Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving | Page 8

who collects a supply of the foregoing materials will find she has considerably widened her knowledge during the process, and is better prepared to make designs.
In making a pattern the first thing to be decided upon is some main idea, the detail that is to carry it out must then be considered. This latter may be of various types, such as flowers, foliage, figures, animals, geometrical forms, interlacing strapwork, quatrefoils, &c., &c.; perhaps several of these motifs may be combined together in the same design.
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
One of the simplest plans upon which a pattern can be arranged is that of some form recurring at regular intervals over the surface. The principle involved is repetition; an example of it is shown at fig. 10. The form that is used here is a sprig of flower, but the repeating element admits of infinite variation, it may be anything from a dot to an angel.
[Illustration: Fig. 11.]
Copes and chasubles, bedspreads and curtains, are often to be seen decorated with some repeating form. Fig. 11 shows in outline a conventional sprig that is repeated in this fashion over the surface of a famous cope in Ely Cathedral. Fig. 12 is an example of a sprig of flower taken from a XVIIth century embroidered curtain; similar bunches, but composed of different flowers, recur at intervals over this hanging.
It may interest the practical worker to know what are the different stitches used upon this figure. The petals of the top flower are in chain stitch in gradated colouring, the centre is an open crossing of chain surrounded by stamens in stem stitch in varied colour, the outermost leaves are outlined in stem stitch with an open filling of little crossed stitches. The petals of the lower flower are worked similarly, and the centre is carried out in chain stitch and French knots. The leaves are filled in with ingenious variations of these stitches.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.]
The repeating element is perhaps a symbolical figure, a heraldic shield, or it may be some geometrical form that supplies the motive. Fig. 13 is a conventional sprig of hawthorn that ornaments in this way an altar frontal at Zanthen. It is by no means necessary that the element which repeats should be always identical; so long as it is similar in size, form, and general character it will probably be the more interesting if variety is introduced.
The principle of repetition is again found in fig. 14, but with an additional feature; a sprig of flower is used, with the further introduction of diagonal lines, expressed by leaf sprays, which are arranged so as to surround each flower and divide it from the adjoining ones.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.]
It is advisable to space out the required surface in some way before commencing to draw out a pattern; for carrying out fig. 14 it would be well to pencil out the surface as in fig. 15; a connection between these two will be perceived at a glance. This spacing-out of the required surface in one way or another is of great assistance, and may even prove suggestive in the planning of the design. It helps the regularity of the work, and order is essential in design as in most other things in life.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.]
Another very usual expedient is that of introducing a main central form, with others branching out on either side and symmetrically balancing each other. An example of this is given in fig. 16. The symmetry may be much more free than this; a tree is symmetrical taken as a whole, but the two sides do not exactly repeat each other.
[Illustration: Fig. 15.]
A plan very commonly employed is that of radiating main lines all diverging from one central point. Fig. 17 shows a design following this principle; there is infinite variety in the ways in which this may be carried out.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.]
[Illustration: Fig. 17.]
Another method would be to plan a continuous flowing line with forms branching out on one side or on both. Figs. 18 and 19 are border designs, for which purpose this arrangement is often used, though it can also well form an all-over pattern; sometimes these lines used over a surface are made to cross each other, tartan wise, by running in two directions, producing an apparently complicated design by very simple means.
[Illustration: Figs. 18 and 19.]
[Illustration: Fig. 20.]
Designs may be planned on the counterchange principle. This is a system of mass designing that involves the problem of making a pattern out of one shape, continually repeated, and fitting into itself in such a way as to leave no interstices. The simplest example of this is to be found in the chess board, and it will easily be seen that a great number of shapes might be used instead of the square. Fig. 20 is an example