t best
suited to figure design except where it is quite flatly treated. An
instance of its use in figure work occurs on Illustration 79. It is
effective when quite naively and simply used in cross lines which do not
appear to take any account of the forms crossed--as, for example, in
Illustration 47, where the stitching does not pretend to express more
than a flat surface. The floss, however, is there carefully laid at a
different angle of inclination in each petal, so as to give variety of
colour. The lines of sewing vary according to the lines of the laid
floss, but do not cross them at right angles. The important thing is, of
course, that they should catch the laid "tresses" at intervals not too
far apart. If the lines which sew down the floss have also to express
drawing, as in the case of the bird's wings in Illustration 48, the
underlying floss must be laid in lines which they will cross. In the
case of the leaves in the same piece of work, the floss is laid in the
direction in which the leaf grows, and the stitching across, which sews
it down, is slightly curved so as to suggest roundness in them.

[Illustration: 48. INDO-PORTUGUESE LAID-WORK.]

A more finished piece of work is shown in Illustration 49, where the
laid floss crosses the forms, and the sewing down takes very much the
place of veining in the flower, and of ribs in the scroll, expressing
about as much modelling as can be expressed this way, and more, perhaps,
than it is advisable often to attempt.

The sewing down asserts itself most, of course, when it is in a colour
contrasting with the laid floss, as it does in the leaves in the smaller
sampler overleaf.

The stitching down makes usually a pattern more or less conspicuous. On
this same sampler it does so very deliberately in the case of the broad
stalk. The rather sudden variation of the colour shown there in the
leaves is harmless enough in bold work, to which the process is best
suited. One may be too careful in gradating the tints: timidity in this
respect prevails too much among modern needlewomen: an artist in floss
should not want her work to look like a gradated wash of colour. The
Italians of the 16th and 17th centuries (see Illustration 49) were not
afraid of rather abrupt transition in the shades of colour they used for
laid-work.

[Illustration: 49. ITALIAN LAID-WORK.]

[Illustration: 50. LAID SAMPLER.]

When laid floss is kept in place by threads themselves sewn down across
it