XV
EYELETS AND FRENCH KNOTS, BULLION STITCH, AND OTHER FANCY STITCHES.
The most beautiful of the embroidery stitches is the eyelet, and it is also one of the hardest. A piece of embroidery that is thickly covered with eyelet-work and possibly a little satin-stitch and buttonholing is commonly termed Madeira embroidery. One will often see a piece of the Madeira embroidery so closely covered that it is almost impossible to put another stitch in between the embroidered spots. About fifty years ago it was a matter of impossibility to buy machine embroidery, and eyelet-work was one of the last things made by machine. It was an easy matter to distinguish the hand-work from the machine-work up to about five years ago. A certain regularity of the stitches and the kind of thread used proclaimed it machine to even the amateur. Now-a-days the crafty manufacturers stamp the material to imitate the hand-made embroideries and use a thread of the same quality so that sometimes the professional embroiderers find it hard to distinguish it from the real.
Fig. 142. Baby's bootees
If you should ask a boy who has watched his mother working one, what an eyelet is he will probably tell you that it is cutting holes in the material and sewing them up again. To his mind this is a great waste of time.
Besides being ornamental, the eyelets often play an important part. They are used to run ribbon through in corset covers, night-gowns and other pieces of underwear, as well as on bags, baby bootees, ([Figure 142]), caps and carriage covers. No machine beading can impart the elegance that a well-made eyelet does to a personal garment. Eyelets can be either round or oval. For a small round one run a tracing thread on the outline. Let each stitch take up but one or two threads of the material. Use No. 35 or finer marking cotton for small eyelets. With your stiletto pierce a hole in the outlined edge till it is just the size of the stamped eyelet. Now with the same thread sew around the opening with close over-and-over stitches. The stitches should only be the width of the stamped line ([Figure 143]). They must be even, else you will have a "Pig's-eye."
Fig. 143. The way to work an eyelet