Church Needlework: A manual of practical instruction

by Hinda M. Hands

Portion of an Altar-cloth (Embroidered Cambric), Italian

The first-named should be made to fit the top of the altar exactly as to width, but may hang down at each end to within a foot or so of the floor, including the fringe.

The hem along the sides should be one inch wide and that at the ends about three inches wide. If any embroidery is worked on the part which lies flat on the top, it should not be done in high relief, and may consist of five crosses, one in the centre and one at each corner about an inch from the edges of the altar, worked in chain or close herring-bone, or very slightly padded satin-stitch.

The two ends which hang down may be enriched by any amount of embroidery, and any of the stitches described in the last chapter may be used.

Many of the clergy prefer their altar-linen worked entirely in white; linen-thread, silk, or cotton may be employed; where colour is not objected to, red, blue, green and yellow, either singly or in combination, may produce very beautiful results.

Illustration I., [p. 80], taken from an altar-band at South Kensington, is worked with the names of saints, alternately red and blue, the foliage green, fruit red and yellow, flowers red, white and blue. The stitch used throughout is close herring-bone or braid-stitch, with the exception of the quaint little birds, which are done in cross-stitch.

For less elaborate work one of the cross-stitch borders F and F, f, [p. 77], and worked in red silk or in gold colour, would look well, and all the rest of the altar-linen could be done to match, or with a narrower border.

For white work Illustration II. is very satisfactory. The outline of the leaves may be done in chain-stitch, the veins and grapes in satin-stitch, the quatrefoil in feather-stitch; the sacred monogram may be either solid satin-stitch, divided down the middle of each down-stroke by a voided line, or outlined with chain-stitch and filled with the buttonhole filling or with satin-stitch dots, or again, with close feather-stitch like the quatrefoil. The stems of the vine may be filled in the same manner, and the leaves with a series of back-stitches, like the illustration given for Chalice-veil.

A neatly sewn hem is better for altar-linen than hem-stitching or drawn thread; the latter especially being somewhat flimsy, and destroying to a certain extent the wearing properties of the fabric, is decidedly unsuitable for this purpose, except perhaps one kind, of which I give an illustration here (Illustration III., [p. 81]).