Mule (textile)

“ SIMPLE STITCHING ON LINEN.
[228] It results from our conditions of to-day that there are some kinds of needlework we admire, which yet are not worth our doing, such, for example, as the all-over work, which does not amount to more than simple diaper, and which really is not so much embroidering on a textile as converting it into one of another kind. Glorified instances of this kind of work occur in the shawl work of Cashmere, and in those beautiful bits of Persian stitching which remind one of carpet-work in miniature, if they are not in fact related to carpet-weaving. ”

“ In as far as materials are essential to the art of embroidery, I must restrict myself to the history of silk, wool, flax, cotton, and gold. With these all the finest works have been executed for the artistic adornment of dress and hangings. All other materials have been occasional experiments, or else were resorted to in the absence or ignorance of the above five most important factors in our domestic civilization. The history of wool must take precedence as being that of the original, if not the first, of textile materials. ”

“ TEXTILES. CHAPTER I. Under its widest acceptation the word “textile” means every kind of stuff, no matter its material, wrought in the loom. Whether, therefore, the threads are spun from the produce of the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom; whether of sheep’s wool, goats’ hair, camels’ wool, or camels’ hair; whether of flax, hemp, mallow, or the filaments drawn out of the leaves of plants of the lily and asphodel tribes of flowers, or the fibrous coating about pods, or cotton; whether of gold, silver, or of any other metal; the webs from all such materials are textiles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At Empire I found my conveyance awaiting me—a light wagon and a pair of playful mules; little fellows with coats of satin and gentle eyes. Some fellow would say they had “sinews of steel,” but these mules were not built that way; they were the natural sort. I dearly love a mule, and were I a poet, would write a sonnet to a mule’s eye. I admire a mule’s eye; always feel interested in that portion of his anatomy, and, as one likes to be in the vicinity of that which is pleasing, so I, when I have any business with a mule, find his head the attractive feature. These mules behaved remarkably well ”

“ Adventitious features.—Ornament is applied to the surfaces of fabrics by painting and by stamping. These methods of decoration were employed in very early times and probably originated in other branches of art. If the surface features of the textile upon which a design is painted are strongly pronounced, the figures produced with the brush or pencil will tend to follow them, giving a decidedly geometric result. If the surface is smooth the hand is free to follow its natural tendencies, and the results will be analogous in character to designs painted upon pottery, rocks, or skins. ”

“ Unless the jewels be of unusual size it is better to work each individual gem in one shade, varying the tone if repeated in the same group. It must be remembered that embroidery, like any textile fabric, to a great extent shades itself, especially when the surface is glossy. In this style of design it is well to introduce as great a variety of coloring as possible, avoiding however very violent contrasts. ”

“ Looking at it however through a glass and turning it about, we found it to have been unmistakably embroidered by the finger in such a way that the stitches for laying down upon the surface, and not drawing through the gold threads and thus saving expense, were carried right into the canvas lining at the back of this thin silk. After this same manner was really done, to our thinking, all the design, both before and behind upon that fine English-wrought chasuble, No. 673, p. 5.
At the latter end of the thirteenth century our women struck out for themselves a new way of embroidery. ”

“ Generally found with a pile combining black and white weft-pile threads; Mottles are yarn-dyed fabrics.
Mousseline de Soie.—A sheer soft fabric of silk, similar to Chiffon, but of more open weave.
Mule-twist Yarn.—Mule-twist yarn can be spun up to the finest counts; it is softer and more elastic than ring-twist yarn; it will take up more "size" than ring-twist and, generally speaking, is more regular in construction.
[54]
Mull.—A thin plain fabric usually bleached or dyed, characterised by a soft finish, used for dress wear. ”

“ All the human figures, all the beasts, as well as the architecture, are outlined in thin leather or parchment once gilt, but now turned quite black. With the same leather, too, were studded the belts of the king and knight, and the spangles and golden enrichments of the ladies’ dress were of the same material. Saving here and there a few stitches of silk, everything else was of worsted, and that none of the finest texture. With such small means a good art-work was produced, as we see before us. ”

“ The fibre of cotton has neither the strength nor the durability of flax or silk, but it is the third in the group of the most universally qualified materials for all purposes of domestic textile art, ranging from carpets and sails, to fine chintzes for dress, and filmy muslins. The cloudy effect of these delicate fabrics is their own peculiar beauty. Muslins for hangings, printed or embroidered, [Pg 138] have always been a luxury from India ”

“ Because it spins continuously, and not intermittently, it turns out about a third more yarn per operator. It is usually admitted, however, that the thread from the mule is more even in diameter. Advocates of the mule say, moreover, that the 54 thread from the mule is softer and "loftier", and that cloth woven from it has a more "clothy" feel. But others say they can produce soft yarn with the ring. In the United States, where the labor cost is a vital item, the ring-spindle has an assured place.
Mules at work
The yarn is now a finished product. ”

“ In the mule the rolling is first drawn by the usual system of rollers, and then stretched by a moveable carriage. The effect of first drawing and then stretching is to make the yarn finer and [204] more uniform, as will be explained presently. The spinning mule is the most interesting and impressive spectacle in a large cotton mill—on account of its vast extent, the great quantity of work performed by it, and the wonderful complication and ingenuity of its parts. ”

