ils were filled in with stitching. Yet another
practice, and one more strictly in keeping with the onlaying of cord,
was to onlay the solid also, applying, that is to say, the surface
colour also in the form of pieces of silk cut to shape.

Patterns of this kind may be conceived as line work developing into
leafy terminations, the APPLIQUE only an adjunct to couching
(Illustration 63); or they may be thought of as massive work eked out
with line: the applique, that is to say, the main thing, the couching
only supplementary (Illustration 92). An intermediate kind is where
outline and mass--couching and applique--play parts of equal importance
in the scheme of design (Illustration 60).

Couched cord or filoselle is useful in covering the raw edge of the
onlay, not so much masking the joints as making them sightly.

Applique must be carefully and exactly done, and is best worked in a
frame. It is almost as much a man's work as a woman's. Embroidery proper
is properly woman's work; but here, as in the case of tailoring, the man
comes in. The getting ready for applique is not the kind of thing a
woman can do best.

The finishing may sometimes be done in the hand, and very bold, coarse
work may possibly be worked throughout in the hand, and outlined with
buttonhole-stitch (chain-stitch is not so appropriate); but when a
couched outline is employed it must be done in a frame, and, indeed,
work with any pretensions to finish is invariably begun and finished in
the frame.

[Sidenote: TO WORK APPLIQUE]

To work applique you want, in fact, two frames--one on which to mount
the material to be embroidered, and another on which to mount the
material to be applied. The backing in each case should be of smooth
holland. This is stretched on to the frame, and then pasted with stiff
starch or what not; the silk or velvet is laid on to it and stroked with
a soft rag until it adheres, and is left to dry gently. When dry, the
outlines of the complete design are traced upon the one, and those of
the details to be applied upon the other. (You may paste, of course,
silks of two or three colours upon one backing for this.) The stuff to
be applied is then loosened from its frame, the details are cleanly cut
out with scissors, or, better still, a knife (in either case sharp), and
transferred to their place in the design on the other frame. There they
are kept in position by short steel pins planted upright into the stuff
until you are sure