Encyclopedia of Needlework

by Thérèse de Dillmont

The paper should be of a good medium thickness, if it be too thick it will not take a clear impression of the pattern, and if very thin it is apt to tear.

Fasten the paper down upon the embroidery with drawing-pins and rub off the pattern with drawing-wax. In default of the right kind of wax, the bowl or handle of a spoon, or a large silver coin will serve the purpose equally well, as will also some powdered graphite or charcoal. The outlines will not of course, in any case, be very clearly defined upon the paper and will have to be gone over and carefully supplemented afterwards with a pencil.

Taking off the pattern with charcoal or graphite is less injurious to the embroidery than rubbing it off with wax or metal, as the pressure required in the latter case flattens the needle-work very considerably. As soon as you have fixed the lines of the pattern by drawing them over with ink, it is ready for use.

To transfer a pattern direct on to the stuff.—Patterns cannot be copied by either of the above methods direct on to the stuff and can only be used when the stuff on which the embroidery is to be executed is transparent; in the case of thick close fabrics the drawing must be made on the stuff itself. The following is the simplest way of transferring a pattern on to a transparent stuff; begin by going over all the lines of the drawing with Indian ink so as to make them quite thick and distinct, and tacking the paper with large stitches on to the back of the stuff. Then, mix some very dark powdered indigo diluted with water, in a glass with a small pinch of sugar and powdered gum arabic, and using this as ink and a fine pen very slightly split, trace the pattern that shines through on the stuff.

The tracing must be very slight, for if the embroidery be not done till some time afterwards the lines get so firmly fixed in the stuff that one washing will not obliterate them; the tracing ink moreover makes the work unpleasantly sticky.

To copy with oiled paper.—Another rather expeditious mode of transferring patterns on to thin and more especially smooth glossy stuffs, is by means of a special kind of tinted paper, called autographic paper, which is impregnated with a coloured oily substance and is to be had at any stationer’s shop. This you place between the pattern and the stuff, having previously fastened the stuff, perfectly straight by the line of the thread, to a board, with drawing-pins. When you have fitted the two papers likewise exactly together, you go over all the lines of the pattern with a blunt pencil, or with, what is better still, the point of a bone crochet needle or the edge of a folder. You must be careful not to press so heavily upon the pattern paper as to tear it; by the pressure exercised on the two sheets of paper, the oily substance of the blue paper discharges itself on to the stuff, so that when it is removed all the lines you have traced are imprinted upon the stuff.

This blue tracing paper is however only available for the reproduction of patterns on washing stuffs, as satin and all other silky textures are discoloured by it.

To pounce patterns upon stuffs.—The modes of copying, hitherto described, cannot be indiscriminately used for all kinds of stuff; for cloth, velvet and plush, for instance, they are not available and pouncing is the only way that answers.

The patterns, after having been transferred to straw or parchment paper, have to be pricked through. To do this you lay the paper upon cloth or felt and prick out all the lines of the drawing, making the holes, which should be clear and round, all exactly the same distance apart.