es, and you may see in their work how it hardened the effect,
whereas a coloured outline may define without harshness. The Spaniards,
on the other hand, realised the value of colour, and would, for example,
outline gold and silver upon a dark green ground in red, with admirable
effect. A double outline, for which there is often opportunity in bold
work, may be turned to good account. Among the successful combinations
which come to mind is an applique pattern in yellow and white upon dark
green, outlined first with gold cord, and then, next the green, with a
paler and brighter green. Another is a pattern chiefly in yellow upon
purple, outlined first with yellow couched with gold, and next the
ground with silver. In the case of couched cord or gold, the colour of
the stitching counts also.

Stitches from the edge of a leaf or what not, inwards, alternately long
and short, though they form an edge to the leaf, are not properly
outlining. This is rather a stopping short of solid work than outlining,
though it often goes by that name.

The first condition of a good outline stitch is that it should be, as it
were, supple, so as to follow the flow of the form. At the same time it
should be firm. Fancy stitches look fussy; and a spikey outline is worse
than none at all.

There is absolutely no substantial ground for the theory that outlines
should be worked in a stitch not used elsewhere in the work. On the
contrary, it is a good rule not to introduce extra stitches into the
work unless they give something which the stitches already employed will
not give. The simplest way is always safest.

An outline affords a ready means of clearing up edges; but it should not
be looked upon merely as a device for the disguise of slovenliness.
Unless the colour scheme should necessitate an outline, an embroidress,
sure of her skill, will often prefer not to outline her work, and to get
even the drawing lines within the pattern, by VOIDING. She will leave,
that is to say, a line of ground-stuff clear between the petals of her
flowers, or what not; which line, by the way, should be narrower than it
is meant to appear, as it looks always broader than it is. It is more
difficult, it must be owned, thus to work along two sides of a line of
ground-stuff than to work a single line of stitching, but it is within
the compass of any skilled worker; and skilled workers have delighted in
voiding even when their work was on a small scale necessitating