Embrocation

“ One arrives inevitably at gradation of colour in embroidery; the question is how best to get it. But, before mentioning the ways in which it may be got, it seems necessary to protest that shading is not a matter of course. Perfectly beautiful work may be done, and ought more often to be done, in merely flat needlework; the gloss of the silk and its varying colour as it catches the light according to the direction of the stitching, are quite enough to prevent a monotonously flat effect. ”

“ The charm of shading in embroidery is not the roundness of form which you get, but the gradation of colour which it gives. This may be very delicately and subtly got by split-stitch, which renders that stitch so valuable in the rendering of flesh tints. But the blending of colour into colour which is universally admired is not quite so admirable as people think. One may easily employ too many shades of colour, easily merge them too imperceptibly one into the other, getting only unmeaning softness. ”

“ Leaves and flowers accommodate themselves perhaps better still; but each is best when it is only the motive, not the model, of design. If only, then, on account of the greater difficulty in treating it, the figure is not the form of design most likely to do credit to the needle, and it is absurd to argue that, figure work being the noblest form of design, therefore the noblest form of embroidery must include it. ”

“ Velvet, on account of its richness and the depth of colour attainable without giving the impression of ‘blackness,’ also from its strength of contrast with every other material, has always been in great favour, whether as a ground or as an onlay.
Brocade is too assertive to make a good background, but brocade, and even tapestry (where the design is suitable) may be outlined with gold or cord, or further enriched with embroidery with a truly glorious effect, when judiciously managed. ”

“ They form the basis of all embroidery, and their numerous modifications cannot be fully discussed in the limit we have prescribed to ourselves. It is sufficient to observe that the instruction we have tried to impart is that which it is absolutely necessary for the needleworker to master thoroughly before she attempts to cope with the artistic element of her work. That it is a creative art is undoubted, for no two pieces of embroidery are alike unless executed by the same hand, and from the same design. ”

“ There was in every piece of embroidery done under the instruction of the accomplished and devoted Sisters certain virtues, certain effects of conscientious and patient work, mingled with the love of good and beautiful art, which were plainly visible. It had in all its flower pieces, and they were many, the quality of beautiful charm. The ministry of nature may have had something to do with this, since the lives of the executants were open to its influences. ”

“ To embroider is to work on something: a groundwork is presupposed. And we usually understand by embroidery, needlework in thread (it may be wool, cotton, linen, silk, gold, no matter what) upon a textile material, no matter what. In short, it is the decoration of a material woven in thread by means still of thread. It is thus the consistent way of ornamenting stuff—most consistent of all when one kind of thread is employed throughout, as in the case of linen upon linen, silk upon silk. ”

“ There were satin bags covered with the most delicate stitchery, and black silk aprons with wreaths of myrtle done with silks or flosses, and, finally, satin pelerines exquisitely embroidered in designs of carefully shaded roses. [47] Although nothing remarkable or epoch-making happened in the art of embroidery, it retained an even more than respectable existence. The skill, taste, and love for the creation of beauty, which were the heritage of the race, were kept alive. ”

“ An 'Embroidered Book,' it should be said, means for my purpose a book which is covered, sides and back, by a piece of material ornamented with needlework, following a design made for the purpose of adorning that particular book. A cover consisting of merely a piece of woven stuff, or even a piece of true embroidery cut from a larger piece, is not, from my point of view, properly to be considered an 'embroidered book,' it being essential that the design as well as the workmanship should have been specially made for the book on which they are found ”

“ The limitations of embroidery are not so rigidly marked as the boundaries of many another craft. There is little technical difficulty in representing flowers, for example, very naturally—too naturally for any dignified decorative purpose. Embroiderer or embroidery designer will, as a matter of fact, be constantly inspired by flower forms, and silk gives the pure colour of their petals as nearly as may be. But, though the pattern be a veritable flower garden, the embroidress will not forget, to use the happy phrase of William Morris, that she is gardening with silks and gold threads. ”

“ Church embroidery, as usually practised in these days, is not only the most frigid and rigid in design, but the hardest and most mechanical in execution—which last arises in great part from the way it is done. It is not embroidered straight upon the silk or velvet which forms the groundwork of the design, but separately on linen. ”

“ Velvet is very troublesome to work upon, the pile preventing any delicate embroidery being done directly upon it, hence the prevalence of gold cords and appliqué work on canvas or linen, on which of course the embroidery may be executed as delicately as may be desired. ”

“ A. counterchange. B. appliqué.
Appliqué work is thought by some to be an inferior kind of embroidery, which it is not. It is not a lower but another kind of needlework, in which more is made of the stuff than of the stitching. In it the craft of the needleworker is not carried to its limit; but, on the other hand, [150] it makes great demands upon design. You cannot begin by just throwing about sprays of natural flowers. It calls peremptorily for treatment—by which test the decorative artist stands or falls. ”

“ The story of embroidery includes in its history all the work of the needle since Eve sewed fig leaves together in the Garden of Eden. We are the inheritors of the knowledge and skill of all the daughters of Eve in all that concerns its use since the beginning of time. ”

