Paste is sometimes in request for embroidery purposes; the following is a good recipe—Pour rather less than half a pint of cold water into a saucepan, add to this a piece of carpenter's glue about the size of a small filbert and place it on the fire to heat. Put three teaspoonfuls of flour into a basin, and with cold water mix to a smooth paste; when the water in the saucepan boils add it to the paste, stirring well all the time; then place the mixture in the saucepan and boil for about two minutes. When cold it is ready for use. It may be required as a preservative; for instance, canvas work when finished can have a thin coating of paste rubbed over the back in order to preserve the stitches from giving or running; when the work is to be used for such things as furniture coverings this may be a good thing to do. Applied work is sometimes pasted on to its new ground, and a backing may be fixed to the surface material by paste. The more all this can be avoided the better, for its tendency is to give a stiff mechanical look to work; professional people, however, are rather fond of the paste pot. Paste, if used, must be of the right kind, or it will do more harm than good. It should be very fresh, and have no acid in its ingredients, of which gum arabic must not be one if any after stitching has to take place through the stuff, for gum makes it hard and less penetrable. The paste must be applied and allowed to dry thoroughly before the work is removed from the frame. A finger makes a good brush for the purpose. The paste should be put on as thinly and evenly as possible, care being taken not to rub on the cross of the material, since this might stretch it unevenly.
Shoemakers' paste is easily procured, and can be used for embroidery purposes. This is made from rye flour, and is very strong. It is harmless if perfectly fresh.
A good many things go to the keeping of work fresh and orderly, which is a very important matter. The work must be kept carefully covered up when not in use; finished parts can sometimes be covered whilst the work is going on, for the covering is easily raised when comparison with the part in progress is necessary. The work should have some protection if the hand rests on it; the worker should wear a white apron with sleeves. The worker's hand should be cool, dry, and smooth; hot hands should frequently be washed. The use of pumice stone cures slight roughness, but fine work cannot be attempted if the fingers are for any reason constantly rough. Wools and silks need a case to keep them orderly and clean. The best way to preserve valuable embroidery is to frame it, which, of course, is not always practicable, but it is a sure safeguard against moth and dust.
For washing embroidery special soap should be procured. It is not well to use any ordinary soap, for this may contain alkali, which would injure the colours in the work. Dissolve the soap in boiling water, and add cold to make it just warm and of the required strength. Immerse the embroidery in the lather thus made, and work it about gently, avoiding any friction. When clean, rinse first in warm water, afterwards in cold, to which a little salt may be added. The water must be squeezed out carefully and the material quickly dried. If ironing is necessary it must be done on the wrong side, but if the work can be pinned out on a board to dry, and in this way stretched and smoothed without any ironing, so much the better, for the embroidery will not be flattened at all. Another way of ironing embroidery that is not harmful is to do it from underneath while some one holds out the material.
It is easy to prevent the puckering of work when it is carried out in the frame; there is, however, no necessity for it to occur in hand work. Certain stitches are more inclined to draw up the material than others, and extra care has to be taken in working upon the cross of the fabric. The work should be held in convex fashion over the fingers of the left hand. Weights are occasionally attached to the corners of the work to prevent any unconscious drawing of it up.
There are remedies for the cure of slightly puckered work. Place on a drawing-board some clean blotting-paper, damp it evenly over with a wet handkerchief, and then lay the work, right side up, upon it. Fix the work down to the board with drawing-pins, inserted at regular short intervals round the edge, endeavouring during the process to stretch the material to its original shape. This needs doing carefully, for it is quite possible to stretch it to a wrong shape, and it will remain as now pinned out. Next, lay some white paper or a handkerchief upon the surface of the work, and then place upon it a flat weight that presses equally on every part of the embroidery. Leave it undisturbed for a night, and the puckering will probably be cured. Work, if not puckered, may be improved by going through this process, which practically amounts to a mild ironing, but without any injurious effects.
There are various points about the thread that should be known. To commence a new thread run a few stitches in the material upon the right side upon a part that will afterwards be covered by the working. This is a better way than a fastening on the wrong side, for it is both neater and more secure. A knot made at the beginning is fairly safe, but it is undesirable for several reasons. The needleful should not be lengthy lest it gets worn before it is all worked in. With some threads it is important to thread only the proper end into the eye of the needle, since one way they will work in roughly and the other way smoothly. An end of a coarse thread can be taken through to the back of the material by the help of a fine one; the fine thread is brought through from the back by the needle, it then encircles the coarse one, and returns to the back by the same hole, pulling the coarse thread with it, as in process in [fig. 167]. Taking it through by the aid of a thick needle would make too large a hole. Thread can be knotted into the eye of the needle if for any reason it is required to be quite safe from accidental unthreading. The neatest way of doing this is to pass the needle through the centre of the thread and draw it tight; this is a useful trick for any unskilled worker with needles and thread, for re-threading also may be a difficulty. When work has to be unpicked it is better to cut the threads rather than do any drawing out, for they are in any case unfit for further use, and this method wears the material less; a beginner must not shirk unpicking if first-rate results are to be obtained.
