For the handles and joinings of bags, see chapter on needle-weaving.
Beads and buttons are useful for ornamentation—they give richness and weight wherever they may be placed; and as an addition to fringes (Fig. 35), tassels and ties, they are most effective. Flat beads and buttons may be applied to embroidery provided they do not interfere with the use of the object; this they would do if it were in such constant use as to require frequent washing.
Small beads may often take the place of French knots, giving much the same appearance to a border or hem.
Washing galoons and gimps, bindings and trimmings, may be effectively applied to dainty little tea and luncheon sets, as well as to children’s dresses and overalls, they may be further embellished with narrow borders of needle-weaving worked in coloured cottons or in flax threads.
For method of making fringes, tassels and braids, etc., [see Chapter XI].
CHAPTER IV
DARNING STITCHES—BACKGROUNDS AND FILLINGS
“The needle’s work pleased her, and she graced it.”
There is an infinite variety of pattern to be made with darning stitches, and fortunately many needlewomen have sufficient originality to invent little variations to suit their work and material. Most of the patterns on Plate II. are intended to be worked on a loosely woven foundation where the threads are easily counted, such as some of the coarser linens, single thread canvases, greenhouse shading, and tammy cloth for finer work. These darning patterns are better worked with a blunt needle and a long thread, as it is rather awkward, at times, to join new threads in the middle of a pattern, especially an openwork one (see [Fig. H]). Simple fillings like these may greatly enhance the effect of a piece of embroidery. It will be seen by referring to Plate II. that they might be worked so as to form quite a number of patterns in straight lines (Fig. A), in waves or chevron pattern (Fig. C), in clusters or stars (Fig. F), in lines of slanting stitches (Fig. D), in groups of squares or chequers (Fig. E), in vandykes (Fig. G), or in any of the openwork stitches as Figs. J and L.
A Simple Openwork Filling.—Fig. J is a pretty little pattern suitable for a border, for the foot of a child’s frock, for a jumper, for table mats, or for any article where a dainty openwork appearance is wanted. It consists of straight lines in a vertical overcast stitch, worked in rows, from left to right and from right to left.