starting-place; so that they may be in even parallel lines, advancing
by gradation from left to right. It is principally used for working
water or ground in a landscape.

[Illustration: No. 19.]

* * * * *

_Tambour Work_ has fallen into disuse, but was greatly admired when
our grandmothers in the last century sprigged Indian muslins or silks
with coloured flowers for dresses, and copied or adapted Indian
designs on fine linen coverlets. These were very refined, but no more
effective than a good chintz. There are exquisite specimens of the
stitch to be seen in most English homes, and in France it was in vogue
in the days of Marie Antoinette. Its use is now almost confined to
the manufacture of what is known as Irish or Limerick lace, which is
made on net in the old tambour frames, and with a tambour or crochet
hook. The frame is formed of two rings of wood or iron, made to fit
loosely one within the other. Both rings are covered with baize or
flannel wound round them till the inner one can only just be passed
through the outer. The fabric to be embroidered is placed over the
smaller hoop, and the other is pressed down over it and firmly fixed
with a screw. A small wooden frame of this description is universally
used in Ireland for white embroidery on linen or muslin. In tambour
work the thread is kept below the frame and guided by the left hand,
while the hook or crochet needle is passed from the surface through
the fabric, and brings up a loop of the thread through the preceding
stitch, and the needle again inserted, forming thus a close chain on
the surface of the work.

The difficulty of working chain stitch in a frame probably led to the
introduction of a hook for this class of embroidery.

* * * * *

Perhaps we ought not to omit all mention of the _Opus Anglicum_ or
_Anglicanum_ (English work), though it is strictly ecclesiastical, and
therefore does not enter into our province.

Dr. Rock[1] and other authorities agree in thinking that the
distinctive feature of this style, which was introduced about the end
of the thirteenth century, was a new way of working the flesh in
subjects containing figures.

Instead of the faces being worked in rows of straight stitches (like
that described as Burden stitch on page 50) as we see in the old
Flemish, German, and Italian work of the same period, the English
embroiderers invented a new stitch, which they