long wide eye. A bent needle makes a crooked stitch; but needles if made of good steel should not bend; they break if used unfairly. The eye should be cleanly cut, or it roughens the thread. The needle must be just stout enough to prepare for the thread an easy passage through the material.
Scissors.--Three pairs may be necessary; for ordinary work a small pair with fine sharp points, for gold work small ones with strong points similar to nail scissors, and for cutting-out purposes a large pair with one rounded and one sharp point.
Thimbles.--Steel ones are said to be most serviceable, silver are most usual; but whatever the material they must be neatly made in order not to wear the thread.
Frames.--A common type of frame is shown at fig. 1. It is made in various sizes; the one here represented measures 18 inches across. It consists of four pieces of wood, two rollers for the top and base and two side pieces. Each of the rollers has a piece of webbing securely nailed along it, and its extremities are pierced with holes to receive the side pieces. These are formed of two long wooden screws, fitted with movable nuts, which adjust the width of the frame and the tautness of the stretched work. The piece of material that is stretched between is the link that keeps the frame together, for the screw ends fit just loosely in the holes of the rollers. The side pieces are sometimes made of flat laths of wood pierced with holes at regular intervals; in these are inserted metal pins, by means of which the work is kept stretched. Fig. 9 represents a frame of this type. If the frame is a very large one it can have a strengthening bar fixed across the centre from roller to roller.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
The frame is most convenient for work when fixed in a stand, although it can be used leaning against a table or the back of a chair. A very large frame would be supported upon trestles, but for ordinary