Church Needlework: A manual of practical instruction

by Hinda M. Hands

There were very few different colours in general use for embroidery till towards the end of the fourteenth century, after which they became much more varied, but still more harmonious, till crude and violent colours came in with the nineteenth century. The dyes formerly were mostly from Eastern sources, whence the silks also came, and where, until quite lately, very stringent rules were in force concerning the colours and dyes permitted to be used.

D’or nué seems to have been the favourite method of doing the garments about the sixteenth century. Laid-work, kept down with either self-coloured silk or gold thread, lightly couched, is also to be seen; and later, a pretty use of short-stitch in floss, worked vertically over gold threads laid horizontally—something like d’or nué, but very much coarser and more practical for the larger figures, which were then becoming more frequently worked (see diagram).

Diagram showing method of working Short-stitch over horizontal lines of Gold-thread

Another way of treating drapery is to work it solidly in long-and-short-stitch (vertical), boldly shaded, and afterwards enriching it with fine gold threads laid horizontally over the whole garment a little distance apart, and sewn down singly with fine sewing silks or split floss of the same shades as those it passes over; or sprays or diapers may be effective worked over the plain shaded silks.

The background of figure-work is not very often composed entirely of stitching in these days, when so many beautiful woven fabrics are so easily procured and time seems shorter than it used to be. But still, where there is not a very large expanse to fill, a worked background is not a luxury unattainable; a very satisfactory and glorious one is gold thread laid in diaper-patterns. Laid-work and darning are quicker—the latter makes a beautifully broken colour for showing up large outline figure-work done on unbleached linen or worsted material for hangings.

I do not fancy any of my readers would undertake such a piece of work as the background of the Syon cope; but the way it was probably done has been suggested by Mr. Lewis Day thus:—

‘The stitch runs from point to point of the zigzag pattern, then it penetrates the stuff, is carried round a thread of flax laid at the back of the material, and is brought to the surface again through the hole made by the needle in passing down. That is to say, the silken thread only dips through the linen at the points in the pattern, and is then caught down by a thread of flax on the under-surface of the linen … it is a kind of work on which two persons might be employed, one on either side of the stuff.’[6]

I venture to differ from his opinion on one point only, and that is that probably the silken or gold thread was not the one worked backwards and forwards through the stuff, since the flax thread from behind would do the work just as well. The gold or silk would thus be saved from friction, and would not need to be cut into needlefuls and threaded in a needle, but could be used from continuously, as I have before suggested for long lines of couching; it is, in fact, precisely the same thing, with the exception of taking the ‘working’ needle back through the hole it made, instead of at a little distance from it. This method is so often used in fine gold-work for turning at the end of a row when one does not want it to appear on the surface that I fancy it would be suggested by this.