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The stitch used in these flower pieces was an over-and-over stitch, or what was called satin-stitch, which was without the lap of Kensington stitch. There was in every piece of embroidery done under the instruction of the accomplished and devoted Sisters certain virtues, certain effects of conscientious and patient work, mingled with the love of good and beautiful art, which were plainly visible.
When perfectly dry, it is worked over with thick corded silk couched in the ordinary way. Over this floss is worked in close satin-stitch. In sprig C the underlay is of parchment, lightly stitched in place. The use of a double underlay in parts gives additional relief.
In working in the hand, you take a rather shorter stitch back than in crewel-stitch, piercing with the needle the thread which is to form the next stitch. In working on a frame, you bring your needle always up through the last-made satin-stitch in order to start the next. Whichever way it is done, split-stitch is often difficult to distinguish without minute examination from chain-stitch.
The way of working this stitch is more fully given on page 105. The worker adapts, as a matter of course, the length of the stitch to the work to be done, directing it also according to the form to be expressed, and so arrives, almost before he is aware of it, by way of satin-stitch, at what is called plumage-stitch.
For a background, simple darning more or less open, in stitches not too regular, is often the best solution of the difficulty. The effect of the ground grinning through is delightful. SATIN-STITCH is par excellence the stitch for fine silkwork.
Treatment is accordingly necessary, and so we arrive at a convention appropriate to embroidery of this kind. It takes a draughtsman properly to express form by stitch distribution. It is the rule of the game to lay satin-stitch very evenly. Worked in floss, the mere surface of satin-stitch is beautiful. A further charm lies in the way it lends itself to gradation of colour.
These, having been stitched in place, were worked over in satin-stitch. The work has the merit of looking just like what it is. But neither it nor ribbon embroidery is of any very serious account. Passing reference has been made to other materials to embroider with than thread.
Satin-stitch must not be too long, and it is often a serious consideration with the designer how to break up the surfaces to be covered so that only shortish stitches need be used. You might follow the veining of a leaf, for example, and work from vein to vein. But all leaves are not naturally veined in the most accommodating manner.
Instance B, however, is worked in the hand, and D in a frame from which very fact it follows that the worker is naturally disposed to regard B as akin to crewel-stitch and D to satin-stitch, between which two stitches "dovetail" may be regarded as the connecting link. The petals at B are worked in the method illustrated in the diagram overleaf.
In sprig H the underwork consists of stitching in soft cotton, over which thick silk is embroidered in bullion-stitch. The rule is to work the first stitching in such a direction that the surface work crosses it at right angles. The small leaf is worked over with fine purse silk in satin-stitch, which is used also for the stalk. The leaves have there only one layer of understitching.
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