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This also owed its introduction to the Moravian School of Bethlehem, although it was probably of early English origin, going back to that period when English embroidery was the wonder of the world; and the opus plumarium, or feather-pen stitch, or tent stitch, or Kensington stitch, as it has been known in succeeding ages, first attracted attention as a medium of art.
Awdry's shrine," and the Monk Thomas assures us that "none other could be found in the kingdom of the English of such richness and beauty of workmanship." The various stitches in English work had their several names, the opus plumarium, or straight overlapping stitches, resembling the feathers of a bird; the opus pluvarium, or cross stitch, and many others.
Then, and not until then, the long over-stitch, the opus plumarium, which we call "Kensington," was invented, and served to make English embroidery famous in early English history. This was the stitch used by the Pilgrim mothers in their crewel embroidery, as we use it to-day in most of our decorative presentations.
The opus plumarium or feather stitch that we read of in the descriptions of the old embroideries was a similar stitch to this, and so called, some say, because it resembled the plumage of a bird.
In spite of the achievements of the opus plumarium, we are indebted to simple cross-stitch, to the obligations of the mathematical square of hand weavings, for all the wonderful borderings which have been evolved by ages of the use of the needle, since decoration began.
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