What is known by the name of "Old English Knot-stitch" (E) is a much more complicated stitch. Keeping your thread well out of the way to the right, put your needle in to the left, and take up vertically a piece of the stuff the width of the line to be worked at its widest, and draw the thread through. Then, keeping it under the thumb to the left, put your needle, eye first, downwards, through the slanting stitch just made; draw the thread not too tight, and, keeping it as before under the thumb, put your needle, eye first, this time through the upper half only of the slanting stitch, making a kind of buttonhole-stitch round the last, and draw out your thread.
These knotted rope stitches, call them what you will, are rather ragged and fussy—not much more than fancy stitches—of no great importance. Knots used separately are of much more artistic account.
to work F.
Bullion or Roll-stitch is shown in its simplest form in the petals of the flowers F on the sampler, Illustration [29]. To work one such petal, begin by attaching the thread very firmly; bring your needle out at the base of the petal, put it in at the tip, and bring it out once more at the base, only drawing it partly through. With your right hand wind the thread, say seven times, round the projecting point of the needle from left to right. Then, holding the coils under your left thumb, your thread to the right, draw your needle and thread through; and, dropping the needle, and catching the thread round your little finger, take hold of the thread with your thumb and first finger and draw the coiled stitch to the right, tightening it gently until quite firm. Lastly, put the needle through at the tip of the petal, and the stitch is complete and ready to be fastened off.
the working of F on knot-stitch sampler.
The leaves of these flowers consist simply of two bullion stitches. The bullion knots at the side of the central stalk are curled by taking up in the first instance only the smallest piece of the stuff.
to work G.
To work French Knots (G), having brought out your needle at the point where the knot is to be, hold the thread under your thumb, and, letting it lie to the right, put your needle under the stretched part of it. Turn the needle so as to twist the thread once round it. That done, put the needle in again about where it came out, draw it through from the back, and bring it out where the next knot is to be.