craftsmanlikeness

Updated: May 17, 2025

The embroidress entirely in sympathy with her materials will not want telling that the needle lends itself better to forms less fixed in their proportions than the human figure; the decorator will feel that there is about fine ornament a nobility of its own which stands in need of no pictorial support; the unbiassed critic will admit that figure design of any but the most severely decorative kind is really outside the scope of needle and thread; and that the desire to introduce it arises, not out of craftsmanlikeness, but out of an ambition which does not pay much regard to the conditions proper to needlework.

Mary Buckle - Art in Needlework: A Book about Embroidery