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84. MORE EXPRESSIVE LINES OF STITCHING.
A more clever fulfilment of the naturalistic intention is to be seen in Illustration [76]. The drawing of the doves is in the rather loose manner of the period of Marie Antoinette; but the treatment of the stitch is clever in its way—the way, as I have said, rather of painting than of embroidery, giving as it does the roundness of the birds' bodies but no hint of actual feathering, such as you find in the bird in Illustration [85]. There, every stitch helps to explain the feathering. By a discreet use of what I must persist in calling the same stitch (that is, satin-stitch and the variety of it called plumage-stitch) the embroiderer has rendered with equal perfection the sweep of the broad wing feathers and the fluffy feathering of the breast. It is by means of the direction of the stitch, too, that the drawing of the neck is so perfectly rendered.
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85. SATIN AND PLUMAGE STITCHES.
The direction of the stitch is varied to some purpose in the head in Illustration [80], where the flesh is all in straight upright stitches, whilst the hair is stitched in the direction of its growth.
The five petals on the satin-stitch sampler (Illustration [36])—to descend from the masterly to the elementary—show something of the difference it makes in what direction the stitch is worked. It matters more, of course, in some stitches than in others; but in most cases the direction of the stitch suggests form, and needs accordingly to be considered.
It scarcely needs further pointing out how the direction of the stitch may help to explain the construction of the form, as in the case of leaves, for example, where the veining may be suggested; or of stalks, where the fibre may be indicated. There is no law as to the direction of stitch, except that it should be considered. You may follow the direction of the forms, you may cross them, you may deliberately lay your stitches in the most arbitrary manner; but, whatever you do, you must do it with intelligent purpose. An artist or a workwoman can tell at once whether your stitch was laid just so because you meant it or because you knew no better.