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48. INDO-PORTUGUESE LAID-WORK.
A more finished piece of work is shown in Illustration [49], where the laid floss crosses the forms, and the sewing down takes very much the place of veining in the flower, and of ribs in the scroll, expressing about as much modelling as can be expressed this way, and more, perhaps, than it is advisable often to attempt.
The sewing down asserts itself most, of course, when it is in a colour contrasting with the laid floss, as it does in the leaves in the smaller sampler overleaf.
The stitching down makes usually a pattern more or less conspicuous. On this same sampler it does so very deliberately in the case of the broad stalk. The rather sudden variation of the colour shown there in the leaves is harmless enough in bold work, to which the process is best suited. One may be too careful in gradating the tints: timidity in this respect prevails too much among modern needlewomen: an artist in floss should not want her work to look like a gradated wash of colour. The Italians of the 16th and 17th centuries (see Illustration [49]) were not afraid of rather abrupt transition in the shades of colour they used for laid-work.
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49. ITALIAN LAID-WORK.