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Fig. 61.—Hollie Point Lace from Top of Christening Cap. 1774. Formerly in the Author’s Collection.

PART III
I.—Stitchery of Pictures in Imitation of Tapestry and the Like

“Tent-worke, Rais’d-worke, Laid-worke, Froste-worke, Net-worke,
Most curious Purles or rare Italian Cut-worke,
Pine Ferne-stitch, Finny-stitch, New-stitch, and Chain-stitch,
Brave Bred-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch, and Queen-stitch,
The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch, and Morose-stitch,
The Smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch, and the Cross-stitch.
All these are good, and these we must allow,
And these are everywhere in practise now.”
The Needles Excellency.—John Taylor.

A Writer on the interesting subject of the stitchery of embroidered pictures and their allies, is confronted at the outset with a serious difficulty in the almost hopeless confusion which exists as to the proper nomenclature of stitches. It is hardly too much to say that nearly every stitch has something like half a dozen different names, the result of re-invention or revival by succeeding generations, while to add to the trouble some authorities have assigned ancient names to certain stitches on what appears to be wholly insufficient evidence of identity.

That stitches known as opus Anglicanum, opus plumarium, opus peclinum, and so on, were used in embroidery as far back as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is proved by ancient deeds and inventories, but what these stitches actually were we have no means of deciding with any degree of certainty.

We shall, therefore, in these notes describe the stitches under the names by which they are most commonly known, or which seem to describe them most clearly.

Background-Stitches