Then draw the pattern, cut the size you require it to be (about 6 inches each way would be a good proportion), on silver paper. Tack a square piece of white silk or cashmere, the size of the pattern, smoothly on the centre of one piece of your blue silk; tack over it the silver paper pattern, and run the outline carefully in white sewing silk, taking care that your needle goes through both the pieces of silk. When this is done, take some narrow scarlet silk braid; draw the end of it through both silks by means of a stout needle and thread attached to it, and then braid your pattern carefully and neatly round. When it is done, pull away the silver paper, which will draw easily from under the braid, and cut off the silk which lies beyond the edges of the braid, closely, with a sharp pair of scissors. Repeat the same appliqué pattern at each corner of the blue silk square, or more frequently if you wish to cover your cushion entirely. The same pattern may be embroidered in silks and edged with gold cord, if our young workers please. CHURCH EMBROIDERY. Such of my young friends as are happy enough to be permitted to devote some of their leisure hours to the adornment of the house of God, and to take part in the working of Altar-cloths or carpets, pulpit-cushions, fald-stools, &c., may be glad of a few hints as to the manual part of the work. Nothing else is needed, if they procure designs of an appropriate character from some good ecclesiastical architect or designer, and work under his direction; and whenever this is possible they should do so, and thus secure correctness and uniformity of design. To those who are so unfortunate as to be left to their own devices, it may be as well to observe that Church work should be considered as a thing apart from the ordinary work suitable to drawing-rooms, and that Berlin patterns are especially to be avoided. Some years ago it was rather the fashion amongst young ladies to undertake patchwork carpets or pede-cloths and cushions for a Church, in the same way as they were wont to furnish a friend's drawing-room with a set. of chairs, or a carpet, or rug, or ottoman-by distributing squares to be worked amongst themselves, and to be sewn together afterwards; and the result, perhaps, was a set of kneeling-cushions, for the most part consisting of branches of flowers worked from Berlin patterns, very pretty for sofacushions, but quite out of place in a Church. Indeed, I have seen patterns designed expressly for Altar chairs by a "Berlin house" which were utterly unsuitable: a bouquet of flowers, or a cornucopia, with a gothic-looking border, into which a Cross, wreathed round with flowers, or a Chalice was introduced, for instance, which impressed the spectator with a painful idea of irreverence. Very good and appropriate designs are now prepared for chairs, cushions, and carpets from the patterns of encaustic tiles, &c.; and these should be adopted when the work is to be done in cross-stitch on canvas. For Altarcloths, pulpit hangings, &c., embroidery on velvet or cloth is to be preferred; and I will endeavour to describe the manner of working the stitches employed in this mediæval embroidery. It is by no means difficult, but every stitch should be perfectly executed: the materials used must be of the best kind, and most carefully and delicately handled, so as not to become soiled in working them. In very large pieces of work, and where velvet is the material to be worked upon, it is necessary to do the embroidery upon linen, and transfer it when finished to the richer material which is to be its foundation. A coarse kind of unbleached linen is sold for the purpose: it must be pure flaxen cloth with no mixture of cotton in it, or it will not work smoothly, and the "fluff" will injure the silk. It must be thoroughly washed or rather boiled in soap and water two or three times, and left to soak in cold rain-water afterwards, to take all the "dress" out of it; and then very smoothly and carefully ironed. It should always be used doubled, and must be worked in a frame, and very tightly stretched in this. The best plan is to sew a piece of cord or string to the two sides of the work after sewing the top and bottom (doubled) to the two bars of the frame, and to sew over this to the holes in the sides of the frame with fine packthread, taking care that the linen is doubled quite evenly by the thread. This will allow the packthread to be drawn tight enough to stretch the linen sufficiently, without danger of its fraving out. Great attention must be paid to the framing of the work; it cannot be embroidered nicely if it is not stretched very evenly and tightly. When this is done, the paper pattern of the design should be laid under it, and the outlines traced upon the linen accurately, and corrected afterwards by it. A perfect outline must be obtained upon the linen; it cannot be safely altered with the needle. Floss silk is generally used for embroidering the flowers and leaves, and for the body of the design. It ought to be very good of its kind, as well as bright in colour; and if shaded, the shades must be carefully graduated so as to tone nicely down into one another; but very much of the mediæval embroidery is not shaded, and when the pattern is conventional the colours are often conventional too, and there is no attempt to copy the tints of the natural flower. Filoselle, twisted or netting silk, and fine silk cord are also used in the work, and fine sewing silk for sewing down the cord or "gold passing laid on. Ordinary needles will do for the sewing silk, of course; the other silks and the gold will require embroidery or chenille needles, like carpet needles, with a fine point. The stitch mostly employed in embroidering flowers and leaves, &c., is that known as "long and short stitch :" the stitches are of different lengths. As a rule, the work should always be begun in the centre دو ALTAR CLOTH. of the pattern: for instance, a leaf would be commenced in this manner: and the stitches should be put close together, and worked "over" and "over," the under part of the leaf having as much silk as the upper part, keeping a perfect outline all along. This is necessary, in order to keep the leaf from ravelling out when the work is cut out. The next row or rows of stitches have to be worked a little lower, and to cross the first row in a measure, being stroked up between them without splitting any of those first worked. They may be worked "backwards and forwards," or over and over," as seems most convenient. The great point is, that the linen should be completely covered, and that the stitches should all lie smoothly, dovetailed