nd
trace them through the life of mankind.

This led me to attempt a sketch of consecutive styles, their overlap
and variations.

I then found that DESIGN, PATTERNS, STITCHES, MATERIALS, each require
a separate study.

COLOUR, as applied to dyes, claims to be regarded as differing from
pigments on the painter's palette.

HANGINGS, DRESS, and ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERIES each require
different rules, and the study of the best examples of past centuries.
Finally, it seems natural to dwell on our own proficiency in
decorative work. ENGLISH EMBROIDERY has always excelled; and, as we
have again returned to this occupation, it is worth while to recollect
what we have done of old.

In writing chapters on these subjects, I have found it most convenient
to separate the historical and aesthetic questions from the technical
rules, and the instruction which naturally belongs to a handbook, of
which the purpose should be to teach the easiest and most orthodox
manner of executing the simplest, and elaborating the finest works.
Such questions ought not to be overlaid with archaeological inquiries,
or with the information which only profits the designer; though of
course it is best that the knowledge of design should be part of the
education of the craft.

Perhaps I may be found to have written a book too shallow for the
learned, too deep for the frivolous, too technical for the general
public, and too diffuse for the specialist of the craft.[1]

I must deprecate these criticisms by saying that I have written it for
the benefit of those who know nothing of the art, and are too much
engaged to seek information here and there; who yet, being women, have
to select and to execute ornamental needlework; or, being artists, are
vexed at the incongruities and want of intention in the decorations in
daily domestic use; I have also sought to help the designer, that he
or she may know something of the history of patterns and stitches.

If my readers should be aware of repetitions, they must forgive them;
remembering that the same idea has to be looked at sometimes from a
different point of view, according to the use to which it is to be
fitted. The same material may be employed for wall-hangings and dress,
and then the principles which have been formulated have to be varied.
I do not shrink from repetitions if they make my meaning clear,
remembering the Duke of Wellington's direction to his private
secretary, "Never mind repetitions; an