“ Embroidery is merely an affair of stitching; and the first thing needful alike to the worker in it and the designer for it is, a thorough acquaintance with the stitches; not, of course, with every modification of a modification of a stitch which individual ingenuity may have devised—it would need the space of an encyclopædia to chronicle them all—but with the broadly marked varieties of stitch which have been employed to best purpose in ornament. ”

“ This absence of artistic genius is very remarkable in a people that had its origin in the Eastern centre from whence all art has radiated.
The reason that so little survives of ancient embroidery is evident. Woollen stuffs and threads decay quickly—the moth and rust do corrupt them—and the very few ancient bits that remain, have been preserved by the embalming process, which has kept the contents of tombs from becoming dust.
As to more modern embroideries, we ought to be thankful that the art has had its fashions; otherwise, the world would be overwhelmed with shabby rags. ”

“ During this great period of English embroidery certain characteristics along with its superb workmanship must be noticed. The earlier the work the finer the modelling of the figures. In the figures of the St. Cuthbert and the Worcester fragments the proportions of the figures are exquisite; at a later date, while the work is just as excellent, the figures become unnatural, the heads being unduly large, the eyes staring, and the perspective entirely out of drawing. ”

“ The artist has for the most part drawn his shadows with crisp brush strokes, which the worker had no difficulty in following; but there is some rounding of the birds' bodies which a merely mechanical worker could not have got. In fact, there are indications that this is the work more of a painter than of an embroidress, who would have acknowledged by her stitches the feathering of the birds' necks as well as their roundness.
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77. SHADING IN LONG-AND-SHORT AND SPLIT STITCHES.
You can embroider, of course, without knowing much about drawing ”

“ There were very few different colours in general use for embroidery till towards the end of the fourteenth century, after which they became much more varied, but still more harmonious, till crude and violent colours came in with the nineteenth century. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The embroidery might be light on a dark material, say an indigo blue or deep green, or it might be in tones of yellow or some rich red material, but I must refer the reader to some recent articles on the embroidery of curtains where I have gone into the matter in some detail.
I would caution the worker against introducing a number of colours into the design. It is much more pleasing to see the whole design carried out in one tone of colour (though there may be a number of different shades) than an attempt to be naturalesque, as though you were painting a picture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Some of the most interesting embroideries done during the last few years have been planned and carried out in some of our Scottish schools by untrained workers—designs so simple that the workers do not realise that they are designing at all—since they draw largely with needle and thread alone, and have little assistance from chalk and other markings. And it is this type of work, usually sewn in coarse yarns and on rough canvas, flannel or homespun, that is perhaps the most happy and most stimulating for a designer of needlework to begin on. ”

“ Many of the charming pieces of embroidery stored up in our museums give us an idea of what can be done in this way, and though we lack, perhaps, both time and patience nowadays, there is no reason why we should not, by cultivation of our tastes, raise the level of the art considerably above its present standard and [Pg 25] prove that we can still produce embroidery—of the modest, reticent type—adapted to our own conditions of life, which will reveal both refinement and artistic delight. ”

“ The simplest way is always safest.
An outline affords a ready means of clearing up edges; but it should not be looked upon merely [187] as a device for the disguise of slovenliness. Unless the colour scheme should necessitate an outline, an embroidress, sure of her skill, will often prefer not to outline her work, and to get even the drawing lines within the pattern, by VOIDING. She will leave, that is to say, a line of ground-stuff clear between the petals of her flowers, or what not; which line, by the way, should be narrower than it is meant to appear, as it looks always broader than it is. ”

“ Catherine de Medicis had a bed draped with squares of réseuil, or lacis, and it is recorded that ‘the girls and servants of her household consumed much time in making squares of réseuil.’ The interesting pattern-books for open-ground embroidery, of which the first was published in 1527 by Pierre Quinty, of Cologne, supply us with the means of tracing the stages in the transition from white thread embroidery to needle-point lace. We meet in them with a style of needle-work which differs from embroidery in not being wrought upon a stuff foundation. ”

“ The curved style of embroidery, as it appears on some of the men’s mantles—and it is noteworthy that it is confined almost exclusively to the men’s attire—is often a real work of art, and the elaborate pear-shaped forms which it frequently takes suggest the rich tendrillings of a Cashmere shawl. ”

“ I was talking of design, when "huz-ifs" intruded, and was saying that at the period when "blue-and-white" took on the "outline practice" design was a difficult question; indeed, it is always a difficult question for embroiderers. It is so important a part or quality of the art of embroidery. In fact, it is the business of the successful embroiderer to know as much about design as she must about stitchery and color. ”

“ In recording the changes in the style and purposes of embroidery, from the days of homespun and home-dyed crewel to the almost living flowers wrought with lustrous flosses upon breadths of satin which were the best of the world's manufacture, one unconsciously traverses the ground of domestic and political history, from the days of the Pilgrims to the pomp of colonial courts. ”