Nothing could be more harmonious, for example, than the combination of knot, chain, and buttonhole stitches in Illustration [24]; or of ladder, Oriental, herring-bone, and other stitches in Illustration [72]. Again, in Illustration [85] the contrast between satin-stitch in the bird and couched cord for the clouding is most judicious, as is the knotting of the bird's crest. Laid floss contrasts, again, admirably with couched gold in Illustrations [47], [48], [49], and satin-stitch with couching in Illustration [91], where the gold is reserved mainly for outline, but on occasion serves to emphasise a detail.

[larger image]

73. FINE NEEDLEWORK UPON LINEN.

Couched gold and surface satin-stitch are used together again in Illustration [58], each for its specific purpose. The harmony between appliqué work and couching or chain-stitch outline has been alluded to already.

A danger to be kept in view when working in one stitch only is, lest it should look like a woven textile, as it might if very evenly worked. Some kinds of embroidery seem hardly worth doing nowadays, because they suggest the loom. That may be a reason for some complexity of stitch, in which lurks that other danger of losing simplicity and breadth. The lace-like appearance of the needlework upon fine linen in Illustration [73], results chiefly from the extraordinary delicacy with which it is done, but it owes something also to the variety of stitch and of stitch-pattern employed in it.

OUTLINE.

The use of outline in embroidery hardly needs pointing out. It is often the obvious way of defining a pattern, as, for example, where there is only a faint difference in depth of tint between the pattern and its background; in appliqué work it is necessary to mask the joins; and it is by itself a delightful means of diapering a surface with not too obtrusive pattern.

Allusion to the stitches suitable to outline has been made already (see stitch-groups), as well as to the colour of outlining, à propos of appliqué. It is difficult to overrate the importance of this question of colour in the case of outline; but there are no rules to be laid down, except that a coloured outline is nearly always preferable to a black one. The Germans of the 16th century were given to indulging in black outlines, and you may see in their work how it hardened the effect, whereas a coloured outline may define without harshness. The Spaniards, on the other hand, realised the value of colour, and would, for example, outline gold and silver upon a dark green ground in red, with admirable effect. A double outline, for which there is often opportunity in bold work, may be turned to good account. Among the successful combinations which come to mind is an appliqué pattern in yellow and white upon dark green, outlined first with gold cord, and then, next the green, with a paler and brighter green. Another is a pattern chiefly in yellow upon purple, outlined first with yellow couched with gold, and next the ground with silver. In the case of couched cord or gold, the colour of the stitching counts also.