Colour is entirely relative, that is to say it depends upon its immediate surroundings for what it appears to be. Also it has effects varying with the material which it dyes; wool is of an absorbent nature, whereas silk has powers of reflection. It is a safe plan to use true colours, real blue, red or green, not slate, terra cotta, and olive. Gold, silver, white and black, are valuable additions to the colour palette; it should be remembered about the former that precious things must be used with economy or they become cheap and perhaps vulgar.
For getting satisfactory colour there is a useful method which can at times be made use of; this is to stitch it down in alternate lines of two different tints, which, seen together at a little distance, give the desired effect. Backgrounds can be covered over with some small geometrical pattern carried out in this way, such as is shown in [fig. 24], perhaps using in alternation bright blue and black instead of a single medium tint of blue all over. At a slight distance the tone may be the same in either case, but this method gives a pleasantly varied and refined effect, which avoids muddiness, and shows up the pattern better. This same method is used for expressing form more clearly as well as for colour; waves of hair, for instance, are much more clearly expressed when worked in this way.
CHAPTER IV
STITCHES
Introduction—Chain Stitch—Zigzag Chain—Chequered Chain—Twisted Chain—Open Chain—Braid Stitch—Cable Chain—Knotted Chain—Split Stitch.
It is necessary for every worker to have a certain amount of knowledge of stitches, for they are, so to speak, the language of the art, and though not of first importance, still there is a great deal in stitchery. The needlewoman should be absolute master of her needle, for there is a great charm in beautifully carried out stitching; also a good design can be made mechanical and uninteresting by a wrong method of execution. The simplest and most common stitches are the best, and are all that are necessary for the doing of good work. Work carried out entirely in one stitch has a certain unity and character that is very pleasing. There are a great number of stitches in existence, that is, if each slight variation has a different name assigned to it. The names are sometimes misleading, for often the same stitch is known by several different ones; descriptive names have where possible been chosen for those discussed in the following pages.
A worker may find it useful to keep by her a sampler with the most characteristic stitches placed upon it; a glance at this will be suggestive when she is in doubt as to which to use, for it is often difficult to recollect just the right and most suitable one at a moment's notice. It is necessary to learn only the main varieties, for each individual worker can adapt, combine, and invent variations to suit a special purpose.
The direction of the stitch is important; tone, if not colour, can be very much altered by change in direction; also growth and form can be suggested by it; for instance, lines going across a stem are not usually so satisfactory as those running the length of it; these suggesting growth better. Folds of drapery are often explained by direction of the lines of stitching quite as much as by gradation of colour.