angular mats. Designs should never be crowded
on circular mats. Repeated groups should always be made exactly alike.
In the color notes, a series of colors set off by commas indicates
that each series may be used alone for the whole design. Often the
deep colors, especially No. 1, have been left out, as the effect of
a very dark color on a very light mat is often startling. Designs on
mats or hangings should not be more conspicuous than the mat itself,
but should rather present a complete and harmonious appearance when
both mat and design are considered as a whole.
Circular Mats.
Design A.
The straws of a circular mat cannot be counted and then divided
equally by numbers, as straws are continually added at irregular
intervals as the circumference is being reached. Hence, the only way
to place designs on a mat of this kind is by dividing the whole mat
with a diameter through its center.
Fold the mat and make a crease at the edges or mark a diameter
through it with a pencil; at right angles to this diameter draw
another through the same center, and the mat will now be divided into
equal quadrants. The quadrants may again be divided and subdivided,
and marked by pencil or with strings.
In Design A the mat is about 57 inches in diameter. In a mat of
this size there would be 48 units in the circle with a margin of
1-1/2 inches from the outer edge of the outer border line to the
circumference of the mat. Divide the mat into halves, quarters,
eighths, and sixteenths, and measure with strings. Each sixteenth
contains three units. Divide this space into three equal parts.
Now embroider in each third one exact unit. In weaving in the unit,
always commence on its outer edge; then if any slight variation of
space has occurred, the irregularity will not be noticeable, as it
will be in the line work of the unit, and not in its solid part. Each
unit made in working as suggested from the outer edge inward will
begin the other half of a solid figure already commenced. Notice the
part of the design which has been marked off as one unit, and adhere
to that arrangement.
This design may be placed on a mat 57 inches in diameter, or 114
inches in diameter making each figure with twice as many straws as
in the first.
In ticug mats of natural straw, this design may be done in the
following colors:
No. 2, 3, 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, or 16. (12 and 16 should not be used
on sabutan.)
No. 14, with a solid diamond and outer
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