Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving | Page 8

A pattern maker requires some stock-in-trade, and it is wise to collect
together a store of some well-classified design material of ascertained
value, ready to be drawn upon when required. A good knowledge of
plants and flowers is very necessary. This is best acquired by making
careful drawings from nature. In choosing flowers for embroidery
purposes, the best-known ones, such as the daisy, rose, or carnation,
give more pleasure to the observer than rare unrecognisable varieties.
Figures, birds, beasts, and such things as inscriptions, monograms,
shields of arms and emblems, all demand study and drawing, both from

miscellaneous examples and from embroideries.
The treatment of all these should be studied in old work, in order that
the curious conventions and all kinds of amusing and interesting ideas
that have gradually grown up in the past may still be made use of and
added to, instead of being cast aside in a wild endeavour after
something original. The student 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