dle is the one implement of the craft by which
endless forms of surface-work are executed. With a thread through its
one eye, it blindly follows each effort of its pointed foot, urged by
the intelligent or mechanical hand grouping the stitches, which, being
long or short, single or mixed, slanting, upright, or crossed, are
selected as the best fitted for the design and purpose in hand. The
word "stitches" does not, however, in this chapter represent merely
the plural of one particular process of needle insertion, but the
produce and effect of each different kind of stitch by grouping and
repetition, according to its most ancient nomenclature. That which is
astonishing is the endless variety of surface, of design, of hints and
suggestions, of startling effects, and of lovely combinations,
resulting from the direction of the needle and manipulation of the
materials, and differing from each other according to the power or the
caprice of the worker. But the machine is always the same--the
threaded needle strikes the same interval, forming the "stitch."

This venerable implement, _the needle_, has, through the ages, varied
but little in form. The attenuated body, the sharp foot, the rounded
head, and the eye to hold the thread, are the same in principle,
whether it is found in the cave-man's grave, formed of a fish's bone
or shaped from that of a larger animal; hammered of the finest bronze,
as from Egypt, or of gold, like those found in Scandinavia. A bronze
needle was lately discovered in the tomb of a woman of the Vikings in
Scotland, and its value is shown by its being placed in a silver case.
Steel needles were first made in England in 1545, by a native of
India. His successor, Christopher Greening, established a workshop in
1560 at Long Crendon, in Bucks, which existed there as a needle
factory till quite lately. The rustic poetic drama, entitled "Gammer
Gurton's Needle," performed at Ch. Coll., Cambridge, in 1566, was a
regular comedy, of which a lost needle was the hero. In those days the
village needle was evidently still a rare and precious possession.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Bronze needles from Egyptian tombs now in British
Museum. 6. Cave-man's needle from the Pinhole, Churchfield,
Ereswell Crag. 7. Bone needle from La Madeleine, Dordogne.]

The art of embroidery consists of a design, which includes the
pattern, and the handicraft or stitches--the "motive" and the
"needlew