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It is best to design with a view to the method of work to be employed, and to keep within its limits. To worry the surface of applied, inlaid, or cut stuff with finnikin stitchery, is practically to confess either the inadequacy of the design or the fidgetiness of the worker. It should need, as a rule, no such enrichment.
And I loved them both, and tried as a Christian not to prefer one before the other; but what with my lady's stealings of her arms about my neck as I sat at my stitchery, and popping of comfits in my pocket when I would be otherwise engaged, and teasings, and ticklings, and sundry other pretty witcheries which I do not at this day recall, I was fairly cozened into loving her the best.
Needlework was far more than an interest, it was an occupation. The varieties of tambour work and open stitchery of various ornamental kinds were possible for all capacities.
The hammered gold of Eastern embroidery tells not only of the riches of available material, but of the habit of personal preparation, instead of the mechanical. The little Bible description of captured "needlework alike on both sides" speaks unmistakably of the method of their stitchery, a cross-stitch of colored threads, which is even now the only method of stitch "alike on both sides."
The complicated richness of the dresses, the yards and yards of fine stitchery, the endless ruching, the hints, more or less incautious, of nether treasures of embroidered linen; and, leaping over all this to the eye, the vivid colourings of silks and muslins, veils, plumes and flowers, piled as it were pell-mell in heaps on the universal green cushions to the furthest vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in gilt mirrors the spectacle intoxicated Sophia.
It is a long step from this traditional past of its origin to the short past of the stitchery of America, where the little fingers of small Puritan maids followed the lines evolved by the generations of the earlier world. When French needlework had had its day, and the evanescent life of Berlin woolwork had passed, for a period of half a century needlework ceased to flourish in America.
Cis could not repress an exclamation of delight, which brought the most charming glance of the winning eyes upon her. There was stitchery here that she did not understand, but when she looked at some of the flowers, she could not help uttering the sentiment that the eyes of the daisies were not as mother could make them. So, as a great favour, Queen Mary entreated to be shown Mrs.
Every inch of stitchery was carefully criticized and constantly compared with the colored copy, and at last it was a finished tapestry and was hung in a north light on one of the great spaces of the studio, where it was an object of expert examination and general admiration.
Geometrical borders in two colors would have taken their place in decorative work, and the applied work, so often ventured upon, was the beginning of one very capable method. The skillful needlework, the elaborate quilting, the stitchery and stuffing are worthy of respect, for the foundation of it all was great dexterity in the use of the needle.
I declare our household is in her eyes sinfully free! If she can hammer out a text of Scripture, and write her name in characters as big and gawky as herself, 'tis as far as her education has carried her, save in pickling, preserving, stitchery, and clear starching, the only arts not sinful in her eyes.
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