“ The Embroidered Apparel for an Amice; ground, crimson flos-silk, now faded; design, large and small squares, green, blue, and purple, filled in with gold, and modifications of the gammadion, in white or crimson silks. German, 14th century. 14 inches by 51⁄4 inches.
This apparel is made out of three pieces, and stiffened with parchment; and is bordered by a narrow but effective lace of a green ground, [Pg 35] bearing circles of white and red, parted by yellow. The brown canvas upon which it is worked is very fine of its kind; and the gold, which is of a good quality, is of narrow tinsel strips. ”

“ I have already shown that embroidered designs, although not from necessity confined to geometric outlines, tend to take a purely geometric character from the fabric upon which they are executed, as well as from the mechanical processes of stitching. This is well shown in Fig. 348, a fine specimen given by Wiener in his work Pérou et Bolive.
Fig. 348. Embroidery upon a cotton net in which the textile combinations are followed step by step. Ancient Peruvian work.ToList
A life form worked upon a net does not differ essentially from the same subject woven in with the web and woof. ”

“ Opening off the main reception and fitting rooms are others lined with armoires and stacks of boxes running to the ceiling. Then come the rooms for cutting and sewing, and the embroidery rooms. Muelle uses quantities of solid embroidery and appliqué work, where other costumers are content with stenciling and gilding. She has the secret of a metal thread that does not tarnish. Her idea is that the use of first-class materials, good silks and satins, real velvets is a necessity in these days of electric lighting, which is as revealing as sunlight ”

“ In this way the animal will soon get sound-shouldered again. Let the part of the leather you cut hang loose, so that when you take the stuffing out you may put it back and prevent any more than is actually necessary from coming out.
See that your hames fit well, for they are a matter of great importance in a mule's drawing. Unless your hames fit your collar well, you are sure to have trouble with your harness, and your mule will work badly. Some persons think, because a mule can be accustomed to work with almost any thing for a harness, that money is saved in letting him do it. ”

“ Now, a white mule is an old mule, and the older the mule, the bigger the fool, and when they peeped over the top of that hill, only to butt into a goggle-eyed demon, they did what mules always do. When I first saw them I was looking at the north end of that funeral procession. The next instant I was looking at the south end. And as the thing turned over once to adjust itself to different direction, a venerable old darky shot out of the rear end of that hearse, followed by a two-dollar coffin, and everything in that two miles of vehicles turned tail at the same time. ”

“ Much of the architecture, as well as of the drapery of this personage, is loom-wrought, assisted in places by needle-embroidery. The head, the hands, the feet, are all done by the needle; but the head, neck, and beard are worked upon very fine linen by themselves, and afterwards applied, and in such a manner that the long white beard overlaps the tunic. ”

“ Embroidery in silk upon linen; pattern, men blue, women white, standing in a row hand in hand; the spaces filled up with lozenges in white. The women upon a green, the men upon a white ground. German, 16th century. 83⁄4 inches by 61⁄2 inches.
So very worn away is the needlework, that it is very hard to see the design, which, when discovered, looks to be very stiff, poor, and angular. ”

“ We must not, however, hide from ourselves the fact that the edges, though so broad and blunt, given by such a use of the hot iron to parts of an embroidery, expose it somewhat to the danger of being worn out more in those than other portions which soon betray the damage by their thread-bare dingy look, as is the case in the example just cited. ”

“ The skin had been painted, pendants placed about the neck, and bright feathers set in the hair to enhance attractiveness, and it is not difficult to [Pg 203] conceive of the transfer of such ideas from purely personal associations to the embellishment of articles intimately associated with the person. No matter, however, what the period or manner of the association of such ideas with the textile art, that association may be taken as the datum point in the development of a great system of decoration whose distinguishing characters are the result of the geometric textile construction. ”

“ A poet is said to embroider the truth. [2] But such metaphorical use of the word hints at the real nature of the work—embellishment, enrichment, added. If added, there must first of all be something it is added to—the material, that is to say, on which the needlework is done. In weaving (even tapestry weaving) the pattern is got by the inter-threading of warp and weft. In lace, too, it is got out of the threads which make the stuff. In embroidery it is got by threads worked on a fabric first of all woven on the loom, or, it might be, netted. ”

“ The careful worker looks close and sees the warp exposed like fiddle strings here and there. She matches the colour of silk and wool to the elusive shades and covers stitch by stitch the bare threads, in perfect imitation of the loom’s way.
[Pg 239] Sometimes the warp is gone. Then the work tests the best skill. The threads, the chaîne, must be picked up, one by one, and united invisibly to the new, and then the pattern woven over with the needle. It happens that large holes remain to be filled entirely, the pattern matched, the design caught or imagined from some other part of the fabric. ”

“ Then the whole of the outline is couched over the edges of the work covering the little border of linen left for this purpose on cutting it out of the frame. Two, three, or even four full thicknesses of filoselle, four or more of ‘Stout Floss,’ or of gold thread, make an excellent outline for gold and silk embroidery, according to the coarseness or fineness of the work; for appliqué different coloured cords are useful, and for most work gold thread or brown filoselle would be safe. The couching stitches should be placed fairly close together, and should be done with strong silken thread. ”

“ The blue embroidery, though of a bold well-raised character, is coarse; so, too, is the lace below it.
1029.
An Algerine Embroidered Scarf; ground, very thin canvas; pattern, a modification of the artichoke form, and ramifications in various-coloured flos-silks, and parted by short bands of brace-like work in white flos-silk. 2 feet 33⁄4 inches by 1 foot 33⁄4 inches.
Neither old, nor remarkable as an art-work. ”