FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67  
68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>   >|  
is for the most part worked. Very effective Indian work is done of this kind--loose and flimsy, but serving a distinct artistic purpose. It is to embroidery of more serious kind what scene painting is to mural decoration. [Illustration: 40. CHINESE SATIN-STITCH.] Embroidery is often described as being in "long-and-short-stitch," a term properly descriptive not of a stitch, but of its dimensions. Whether you use stitches of equal or of unequal length is a question merely of the adaptation of the stitch to its use in any given instance; there is nothing gained by calling an arrangement of alternating stitches, "long and short," or by calling them "plumage-stitch," or, which is more misleading, "feather-stitch," when they radiate so as to follow the form, say, of a bird's breast. The bodies of the birds in Illustrations 40 and 85 are in plumage-stitch so called. This adaptation of stitch to bird or other forms gives the effect of fine feathering perfectly. But why apply the term "satin-stitch" exclusively to parallel lines of stitches all of a length? "Long-and-short-stitch," then, is a sort of satin-stitch; only, instead of the stitches being all of equal length, they are worked one _into_ the others or _between_ them, as in the faces in Illustrations 79 and 80. A little further removed from satin-stitch is what is known as "split-stitch," in which the needle is brought up _through_ the foregoing stitch, and splits it. The way of working this stitch is more fully given on page 105. The worker adapts, as a matter of course, the length of the stitch to the work to be done, directing it also according to the form to be expressed, and so arrives, almost before he is aware of it, by way of satin-stitch, at what is called plumage-stitch. [Illustration: 41. OFFSHOOTS FROM SATIN AND CREWEL STITCHES.] [Illustration: 42. OFFSHOOTS FROM SATIN AND CREWEL STITCHES (BACK).] The distinction between the stitches so far described is plain enough, and an all-round embroidress learns to work them; but workers end in working their own way, modifying the stitch according to the work it is put to do, and produce results which it would be difficult to describe and pedantic to find fault with. Even short, however, of such individual treatment, the mere adaptation of the stitch to the lines of the design removes it from the normal. It makes a difference, too, whether it is worked in a frame or in the hand: in the one case you se
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67  
68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
stitch
 

stitches

 

length

 
Illustration
 

adaptation

 

plumage

 
worked
 

STITCHES

 

OFFSHOOTS

 
called

calling

 

Illustrations

 

working

 
CREWEL
 
brought
 

needle

 

splits

 

foregoing

 
arrives
 

expressed


matter

 

adapts

 

directing

 

worker

 

individual

 

treatment

 

design

 

removes

 

normal

 

difference


pedantic

 

describe

 
embroidress
 

learns

 

workers

 
distinction
 

results

 

difficult

 

produce

 

modifying


dimensions

 

Whether

 
descriptive
 

properly

 

STITCH

 
Embroidery
 

unequal

 
question
 
gained
 
arrangement