to do even moderate things.

[Illustration: 92. LEAF TREATMENT IN APPLIQUE.]

But the "best" above referred to does not necessarily mean the most
masterly. The best of a simple kind is not calculated to discourage
anyone--rather, it looks as if it must be easy to do that; and in trying
to do it you learn how much goes to the doing it. Good design need not
be of any great importance or pretensions. It may be quite simple, if
only it is right; if the lines are true, the colour harmonious; if it is
adapted to its place, to its use and purpose, to execution not only with
the needle but in the particular kind of needlework to be employed.

There has of late years been something of a revival of needlework design
in schools of art, and some very promising and even most accomplished
work has been done; but in many instances, as it seems to me, it is
rather design which has been translated into needlework, than design
clearly made for execution with the needle. A really appropriate and
practical design for embroidery should be schemed not merely with a view
to its execution with the needle, but with a view to its execution in a
particular stitch or stitches--and possibly by a particular embroidress.
To be safe in designing work so minute as that on Illustration 93, one
must be sure of the needlewoman who is to execute it.

[Illustration: 93. DELICATE SATIN-STITCH--WORKED BY MISS BUCKLE.]

My reference to old work must not be taken to imply that design should
be in imitation of what has been done, or that it should follow on those
lines. Design was once upon a time traditional; but the chain of
tradition has snapped, and now conscious design must be eclectic--that
is to say, one must study old work to see what has been done, and how
it has been done, and then do one's own in one's own way. It is at least
as foolish to break quite away from what has been done as to tether
yourself to it. And in what has been done you will see, not only what is
worth doing, but what is not. That, each must judge for herself. For my
part, it seems to me the thing best worth doing is ornament. Any way,
this much is certain (and you have only to go to a museum to prove it),
that there is no need for needleworkers, unless their instinct draws
them that way, to take to needle painting, to pictures in silk, or even
to flower stitching.

The limitations of embroidery are not so rigidly marked as the
boundaries of many another craft. There is little t