The Oregon daily journal., December 13, 1908, Page 71, Image 71

PATTERN AND DESIGN TRANSFER SECTION'
2SS
!1
NEEDLE WORK
FOR THE HOME
EEDLEWORK for home decoration takes many forms
now, each beautiful, and some of great novelty and charm.
The great demand for decorations in embroidery has in
spired needleworkers all over the world to originate new
stitches and combinations of stitches, while America has scoured
the globe in search of new forms of embroidery.
The result of all this effort has been the assembling of an in
finite variety of needlework patterns, with stitches suited to the
knowledge and skill of every worker, from the small child to the
dim-eyed old grandmother who is no longer able to embroider with
filoselle upon satin, but must work bold designs with rope silk or
Roman floss.
Poland furnishes a new and fascinating arrangement of needle
work designs in a sort of delicate cob-web embroidery, which is
made up largely of outlines, exquisitely traced, and with borders
embodying, a kind of cross-stitch. The work' is so simple that one
is astonished at its beautiful effect. In general the patterns take on
a stained-glass form pf designs, which is altogether different from
anything else we have. This Polish method of designing'1 is known
as Sczschek embroidery, because that is the name of the village in
which the work originated. It is adapted particularly to bedspreads,
pillow and bolster shams, scarfs, table cloths, doilies, centerpieces,
carvers, runners, and hangings for doors and windows. It is worth
while trying this style of work, because a woman can outline designs
for a whole room in no time, and the effect is wonderfully airy,
delicate and attractive.
In doing embroidery for the home one becomes interested in the
fascinating ribbon embroidery which, with its Frenchy designs and
coloring, is particularly adapted to a period when French fashions
dominate the world of dress and the inner portals of home.
Needles come especially for this form of embroidery, and the
ribbon with which it is accomplished is different from any other
sort of ribbon, and was, in ancient times, called "lute string."
Ribbon embroidery is rapidly accomplished, and it is exceptional
ly beautiful for house decorations. All the figures are raised in tiny
puffs and loops of ribbon, and a .bunch of forget-me-nots may be
worked in a jiffy, with one ribbon loop to each petal, and with the
result of appearing to stand out from and blossom upon the article
adorned in this manner. Little roses and buds, too, acquire a charm
when built of ribbon embroidery and, for such articles as dressing
table and boudoir sets, nothing compares with it in point of smartness
at the moment, nor does anything surpass it in beauty, alt'iough
raised French satin-stitch embroidery is just as beautiful.
It is the mode to decorate glove boxes, collar and cuff boxes
and bags; necktie boxes and cases, and handkerchief and nightgown
cases, with ribbed embroidery, worked upon ome form of filk,
satin or velvet, and stretched over the box or case. Narrow single
or double quillings of ribbon, or bands of dull gold gimpe are used
to finish off edges of articles so constructed.
Ribbon embroidery is used also upon cravat, collar, laundry and
whisk broom bags and holders for men, as well as upon the picture
frames in which they tuck the photographs of their best girls. Even
the homely rubber shoe takes on a sublimated air when confined in
a roll of handsome material lined with rubber and decorated on the
outside with ribbon or some-other form of colored embroidery.
Embroidery finds its way into every corner of the home, leav
ing a beautifying and homelike touch upon everything within it
The writing desk becomes a thing of loveliness when apon it lie
blotting pad, calendar and memorandum tablet, as well as telegraph
blank and bill and letter stands all charmingly embroidered in the
same decorative pattern. Any woman can construct, out of bits of
cardboard and tinted linen or satin, these useful and handsome
csk ornaments. It is also quite the fad to make these, as well as
titer articles of use' in the household, of the new colored linen
j . ih with figures darned in thick silk or yarn in the mesh of the
?rial. , " ,
This, as well as ribbon embroidery, is much seen apon sofa
ws, which, to be really fashionable and really tasteful, should
lv ys be decorated with needlework, and not with stamped and
(m: ed figures. These serve their purpose to amuse college boys
i mi :he nursery babies, but the boudoir and bedroom should have
their satin-stitch and ribbon embroidered pillow tops; the library
and hall should possess cushions worked in darned work or long-and-short
stitch; the parlor and drawing room should have their
pillow tops, scarfs, and needle-adorned articles embroidered in
satin-stitch, and all these pretty garnishments of the house beau
tiful should be made of good materials and vmout undue elab
oration. Even a laundry bag,,becomes lovely when the material is good
however inexpensive its kind and the work upon it is of needle
work that will stand washing. Pincushion tops, bureau scarfs,
wash-cloth cases, powder puff bags, hair receivers, pocket shoe
bags and darning bags, are all more acceptable to the recipient
and in better tastte when they are worked in wash silks or mer
cerized cottons, and made so that they may be removed fronfllie
objects which they cover, arid laundered occasionally. It is easy
to make these lovely things in removable form, and a woman
loves to have them- so. Nobody wants to throw away a piece of
.fine embroidery merely because it has been worked upon an un
washable piece of material or with unwashable silks.
In the case of hangings for the home such care does not have
to be taken. There are ways of cleansing the m6st delicate and
color-running draperies which makes it possible if one is able to
pay the price for such cleansing to own every sort of needlework
in every variety of color tint known to fabrics and threads.
A new and very fashionable embroidery for the dining room
and table is known as Madeira work. This is a form of eyelet
work, only the figures are smaller and more scattered. Madeira
work mingles satin-stitch French embroidery with the open por
tions of the designs, and, like all the different forms of embroidery
mentioned, it may be worked with any good embroidery pattern
as a guide. The same design will serve equally well for darned
.work, satin-stitch, long-and-short stitch, Mountmellik, outline
stitch and Madeira embroidery. True, some designs fit one form
of embroidery better than others, and darned work is better when
done upon bold and large decorative patterns ; but as a general
thing, when one wants to use Madeira work with embroidery one
has only to snip, with a' pair of embroidery scissors, such parts of
the pattern as will look best in openwork, and then work the rest of
the design in solid stitch.
It is very fashionable to edge a lunch cloth, with its accom
panying doilies, carving cloth and centerpieces, with scallops in
broken or irregular patterns. A scallop an inch across will be edged
with a number of tiny scallops and alternate with a barely curved
out edge, embroidered smoothly up to the beginning of the next
scallop. The effect is very attractive and new.
Broken scallops of all widths are particularly smart this winter,
and inside these scallops is a border of small blossoms, such as
daisies, where the petals are of open Madeira embroidery, and the
leaves and centers of satin-stitch. v
Madeira embroidery comes in some very new and modish in
dividual designs. One of these is a large bunch of grapes in con
ventional design, often springing from a basket of delicate French
pattern, worked in outlines of satin-stitch embroidery. Another
design consists of garlands and trailing sprays of small foliage
with little flowers, done inpenwork, sprinkled effectively along
the vines. Garland effects are" particularly effective and fashion
able upon bedspreads of sheer,linen, where a space is.jeft in the
center for the monogram, anda long, scarf-shaped pillow sham is
similarly decorated with trailing vines, accompanied, sometimes,
by Initials, of a monogram to match that in the spread