PART I—EMBROIDERY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In the practice of embroidery the needlewoman has an advantage not now shared by workers in any other craft, in that the technical processes are almost a matter of inherited skill. Every woman can sew, and it is with little more than the needle and thread, which she habitually employs, that the greatest masterpieces of the art have been stitched. The art of embroidery, however, is not merely an affair of stitches; they are but the means by which ideas can be expressed in intelligible form, and memories of all kinds of things be pictured on stuffs.
To laboriously train the hand is scarcely worth while unless it is capable of expressing something that is at least pretty. Nowadays much embroidery is done with the evident intent of putting into it the minimum expenditure of both thought and labour, and such work furnishes but a poor ideal to fire the enthusiasm of the novice; happily, there still exist many fine examples showing what splendid results may be achieved; without some knowledge of this work we cannot obtain a just idea of the possibilities of the art.
It is obvious that much advantage can be gained from studying the accumulated experience of the past in addition to that current in our own day. To do this intelligently, the history of embroidery must be followed in order that the periods richest in the various kinds of work may be ascertained. Museums afford useful hunting-grounds for the study of past work; other sources are private collections, churches, costume in pictures or on engraved brasses, and manuscript inventories such as those of cathedral treasuries, which sometimes contain interesting detailed descriptions of their embroidered vestments and hangings.
Blind copying of old work is not of much value; it is not possible or desirable to imitate XIIIth century work now, but much can be learned by examining fine examples in an appreciative and analytical spirit. In what way the design has been built up can be discovered; the most complicated result may often be resolved into quite elementary lines. The student must find out wherein lie the attraction and interest, note good schemes of colour, and learn about stitches and methods of work by close examination of the embroidery, both front and back.
Every one knows what embroidery is, and a formal definition seems unnecessary. As a matter of fact, it would be a difficult task to give one, since weaving, lace-making, and embroidery are but subtle variations of the same art.