g, even to perfectly spiral, lines--such as occur
in Greek wave patterns: it was, in fact, made use of in that way by the
Greeks some four or five centuries B.C.

[Illustration: THE WORKING OF G ON CHAIN-STITCH SAMPLER.]

[Illustration: 19. CHAIN AND SURFACE STITCHES.]

We owe the tambour frame, they say, to China; but it has been largely
used, and abused indeed, in England. Tambour work, when once you have
the trick of it, is very quickly done--in about one-sixth of the time it
would take to do it with the needle. It has the further advantage that
it serves equally well for embroidery on a light or on a heavy stuff,
and that it is most lasting. The misfortune is that the sewing machine
has learnt to do something at once so like it and so mechanically even,
as to discredit genuine hand-work, whether tambour work or chain-stitch.
For all that, neither is to be despised. If they have often a mechanical
appearance that is not all the fault of the stitch: the worker is to
blame. Indian embroiderers depart sometimes so far from mechanical
precision as to shock the admirers of monotonously even work. Artistic
use of chain stitch is made in many of our illustrations: for outlines
in Illustrations 24 and 72; for surface covering in Mr. Crane's lion,
Illustration 74; to represent landscape in Illustration 78, where
everything except the faces of the little men is in chain-stitch; and
again for figure work in Illustration 81. In Illustration 19 it occurs
in association with a curious surface stitch; in Illustration 64 it is
used to outline and otherwise supplement inlay. The old Italians did not
disdain to use it. In fact, wherever artists have employed it, they show
that there is nothing inherently inartistic about the stitch.

HERRING-BONE STITCH.

HERRING-BONE is the name by which it is customary to distinguish a
variety of stitches somewhat resembling the spine of a fish such as the
herring. It would be simpler to describe them as "fish-bone;" but that
term has been appropriated to describe a particular variety of it. One
would have thought it more convenient to use fish for the generic term,
and a particular fish for the specific. However, it saves confusion to
use names as far as possible in their accepted sense.

It will be seen from the sampler, Illustration 20, that this stitch may
be worked open or tolerably close; but in the latter case it loses
something of its distinctive character. Fine lines may be w