If a little larger and more elaborate square is wanted, take a piece of material nine or ten inches square. Make a star, skip four threads and work the open squares described for the smaller pin cushion.
On the opposite side of the square, directly across from the first star, skip four threads and make another square. At the other two corners of the square make a star ([Figure 167]).
Fig. 167. The Hardanger square pin cushion
The German peasant girls are proud of their aprons with a border of Hardanger embroidery. It is a common thing for them to have a border fifteen or eighteen inches deep. Often they will make yards and yards of a pattern, say four inches wide, and they will insert it above the hems on sheets and towels and cut out the background material.
There is no nation on earth as thrifty as the Germans. A German girl I know who is only nineteen years old has her entire bedroom fitted up with Hardanger articles that she has made herself. First there is the bedspread and bolster, each most elaborately embroidered with an all-over design. Then there is a round pillow (the edge buttonholed) and a square pillow as well as the bureau scarf and pin cushion. If she bought the articles already worked she would have paid hundreds of dollars for the outfit, while the actual cost was only a few dollars. Nearly all the best of fancy-work shops sell small pamphlets on Hardanger work that are not expensive and after one is familiar with the foundation stitches it is an easy matter to follow the designs they give.