Introductory Chapter - Part One

It seems like Sundays are the best day for me to blog about the "Treasures in Needlework", so be it. I will put a little of my favourite bits here on Sundays. Today, I'm going to share the first half of the Introductory Chapter:

In a retrospect of the Art of Needlework, whether of sewing, knitting or crochet, from the earliest period to the present time, it is impossible to estimate too highly the advantages of its domestic or ornamental character. In the one position, it brings daily blessings to every home, unnoticed, perhaps, because of its hourly silent application; for in a household each stitch is one for comfort to some person or other; and without its ever-watchful care home would be a scene of discomfort indeed. In its ornamental adaptation, it delights the eye, amuses the mind, nay, sometimes cheats grief of its sorrow; but, more than all, gives bread to thousands. The women of every nation, from time immemorial to the present, have beguiled their hours with the needle, from "the embroidered hangings of the temple, and the garments of fine needlework for kings' daughters," worked with gold, and silk, and precious stones, to the mocassins and festive ornaments of the savage embroidered with beads. Upon all classes and in all climes this simple instrument has bestowed a varied charm.


KNITTING is a chief source of employment to numbers of peasantry of Europe; and in many parts of England the stockings and socks are knitted in the family, these being found much more durable than woven ones; and many articles also of great beauty and gossamer lightness are produced by nimble fingers and slender wires. A few specimens that have been recently imported from India, knitted by some modern Arachne, will almost challenge the spider's web for fineness. Much could be said in the praise of this branch of needlework, as adapted to every climate, whether we compare the delicate textures of the East, or the warm vests, socks, gloves, and neck-ties suitable to our colder climate; but for one peculiar quality, knitting should be held in reverence, -- it is almost the sole employment and comfort of the indigent and aged blind; therefore all praise be to that art which can assuage a sorrow, or lighten an affliction.


NETTING, or KNOTTING as it was once termed, has its manifold uses. The art is of high antiquity, and the implements that have come down to us from bygone ages are much the same as those in present use. By it the fisher captures the shoals of fish which make so dainty an appearance on the table, and by it he entirely provides food and clothing for his family. By it the gardener preserves his fruits, the boy delights to catch the finny tribe, the fowler to trap his birds, and the pedlar to produce his cabbage-nets. Balloons have their silken coverings encased with it; ladies make purses, caps, fringes, and "golden nets for the hair which tangle lovers' hearts."


In the Museum at Berlin there still exist nets made by those fathers of all the arts, the Egyptians, three thousand years ago. Pliny mentions some nets which he had seen of so delicate a texture as to be easily passed through a man's ring, while a sufficient number could be carried by one person to surround a whole wood; each thread of these nets was composed of one hundred and fifty strands.


The women of Theurapia on the Bosphorus are, at this day, celebrated for their exquisitely fine netting, the ornamentation of which consists in raised flowers beautifully netted in the work. Most persons have seen the almost inimitable netting of those articles called Maltese mittens, so light as to be blown away by a breath, and so faultless that no join of the silk can be discovered in them.


CROCHET is the shepherd's knitting of primitive times, when the outer garments were made of the wool torn off the backs of the sheep by the brambles, which was collected, spun, and converted into warm clothing, with the aid of a hook neatly cut at the end of a stick. With the same shaped instrument of polished steel our elaborate designs are produced, and by it, probably more than three thousand years ago, Penelope wove the famous shroud of Laertes, as no other texture could have borne the constant"fretting" occasioned by the weaving and unweaving for so long a space of time:

"All day she sped the long laborious toil,
But when the burning lamp supplied the sun,
Each night unravelled what the day begun,--
Three live-long summers did the fraud prevail."

In modern times, Queen Elizabeth and her bevy of maidens might possibly have amused themselves with this art; for John Taylor, in 1640, writes of needlework, thus--

"All in dimension, ovals, squares, and rounds,
* * * *
So that art seemeth nearly natural,
In forming shapes so geometrical."

By no other art than that of the needle can "shapes" so entirely geometrical be formed. Among the "treasures of needlework" in ancient times may be mentioned the corslet sent by Amasis, king of Egypt, to the Lacedaemonians, and described by Herodotus as made of linen with many figures of animals inwrought and adorned with gold and cotton-wool; each thread of this corslet was composed of three hundred and sixty threads.


Another "treasure" was the veil of Minerva embroidered by virgins, selected from the best families in Athens, which, after being carried in procession with great pomp and ceremony round the city, was hung up in the Parthenon, and consecrated to Minerva.


Coming to another age, a "treasure" still remains to us in the tapestry worked by Matilda, wife of William the Conquerer, highly valuable as an historical picture, and a truthful representation of the events which preceded and accompanied the Conquest. It is still preserved at Bayeux, in Normandy, and consists of a web of cloth upwards of two hundred feet in length, and about twenty inches in breadth, with borders top and bottom. The horses are worked in colours of blue, yellow, green, and red; but the whole is interesting and spirited.


In the Fishmongers' Hall, in London is a tolerably well-preserved specimen of needlework, on a linen ground. The work itself is splendid, and must have been magnificent when used as a pall at the funeral of Sir William Walworth, in 1381. It is now much faded in colour, and the gold dimmed by age; but altogether it is an exquisite specimen of needlework of that or any other period. We question if the very best of our embroiderers could produce anything resembling it.


Miss Linwood's "treasures" have long since been scattered among private individuals: such a collection can rarely, if ever, be brought together again. Each separate picture, faultless in its detail, and perfect in its completion, seems literally painted on the canvas with fine wool and the needle: The tints are unfaded and natural, or mellowed into rich and deepened beauty. The skin of the dogs in the "Woodman in a Storm" so exactly resembles life, that even after a minute inspection one cannot be persuaded but that it must have been carefully transferred form the animal's back to the picture. Such a collection was worthy of a nation.


To enumerate all the treasures of the needle, either known of or still in existence would be no easy task; and it is probable that the art will last as long as time itself,---or says the poet of two hundred years since:

"----till the world be quite dissolved and past,
So long, at least, the needle's use shall last."

He also advises ladies to employ themselves with it in these words:

"It will increase their peace, enlarge their store,
To use their tongues less, and their needles more;
The needle's sharpnesse profit yields and pleasure,
But sharpnesse of the tongue bites out of measure."



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