The embroidery might be light on a dark material, say an indigo blue or deep green, or it might be in tones of yellow or some rich red material, but I must refer the reader to some recent articles on the embroidery of curtains where I have gone into the matter in some detail.
I would caution the worker against introducing a number of colours into the design. It is much more pleasing to see the whole design carried out in one tone of colour (though there may be a number of different shades) than an attempt to be naturalesque, as though you were painting a picture. The present design, though based on nature, is ornamentally rather than naturally treated. The tree might be worked in olive green or warm yellow browns. The birds should be kept very simple indeed. Think of them as shapes and not as “feathered friends.” These might be worked say in turquoise blue, as they are small objects. This will bring them off the surrounding work. The turquoise blue could be used again in the flowers at the bottom, and if we adopt the olive green harmony, the musical instruments could be worked in light golden browns and yellows.
If you work the tree in warm browns, then the birds could be worked in dark brown, the musical instruments in yellows, and the flowers at bottom in yellow with browns for stems and leaves. Here we have a harmony in yellows and browns with no contrasting or opposing colour, such as the turquoise blue in the former arrangement, and harmonies are on the whole safer and more pleasing than contrasts. Eastern nations understand this, and a reference to some of their needlework at such a place as South Kensington Museum would be a good lesson to a worker. I have in former articles advocated outline embroidery as being very effective and quickly produced. In a large work such as the piano back coarse crewels can be used with advantage, the split stitch or the ordinary one being employed, or both.
Those who enlarge the design on paper need not do more than one-half, as the other side can be reversed and repeated. The trunk of the tree could easily be sketched on so that you could enlarge the foliage of the tree and the flowers at the base. It would be better to use tracing paper and prick the design over with a coarse darning needle. Some charcoal roughly crushed up in muslin and rubbed over the pricked design will leave an impression upon the material which can be marked over with some Indian Ink, using a brush. You will find it more difficult to get the powder to pass through the side of the design you prick than the other one, so you must take care to rub the powdered charcoal well on to the design to insure it passing through the pricked holes.
[Transcriber’s Note: The following changes have been made to this text.
Page 383: aleady to already—occupation already.]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Fact.