anging the pattern, but inlaying the inlays with smaller
patternwork, thus combining great simplicity of effect with wonderful
minuteness of detail. They mask the joins with chain-stitch, the
colour of it artfully chosen with regard to the two colours of the cloth
it divides or joins. Further, they often patch together pieces of this
kind of inlay.

Inlay itself is a sort of PATCHWORK. You cut pieces out of your cloth,
and patch it with pieces of another colour, covering the joins perhaps,
as on Illustration 64, with chain stitch, which gives it some
resemblance to cloisonne enamel, the cloisons being of chain-stitch.

Where there is no one ground stuff to be patched, but a number of
vari-coloured pieces of stuff are sewn together, they form a veritable
Mosaic, reminding one, in coloured stuffs, of what the mediaeval glaziers
did in coloured glass. Admirable heraldic work was done in Germany by
this method; and it is still employed for flag making. The stuffs used
should be as nearly as possible of one substance. In patchwork of
loosely-textured material each separate piece of stuff may be cut large,
turned in at the edge, and oversewn on the wrong side.

[Illustration: 65. CUT-WORK IN LINEN.]

The relation of CUT-WORK to inlay is clear--in fact, the one is the
first step towards the other. You have only to stop short of the actual
inlaying, and you have cut-work. Fill up the parts cut out in
Illustration 65 with coloured stuff, and it would be inlay. The
needlewoman has preferred to sew over the raw edges of the stuff, and
give us a perfect piece of FRETWORK in linen. It is part of the game
in cut-work to make the fret coherent, whole in itself. The design
should tell its own tale. "Ties" of buttonhole-stitch, or what not, are
not necessary, provided the designer knows how to plan a fret pattern.
Their introduction brings the work nearer to lace than embroidery. The
sewing-over may be in chain-stitch, satin-stitch (as in Illustration
65), or in buttonhole-stitch--which last is strongest.

As, in the case of applique, inlay, and mosaic, an embroidered outline
is usually necessary to cover the join, so in the case of cut-work
sewing-over is necessary to keep the edges from fraying. It may
sometimes be advisable to supplement this outlining by further stitching
to express veining, or give other minute details--just as the
glassworker, when he could not get detail small enough by means of
glazing, had recourse to pain