into one another, and if shaded, that the shades should amalgamate well and tone down into one another. Sometimes the leaf is finished by a row of short stitches half crossing one another for the centre; but the usual 66 plan is to make the stem and veins of the leaf, by sewing gold passing or silk cord upon the leaf, with sewing silk of the same colour, or with one which will contrast well with the colour of the stem. If this is to be twisted, two or three strands of the gold or silk are knotted together and passed through the linen, and fastened securely at the back, and then held together in the hand, stitched down at intervals, and passed through the linen again at the top of the leaf. If laid flat, it must be used double, and care must be taken that the two strands do not become twisted over each other in sewing them down. The petals of flowers must always be begun as the leaves in the centre, as in this figure: and worked up to the edge. The second petal must be commenced in the centre, and worked back to join the first: this is needful in order to secure the right degree of sloping in the stitches, which should follow the lines or veins of the natural flower. Other rows interlace the first row, as in the leaf described above. 1st stitch. The flowers are often enriched by patterns worked upon the embroidery in a succession of short stitches of another colour or shade, or by tying down gold, silk, or filoselle upon them: the centre or separate petals, perhaps, would have an edging of gold or of black silk sewn round them, so as to preserve the outline exactly, as by the black line often used by illuminators to finish their designs. Spangles are sometimes used to enrich the work, but these are generally put on, after the embroidery is done and transferred to the velvet, or cloth, which is to be its foundation. When gold is used it must always be of the best kind: no inferior material should be admitted into Church work; it will tarnish and turn black in the course of time, so as completely to destroy the effect of the whole. It is much better to use thick twisted silk, such as is made use of for netting gentlemen's purses, or "crochet silk," instead of gold, when the costly material cannot be procured. It is sewn on the linen flatly, or raised by means of string or whipcord to the required height. When large surfaces are to be covered entirely with gold, this is generally laid on in rows of double thread, tied down at intervals with silk of another colour, which forms a chequer pattern, the rows of gold being laid as closely as possible together, so as to give the effect of compact metal-work, the stitches coming between each other as in the figure: and being worked as evenly as possible. Red or green silk over gold has a very rich effect done thus; and sometimes the lines are waved instead of straight, and tied down in diamonds or other diaper patterns, to enhance its beauty still more. Great care must be taken to keep the stitches quite regular, and to tie the gold down firmly, especially at the beginning and end of the parallel rows, when they have to be bent back and firmly sewed, to keep them in the right position, and to preserve the correct outline intact. When the gold is to be raised, this must be done by working it over rows of string or whipcord, sewn firmly down on the linen first. Cotton wool was often used to raise letters or stalks, but was found to injure the gold, and pieces of linen are now generally employed to raise surfaces which are to be rounded: these are cut out of the right shape, and laid one upon 1 ROW another, the centre of the design, perhaps, having four or five folds of double linen, and the edges only one. String is sometimes tacked across these at short distances, as shown in the fig.: 2ND ROW and the gold is worked over this, tying it down underneath each bar of string, all along the first row (which should always be in the centre of the stem or design, whatever it may be), and above the bars, in the second row of gold. This forms a kind of basket-work, and the play of light and shade given by the raised and depressed rows, has a very beautiful effect. The rows of gold must be laid on very closely. For a very thick stem, such as a flower-stalk from which flowers and leaves are branching off, one thick piece of cord or string is sometimes used, and this must be very firmly and exactly sewn on to the linen first. Supposing three or five rows of gold, of three or four strands each, to be necessary to cover this cord, knot the strands together, and pass them through the linen at one end of the stalk, sewing them firmly to it here. Hold the strands in the left hand, so as to keep the line quite straight, and work the centre row first, putting the needle with which the sewing silk is stitched over the gold, underneath, not through the cord. The stitches are to be made very evenly at short distances, as described for the flat gold. At the top of the stalk, the gold should be passed through the linen to keep the line exact, or bent back firmly, as may be found best. The succeeding rows are more troublesome to work, because the stitches must be passed through the cord: 2 LEFT ROWS In working the two rows to the left, the needle should be brought up to the left and put down to the right, as closely as possible to the centre row, slanting a little underneath this, so as to draw the next row of gold as close as possible to the first. When the first left row is worked, the first right row should be done, and in this case the needle must be brought up on the right side of the stem, and put down on the left side, underneath the centre row of gold. The two outer rows then are worked in the same way. The stem must be as compact and solid as possible, and all the rows of gold laid on in parallel lines perfectly straight. Great care must be taken to touch the gold as little as possible, especially if the worker has a hot hand; and as soon as any portion of the work, whether it be gold or embroidery, is finished, it should have tissue paper tacked down over it, to keep the gold from tarnishing and the silk from becoming soiled or frayed, so as to destroy the freshness of the work when finished. When the embroidery is completed, the back of the linen should be gummed, or thin whitey brown paper may be pasted over it with a coat of thin hot paste, and put at a little distance from the fire to dry quickly. As soon as it is dry, the sprig of flowers and leaves may be cut out, leaving a little edge of linen (about the eighth of an inch) all round them, and they are transferred to the rich material which they are to ornament. This must |