FoodNetArchive

The household (of the Detroit free press)

1886

Page 46

Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
The colored rings are to be put on in the following order : Drab, crim- son, blue, yellow, violet, green, pink, drab, crimson, and so on in regu- lar succession again. This makes a very handsome bordering for a table or mantelpiece, and the color of the material and rings may be varied to suit the taste of the worker. CREWEL STITCH. Cut the skeins of crewel twice and put them in thread papers. Begin with the stalk of your design ; work in cord stitch (as in French em- broidery), working toward the right and left. Wherever it is practica- ble, work in curved lines. When you have reached the top of your work, turn it around and work towards the bottom, then again upwards so as always to work from you. If you begin with the central vein of a leaf continue to work from the center to the edge. Never work between two lines of stitches, so as to 52 EMBROIDERY. fill up, as it were, between work, as this plan will entirely spoil the effect of the stitch. In a jasmine you have two stitches, the cording stitch and the knotx stitch, which forms the center of the open flowers. To make a knot stitch, your needle and crewel must be pulled through to the front of the work, exactly where you desire the knot to be. Hold the crewel down with the thumb of the left hand, and twist the needle twice or thrice, according to the size of the knot required, through the part of the crewel which is tightened by the left thumb. Continue to hold the crewel with the left thumb, and turn the needle quite round towards the left with your right hand. Insert it the dis- tance from the place it was brought up. Continue to hold the crewel with the left thumb until you have drawn the knot to its proper degree of tightness. Cording stitch and satin stitch are much employed in working buds. KENSINGTON STITCH. This is as nearly as possible no definite stitch at all, but much like drawing done on cloth with needle and thread, a single thread stroke, or "stitch," representing each pencil stroke, however long or short, only that curves, of course, can only be done by a succession of short strokes of the thread. The stitches are mostly made in the " back- stitch " manner, and are regulated by no rules whatever, either as to length or direction, but by the eye alone, the object being to produce the effect of the design in the quickest way. It is done with embroi- dered silks or worsteds on articles not intended ever to be washed ; can be made very effective and is not at all tedious. Any one able to use a needle and thread at all knows all the mechanical manipulation neces- sary ; but in order to produce the beautiful designs given in the fashion or ladies' magazines for borders, etc., worked in this stitch, you must be able to copy the pattern by your eye alone, as in drawing.