pwards, and you have the first band
of the pot shape.

Characteristic and most beautiful use is made of buttonhole stitch in
the piece of Indian work in Illustration 24, where it is outlined with
chain stitch, which goes most perfectly with it.

Cut work, such as that on Illustration 65, is strengthened by outlining
it in buttonhole-stitch.

Ladder-stitch occurs in the cusped shapes framing certain flowers in
Illustration 72, embroidered all in blue silk on linen. It is not
infrequent in Oriental work, and, in fact, goes sometimes by the name of
Cretan-stitch on that account.

FEATHER AND ORIENTAL STITCHES.

FEATHER-STITCH is simply buttonholing in a slanting direction, first to
the right side and then to the left, keeping the needle strokes in the
centre closer together or farther apart according to the effect to be
produced.

It owes its name, of course, to the more or less feathery effect
resulting from its rather open character. Like buttonhole, it may be
worked solid, as in the leaf and petal forms on the sampler,
Illustration 25, but it is better suited to cover narrow than broad
surfaces. The jagged outline which it gives makes it useful in
embroidering plumage, but it is not to be confounded with what is called
"plumage-stitch," which is not feather-stitch at all, but a version of
satin-stitch.

The feathery stem (A) on the sampler is simply a buttonholing worked
alternately from right to left and left to right.

[Sidenote: TO WORK B.]

The border line at B requires rather more explanation. Presume it to be
worked vertically. Bring your needle out at the left edge of the band;
put it in at the right edge immediately opposite, keeping your thread
under the needle to the right; bring it out again still on the right
edge a little lower down, and then, keeping your thread to the left, put
the needle in on the left edge, opposite to where you last brought it
out, and bring it out again on the same edge a little lower down.

[Illustration: 25. FEATHER-STITCH SAMPLER.]

[Illustration: 26. FEATHER-STITCH SAMPLER (BACK).]

The border at C is merely an elaboration of the above, with three
slanting stitches on each edge instead of a single one in the direction
of the band.

[Illustration: THE WORKING OF G G ON FEATHER-STITCH SAMPLER.]

Bands D, E, F, G, are variations of ordinary feather-stitch, requiring
no further explanation than the back view of the work (26) affords. On
the face of the sampl