g that must be washed. The best crewels are not twisted, and
will wash; still, as you are never sure of getting the best, it is well
to unwind your skeins, pour scalding water on the wools, and rinse them
well in it, squeeze out the water, shake the wools thoroughly, and hang
them up. When dry, cut the skein across where it is tied double, and
with a bodkin and string, or with a long hair-pin, draw the crewel into
its case. This case (see Fig. 1) is made by folding together a long
piece of thin cotton cloth a foot wide, and running parallel lines
across its width half an inch or so apart. When the wools are drawn in
in groups--reds, blues, greens, yellows, each by themselves, carefully
arranged as to shades--cut the upper end so you need not be tempted to
use too long needlefuls, and there your wools are neatly put away, and
soon you can distinguish any shade by its position in the case, no
matter how deceptive the lamp-light may be. Still, you will not need
your case till you have a dozen different colors. If you buy your wools
at first by the dozen, which is the cheaper way, be sure that your
pinks, blues, greens, etc., have, so far as may be, a yellowish tone.
Remember that yellow is the color of sunlight, and that without it your
work will look cold and lifeless; and always avoid vivid greens and
reds.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]

First learn the stem stitch, and you can practice on any bit of coarse
linen or crash. Draw a line with a pencil (see dotted line Fig. 2); then
put your needle in at the back, bringing it out at 1; then put it in at
2, taking up on the needle the threads of cloth from 2 to 3, so making a
stitch that is long on the upper but short on the under side of your
cloth. The needle points toward you, but your work runs from you, and
you put in the needle to the right of your thread. When you wish a wide
stem, slant your stitches across the line; if it must be narrow, take up
the threads exactly on the line, or you can make two or more rows of
stem stitch where you wish the line broadened.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.]

Stem stitch can be used by beginners in many ways. Squares of duck,
fringed out on the edges, and overcast or hem-stitched, can have simple
borders or stripes of any desired width worked in this stitch (see Fig.
3). You can draw the lines yourself with a pencil and ruler; those lines
which slant in one direction may be worked in one shade, those slanting
in the opposite direction in anot