Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving | Page 6

like a needle with the
blunt end fitted into a handle. For rubbing on the pounce some soft
clinging material rolled into a ball is necessary. A piece of old silk hose
tightly rolled up makes an excellent pad for the purpose.
The knife shown in fig. 6 is useful for cutting out at times when the use
of scissors is not practical. It is used in an upright position, with the
point outwards.
[Illustration: Fig. 6.]
A spindle for winding gold thread upon whilst working is shown in fig.
7. It is about 8 inches long. A soft padding of cotton thread is first
placed round (between A and B, fig. 7), and the gold thread wound
upon that. The end of the thread passes through the forked piece at the
top on its way to being worked into the material. The use of this or
some similar appliance enables the worker to avoid much touching of
the metal threads.
A small tool called a piercer is represented by fig. 8; it is used in gold
work; the flat end assists in placing the gold in position, and also in
making the floss silk lie quite flat; the pointed end is used for piercing
holes in the material for passing coarse thread to the back, and for other
purposes. This little tool, made of steel, is about 5 inches in length.
[Illustration: Fig. 7.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8.]

MATERIALS
The surface is a matter of special interest in embroidery work. This
makes the choice of materials of great importance. Besides the question
of appearance, these must be suitable to the purpose, durable, and, if
possible, pleasant to work with and upon. The materials chosen should
be the best of their kind, for time and labour are too valuable to be
spent upon poor stuffs; occasionally a piece of old work is seen with
the ground material in shreds and the embroidery upon it in a good
state of preservation, which is a pity, for a newly applied ground of any
kind is never as satisfactory as the original one. Still another plea for
the use of good materials is the moral effect they may have upon the
worker, inciting her to put forth her best efforts in using them.
[Illustration: Fig. 9.]
The purpose to which the work is to be put usually decides the ground
material, besides governing pattern, stitches, and everything else. A
background is chosen, as a rule, to show to advantage and preserve
what is to be placed upon it, though sometimes it is the other way about,
and the pattern is planned to suit an already existing ground.
A background must take its right place, and not be too much in
evidence, although if of the right kind it may be full of interest. There
are, roughly speaking, three ways of treating the ground, leaving the
material just as it is, covering part of it with stitching, or working
entirely over it.
If there is no work upon the ground the choice of material becomes
more important. Texture, colour, tone, and possibly pattern, have all to
be considered, though the problem is often best solved by the selection
of a plain white linen. The question of texture is sometimes one of its
suitability for stitching upon; colour and tone may be of all kinds and
degrees from white to black; these two, as a rule, being particularly
happy ones. If the ground stuff is patterned, as in the case of a
damasked silk, it must be specially chosen to suit the work to be placed
upon it; small diaper patterns are frequently very good, since they break
up the surface pleasantly without being too evident.

Linen, which well answers all the usual requirements, is, for this reason,
very frequently chosen for a ground material. It can be procured in
great variety, the handmade linens being the best of all. Of kinds
besides the ordinary are twilled linens, of which one named Kirriemuir
twill is similar to the material used in the fine old embroidered curtains.
Some damask linens look very well as backgrounds for embroidery; the
pattern is sometimes a slightly raised diaper, which forms a pleasantly
broken surface. Loosely woven linens can be obtained specially
suitable for drawn thread work. In any case, if there is dressing in the
new material, it must be well boiled before the embroidery is
commenced: this makes it much softer for stitching through. Coloured
linens are rarely satisfactory, a certain kind of blue being almost the
only exception. The safest plan is to keep to pure white, or to the
unbleached varieties that have a slightly grey or warm tone about them.
Wools, silks, and flax threads all look well upon a linen ground; it is
not usually in good