XVI Long and Short, Kensington Embroidery, and Ribbon Work for Simple Flowers
It is the ambition of every one who starts to embroider to make a piece of flower work and though the floral designs are most fascinating to embroider they are by no means as artistic as the conventional.
The way to embroider a piece of flower work and obtain an original colouring is to get a natural flower and place it in a vase in a position that you can clearly see the light and shadow. The best flower to start with is a daisy. Note that the petals are not a dead white, but there is a suggestion of green toward the centre of the flower. Get mercerized cotton to work with at first until you become accustomed to the stitch.
There is no cut and dried rule in regard to the colouring, but the art of shading a piece naturally is a lesson that is very essential for the embroiderer.
To many people the term embroidery means flower work and only after a course of instruction they discover for themselves how much more artistic and in keeping with most rooms is a conventional design.
Flower work, however, is not to be despised as you will learn more about colour combination and Kensington stitch in one piece of this style than any kind of embroidery.
All flower work has long and short stitch on the edge of the petals or leaves that do not turn over. Daisies do not have turn over leaves as often as a double rose or chrysanthemum. Suppose we draw a very large daisy on a piece of white muslin. With your needle threaded with white lustre start from the right-hand side. Take one stitch on the line. Place your needle back near the same point from which you started. Take a short stitch that goes a wee bit outside of the stamped line past the first stitch. The object of going beyond the line, is that the stitch completely covers the stamping.
The third stitch is taken at the same slant, only longer. The fourth is a short one and so on, first one short and then one long until the top of the petal is reached. Remember, though, these stitches are only on the edge. The left half is worked the same, but the stitches slant a little differently. A good rule to mention right here is, that all stitches should slant to the heart of the flower. In leaves they slant toward the base. The inside of the petal, when the long and short stitches are completed, should be irregular (Figure 151).
The Kensington stitch gets its name from an English school of embroidery. It is more like outlining than any other stitch.
After the edge of the flower has been worked in long and short stitch, the Kensington stitch is used to give the solid effect.
The piece must be held all the while in a tight fitting pair of hoops so that it can not sag in the least.
If the petal is long, two or three rows of Kensington stitch will have to be worked to fill it in. If silk is desired, two strands are used for the edge and one strand for the Kensington stitch. The stitches are dovetailed into each other. Each row must have an irregular lower edge, else they will look like bricks laid one on top of the other. The stitches should be so worked that it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins (Figure 152).
Three shades of green are sufficient for the leaves until you are quite expert. In working them embroider on the edge of the lower half of each leaf with the second shade and the upper part with the lightest. Work one side first using the second shade under the lightest and the third under the second. Work to the midrib only. It is not necessary to work in the veins, but if they are desired they are put in after the leaf has been worked. Do not hesitate to cover the stamped veining on the leaf you are working, as the next leaf will be a guide to where to place the veins. They may be in the lightest or deepest shade of green, while sometimes a reddish-brown is substituted.
The centre of the daisy may be satin-stitch or a cluster of French knots. If the dot is worked from the centre to left and from the centre to right you are more apt to get a perfect outline than when starting from one side and working to the other.
As a usual thing the lightest shade is on the outer edge of most flowers, but there are a few exceptions, like wild roses and some species of pansies in which the deepest shade is on the edge and toward the centre it is lightest.
The stems may be worked in satin-stitch or Kensington in wood shades or deep greens, whichever give the more realistic effect to the flower.
It is a great mistake to use white for the background of flower work. Cream or pale gray make a very much softer and more pleasing effect.
Sometimes a little of the stem brown can be worked into the leaves.
Have you ever seen a lace spread or centre piece with flowers embroidered on it? You might think that the worker was more than ordinarily clever, but really any one who can embroider flowers can do this. Baste a piece of fine lawn on the section you desire to embroider and stamp it with a spray. Embroider in the usual way and when the spray is finished neatly cut away any of the lawn that extends beyond the flower without cutting the lace. The result is that the piece has the effect of a natural flower resting upon it.
The finer the silk used the more delicate shading can be accomplished.
There is another way to represent flowers that is particularly beautiful. It is known as ribbon work or rococo embroidery. The ribbons especially made for this work vary from slightly less than one quarter of an inch to a little more than a half inch in width. The colours do not range in such long lines as the silks. In fact it is rare to find a shop that carries more than ten colours. Sometimes the ribbons are shaded. They are soft and do not crease quite as readily as an ordinary ribbon.
A No. 6 crewel needle is about the right size for the narrow ribbon, while the half inch ribbons need a No. 3.
Forget-me-nots, conventionalized small asters, and little roses are suitable for the narrow ribbons. Satin, moire, broadcloth, or heavy silk are used for the background and the daintiest of needle cases, jewel cases, handkerchief bags, belts, and other little accessories may be evolved from a small piece of silk and a few yards of ribbon. The design is stamped on the background and all the single lines or stems outlined with filo silk. Let us imagine we are working on a spray of forget-me-nots. The needle is threaded with six inches of the narrow green ribbon. Slip your needle from the under side of the material drawing all the ribbon through but a quarter of an inch. One stitch is generally sufficient for a leaf, though sometimes the leaves are wider and require two or possibly three stitches. The ribbon serves the same purpose as silk. The one point to remember is that the ribbon should not be twisted. Naturally in pulling it through the material several times it becomes so wrinkled that a short piece works to better advantage than a long one. The flower is made in the same way, one stitch for each petal and when completed a French knot is made in the centre of the flower (Figure 153).
