NET. Border for the front of a cap made about 1820 90
VEIL (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net. American nineteenth century 90
LACE WEDDING VEIL, 36 × 40 inches, used in 1806. From the collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier 92
HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK called "Benewacka" by the Dutch. The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on which the design was darned with linen. Made about 1800 and used in the end of linen pillow cases 92
BED HANGING of polychrome cross-stitch appliquéd on blue woolen ground 98
NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN made in fine and coarse point. Single cross-stitch 98
HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY of fine and coarse needlepoint 100
TAPESTRY woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand weave originated at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms 100
EMBROIDERED MITS 104
WHITE COTTON VEST embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth century American 104
WHITE MULL embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth century American 104
EMBROIDERED VALANCE, part of set and spread for high-post bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton, by Mrs. Gideon Granger, Canandaigua, New York 104
DETAIL of linen coverlet worked in colored wool 108
LINEN COVERLET embroidered in Kensington stitch with colored wool 108
QUILTED COVERLET worked entirely by hand 118
DETAIL of quilted coverlet 118
THE WINGED MOON. Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists, 1883 122
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL 126
THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES. Arranged (from photographs made in London of the original cartoon by Raphael, in the Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists 130
MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL. Drawn by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists, 1884 132
APHRODITE. Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry worked by The Associated Artists, 1883 134
FIGHTING DRAGONS. Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered by The Associated Artists, 1885 140
THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY 146
THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
INTRODUCTORY THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE
The story of embroidery includes in its history all the work of the needle since Eve sewed fig leaves together in the Garden of Eden. We are the inheritors of the knowledge and skill of all the daughters of Eve in all that concerns its use since the beginning of time.
When this small implement came open-eyed into the world it brought with it possibilities of well-being and comfort for races and ages to come. It has been an instrument of beneficence as long ago as "Dorcas sewed garments and gave them to the poor," and has been a creator of beauty since Sisera gave to his mother "a prey of needlework, 'alike on both sides.'" This little descriptive phrase—alike on both sides—will at once suggest to all needlewomen a perfection of method almost without parallel. Of course it can be done, but the skill of it must have been rare, even in those far-off days of leisure when duties and pleasures did not crowd out painstaking tasks, and every art was carried as far as human assiduity and invention could carry it.
A history of the needlework of the world would be a history of the domestic accomplishment of the world, that inner story of the existence of man which bears the relation to him of sunlight to the plant. We can deduce from these needle records much of the physical circumstances of woman's long pilgrimage down the