The work is most often carried out in white thread on white linen, but coloured threads may occasionally be introduced with advantage. It is a durable method of work, and particularly suitable for the decoration of various house-linens, things that must undergo daily wear and wash; its rather unobtrusive character too makes it the more suitable for this purpose. The work is used in conjunction with other kinds of embroidery, perhaps making a neat finish to an edge, or lightening what would otherwise be too heavy in appearance.
Drawn thread and cut work can be carried out with such detail and fineness as to really become most delicate lace. In this chapter, however, it is intended to be treated rather as an adjunct to other embroidery, therefore only elementary work will be discussed. More attention might with advantage be paid to the design of this kind of work, for more might be done with it than sometimes is. For one thing, there is very little variety in the patterns, and the result often seems a spidery mass of incomprehensible threads with no very perceivable plan; perhaps if more attention were paid to the proportion and massing of the solid and open parts, a better result might be attained. Neatness and simplicity are good qualities in the pattern, the method of work not being suited to the expression of the various larger and bolder types of design.
DRAWN THREAD WORK
In drawn work the question is how to treat the remaining warp threads after the weft has been withdrawn. They can be clustered in bunches in different ways with ornamental stitches added, or be entirely covered over with darning or overcast stitches in such a way as to form a pattern.
The beginning of most drawn thread work is hem stitching, the two edges marking the limit of the withdrawn threads have usually to be hem stitched before any pattern can be carried out. One method of doing this is in progress in [fig. 115]. In order to work it, draw out three or four threads of the warp and tack the hem down to the top edge of the line thus made. The diagram explains the remainder of the working.
[Fig. 116] shows in the first example clusters of four threads drawn together at each edge by hem stitching in such a way as to form a ladder-like pattern. This and the one below are the ornamentations of a plain hem that are most commonly seen. The variation in pattern in the lower one is obtained by drawing together on the lower edge two threads from two consecutive bunches in the upper row instead of just repeating over again the same divisioning as before. These two examples are drawn to show the reverse, not the working side.