The ends caused from starting and finishing off are fastened or caught down with a piece of fine thread on the wrong side.
Do not pull your stitches. The work is very much prettier when it lies soft and full on the background.
It is well to make use of every piece of fancy work you do and yet sometimes a new thing may strike your fancy and you would like to make a small piece.
A card case is acceptable to every girl and it is a good plan to make them to match your visiting dresses.
Take a piece of material five by ten inches long. Three inches from one of the short edges stamp a design that will not occupy a space larger than three inches long and two inches deep. The length of the design must run parallel with the short edge of the material. The bottom of the stamping must be five and a half inches from the short edge of the material.
A little spray of lilies of the valley on a green silk background makes a dainty case (Figure 154).
Get a piece of stiff tailor’s canvas and cut it to measure eight and three quarters inches by four inches wide. A piece of china silk the same size as the satin will be needed for the lining. It is best to select the shade of silk that harmonizes with the outside material. With a green cover a lining lighter or darker is suggested. The latter is preferred as the constant fingering of a light colour is apt to soil it.
Cut all three pieces so that they are true oblongs; two and a quarter inches from the short edge make a crease. Two and a half inches from the first crease or four and three quarters inches from the outer edge make another crease and cut along it, thus separating the stiffening in two.
Two and a half inches on both sides of the now short edges of the piece that is not creased draw a line from side to side and crease.
On the extreme right-hand side measure down one and a half inches from the corner and make a dot; measure up from the lower corner and make another dot. The space between the dots should measure one inch. Take a twenty-five cent piece and place on the space between the dots so that the edge of the material is under the direct centre of the quarter. Make a semicircular curve on the canvas around the quarter. Cut along the pencil lines (Figure 155).
The stiffening now ready, baste it to the lining. See that all creases have been smoothed out of the China silk lining before basting. Place the two pieces of canvas so that there is an equal margin on all four sides. The cut edges of the canvas must be placed one eighth of an inch apart as shown in the diagram (Figure 156). On one side is the four and three-quarter inch piece and the other is the four inch. Pin or baste the canvas through the centre to keep it in position. With a threaded needle cat-stitch the silk to the canvas, care being taken to see that the stitches do not appear on the silk side. Cat or catch-stitching is another name for herring-boning, which is explained in the chapter on feather-stitching.
Before turning a corner, cut off a small piece of material to prevent the corner from being bulky. Treat each corner in like manner: when you come to the little curved part, slash the material so that when it is folded over the canvas it will fit perfectly smooth.
Fold the canvas and lining along the creases originally made in the canvas. An iron pressed over them will help to make them stay in position. The embroidered piece is then placed over the wrong side of the canvas. A half-inch turn is made on all sides. Turn this half inch toward the wrong side of the canvas. Sometimes a layer of cotton batting is laid under the embroidery between the canvas and satin. The satin piece is basted to the canvas. The folded edge of the satin and the folded edge of the silk are overcast with tiny stitches. Fold back the two sections of the case and over-cast each side (Figure 157). Your card case is now completed.
A bill folder is made in the same way, only that the ends are not stitched together to form pockets as in the card case.
It is always well to know how to make pretty, attractive pieces of needlework that will make acceptable gifts for Christmas or a birthday.
Nearly everybody has a hobby. Sometimes it is saving receipts, sometimes keeping newspaper clippings, and then again it may be keeping theatre programmes. It is well to consider what gift is most suitable for the one that is to receive it; to make for the faddist an envelope to keep her clippings will be just the thing.
Take a piece of brown linen ten and a half inches by nine and a half inches. Fold it in half so that it measures five and a quarter inches by nine and a half inches. Stamp a spray of daisies or wild roses on one side and mark what the envelope is supposed to hold, such as receipts or clippings. Brown linen does not soil as easily as white. Embroider the flowers and the lettering, then dampen the linen thoroughly and press on the wrong side. Now take two pieces of cardboard that measure eight and a half inches by four and three quarters. Cover the cardboard with the linen, use long stitches as described in the needle case, except that two pieces of the cardboard are placed side by side on the brown linen. Now take two pieces of brown paper the same size as the cardboard and cover the stitches. Paste should be used to make the paper stick to the linen.
Make six envelopes by taking six pieces of paper nine by thirteen inches and cut a two and a half inch square from each corner (Figure 158). One inch over from where the squares are cut make a star. There are eight such points as you note. Connect the dot to the corner by a line. Cut the paper along the lines. Fold the ends in, then fold the bottom flap over these and paste. Fold the top flap over without pasting (Figure 159).
Now, holding these six envelopes in the case with bottom edges touching the space between the two cardboards, punch three holes through linen, cardboard, and envelopes.
Take a half a yard of ribbon and run through the holes and tie the ends in a bow on the corner.
Take another half a yard of ribbon and cut in two. Fasten a piece on each side of the cover (Figure 160). These two pieces are tied in a bow and keep the base of the case closed.