cceed in doing it, is at
best the art of prevarication.

[Illustration: 87. GOTHIC CHURCH WORK.]

No doubt it is difficult to work upon velvet. The stuff is not very
sympathetic, and the stitching has a way of sinking into the pile, and
being, as it were, drowned in it. But the trailing spirals of
split-stitch which play about the applied spots in many a mediaeval altar
cloth hold their own quite well enough to show that silk can be worked
straight on to the velvet.

That gold may be equally well worked straight on to velvet may be seen
in any Indian saddle cloth. Heavy work of this kind may be rather man's
work than woman's; but that is not the point. The question is, how to
get the best results; and the answer is, by working on the stuff.

It may be argued that in this way you cannot get very high relief; but
the occasions for high relief are, at the best, rare. If you want actual
modelling, as in the Spanish work referred to in a previous chapter,
that must, of course, be worked separately, built up, as it were, upon
the canvas and worked over. And there is no reason why it should not,
for in no case does it appear to be stitching. In fact, it aims
deliberately at the effect of chased and beaten metal.

[Illustration: 88. MODERN CHURCH WORK BY MISS SHREWSBURY.]

Heavy applique of any kind affects, of course, not only the thickness
but the flexibility of the material thus enriched--an important
consideration if it is meant to hang in folds.

A PLEA FOR SIMPLICITY.

The simplest patterns are by no means the least beautiful. It is too
much the fashion to underrate the artistic value of the less pretentious
forms of needlework, and especially of flat ornament, which
has, nevertheless, its own very important place in decoration. As for
geometric pattern, that is quite beneath consideration--it is so
mechanical! Mechanical is a word as easily spoken as another; but if
needlework is mechanical, that is more often the fault of the
needlewoman than of the mechanism she employs. The Orientals, who
indulged so freely in geometric device, were the least mechanical of
workers. It is our rigid way of working it which robs geometric ornament
of its charm. The needleworker has less than ever occasion to be afraid
of geometric pattern; for it is peculiarly difficult to get in it that
appearance of rule-and-compass-work which makes ornament so dull.

The one real objection to geometric pattern is that it is nowadays