AN ELEGANT MUSNUD FOR A SOFA.
659. The materials required, consist of braid of various hues, purse-silk of different shades, bed-ticking, feathers, down, horse-hair, or worsted ends; the design-shapes, some cord for pipings, the various colored cloths, silks, &c., and a curtain-ring or a piece of cardboard for the centre.
The size varies from fifteen to eighteen inches in diameter, according to taste.
The colors cannot be fixed, because it depends much upon taste, but we have made the elegant musnud given [p. 160], by placing cobalt as the right hand centre-piece, then (proceeding from right to left) white, salmon, purple, crimson, amber, pea-green, and madder-brown. The handles are amber, the side brown, and the back purple.
It is better, in combining or arranging all colors for patchwork, to keep as near as possible to the harmony observed by Nature; therefore, to attend to the same order displayed in the case of a refracted ray of light, viz., violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red, adding, in this case, white, to represent the ray in its natural state before refraction or dispersion of its colors took place.
To make the Musnud.—Cut two circles of fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter in bed-ticking, and a strip of the same material three inches deep, and thrice the length of the diameter; make into the usual shape, and stuff with feathers, down, horse-hair, or the refuse ends of worsted. Cut out two handles as in the design, of the same material, and sew them on. Rub the inside of the bed-ticking with a lump of bees'-wax previous to making up the musnud, (as it prevents the feathers and dust working through,) and tack the centre down.
Cut out the back in a piece of purple moreen, or any other material, then cut four strips of brown cashmere, each three inches deep and five long, join these neatly together to form the side, and braid the following design in bright yellow on it, finishing the veining of the leaves in chain-stitch with purse silk.