and brilliant yellows, to be seen in Eastern embroideries worked
before the introduction of aniline dyes, and the consequent lapse into
Imperial purples and magentas and royal blues.

By a judicious use of good colours the same design can be so repeated as
to look entirely different. Thus, a spray of flowers worked upon an
orange-red ground, with cream, yellow, pink and pale blue colours, will
be quite distinct from the same spray laid upon sea-green silk, and
coloured with deep orange-reds and blues running from sky into navy
blue.

As before mentioned, the only stitch used is herringboning, and the only
flowers single petalled ones; but the herringboning is done so closely
together that it looks like an interwoven stitch of double crossings,
and the flowers are all worked in their centres in a different silk to
that used on their tips, and therefore resemble double petalled flowers.
The tips of each petal are wider than the commencement, and the
herringboning is not taken along as a wide line of equal width, but as a
curved line running small, and widening out again several times if the
petal or seed-vessel is a long one. Each petal is worked separately, and
the silk is never dragged or drawn tightly, but is allowed to lie easily
over the foundation, and rather loosely, although the stitches follow
each other so closely that nothing of the foundation can be seen where
they are laid. The stems, long leaves, and large branches are worked as
closely as the petals in herringbone, but tendrils and sprays are more
opened out, and are given the look of single coral stitch as a variety.

When shading a flower select two colours that are distinct in tone but
not jarring in their contrast; thus, cream-white used for the outer
petals can be finished with pale blue, yellow pink, pure orange, or pale
yellow for its centre petals; scarlet red outside petals with black
inner petals, bright blue outside petals with lemon yellow or
terra-cotta red inside petals, and every one of these colours are
allowable when working bunches of flowers scattered over the whole of a
five o'clock tea-cloth or fireplace curtains.

The embroidery is used for table-cloths, mantel borders, and curtain
brackets, knitting bags, handkerchief cases, and as a trimming to
evening dresses. In all cases it requires a silk lining, and should be
worked with a muslin lining beneath it. Embroidering Breton
handkerchiefs is not a new description of fancy work, but