Cut and Drawn-Work
The open-work stitchery, which is so important and pleasing a feature of the seventeenth-century sampler, is of two kinds; that is, double cut-work—the Italian punto tagliato—in which both warp and woof threads are removed, save for a few necessary connecting bars, and single cut-work—punto tirato—wherein but one set of threads is withdrawn. The first type (which is probably the “rare Italian cut-work” mentioned in “The Needle’s Excellency”) is the immediate ancestor of needle-point lace, and is the kind that is oftenest met with in the oldest and finest samplers; the second approaches more nearly to the drawn-thread embroidery worked both abroad and at home at the present day.
In executing real double cut-work, after the surplus material has been cut away, the supporting or connecting threads are overcast, the edges of the cut linen buttonholed, and the spaces within this framework filled in with lace-stitches, simple or elaborate. In the best specimens of samplers the effect is sometimes enhanced by portions of the pattern being detached from the ground, as in the upper part of the beautiful sampler illustrated in [Fig. 72].[14] These loose pieces usually have as basis a row of buttonhole-stitches worked into the linen, but in some examples the lace has been worked quite separately and sewn on. The mode of working both double and single cut-work is shown plainly in the two enlargements ([Figs. 73] and [74]), which are of parts of samplers probably worked about 1660.
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Fig. 72—Drawn-work Sampler.
17th Century.
There is a third and much simpler type of open-work occasionally found on seventeenth-century samplers, which is carried out by piercing the linen with a stiletto and overcasting the resulting holes so as to produce a series of bird’s-eye or eyelet stitches. All three varieties of open-stitch are frequently seen in combination with that short, flat satin-stitch, which, when worked in a diaper pattern with white thread or silk on a white ground, is sometimes called damask-stitch. This pretty combination of stitches appears in [Plate VI.], and also in the enlargement ([Fig. 74]) already referred to.
Fig. 73.—Cut and Drawn-work:
Enlargement from 17th-Century Sampler.