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44. DARNING DESIGNED BY WILLIAM MORRIS.

In the case of large leaves, veined, the veining should be worked first, the stitches between them radiating outwards to the edge of the leaf.

More accomplished work in darning is shown in the border by William Morris in Illustration [44], where it appears, however, much flatter than in the coloured silk. It is worked solid, the radiating stitches accommodating themselves to the forms of the leaves and petals, which, in fact, are designed with a view to their execution in this way. They are defined by outline-stitching—light or dark as occasion seemed to require.

Mention has already been made of darning à propos of canvas-stitch; and there is a sort of natural correspondence between the mécanique of darning in its simplest form and the network of open threads which gives to rectangular darning, like the German work in Illustration [45], character which more than compensates for its angularity in outline. The darning is there quite even in workmanship, but it is, as will be seen, of different degrees of strength—lighter for the surface of the pattern, heavier for the outline.

You may qualify the colour of a stuff by lightly darning it with silk of another shade, and very subtle tints may be got by thus, as it were, veiling a coloured ground with silks of various hues.

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45. FLAT DARNING UPON A SQUARE MESH.