1909 #23 Pillowslip in Cutwork Embroidery -

1909 #23 Pillowslip in Cutwork Embroidery -- Taie d’Oreiller en Broderie
Richelieu
This shape of slip is very commonly used for the cradles and the cribs. The large
drawing shows us the right side; the small sketch, on the left, shows us the back side. On
the right, is the sheet embroidered with “returns.” This expression means that the
embroidery turns at the corner of the two sides.
This pillowslip is cut in three pieces; the top, the bottom and the band folded back
which carries the buttonholes.
The top. – You will take a piece of fine linen or percale having the height and the
width of the entire square where is found joined together our three drawings.
Trace the drawing and transfer it on the fabric either with the pounce, or with the blue
greasy paper [dressmakers’ transfer paper]. The process of the pounce is this one: after
taking the tracing of the drawing, you prick all the outlines of this one with very close
pricks from a pin. Turning over this tracing and putting it on a table or a board, you sand
it with a pumice stone to remove the burs produced by the blows of the pin. Placing then
the tracing, its right side facing you, on the fabric, maintain it there by pins or thumbtacks
and, plunging the pounce pad (small pad of rolled wool) in the pouncing powder, you rub
the highly perforated tracing. When you remove it, you will find the drawing reproduced
by the blue powder having passed through the pinholes.
Put the fabric on oilcloth and begin the work of embroidery. It is made in buttonhole
stitch and, while carrying out the interior contour of the drawing, you make the bars, first
by passing the thread the length of the bar, then by returning with buttonhole stitch until
at the point where you had left. The line of buttonhole stitch which circles the fabric and
makes the base to the embroidery is embroidered last.
When the work is finished, you cut out with fine embroidery scissors all the black
parts of the drawing. They must be openwork.
The underside of the pillowslip is a piece similar to the plain part of the top. You cut
it a little larger for to turn under and to sew the curved part and to make at the bottom a
hem which will carry the buttons.
The third piece is a doubled band sewn to the base of the slip only. It is not sewn on
its two small sides, in order to fold it down more easily and to permit the insertion or the
easy removal of the little pillow. It is on this small band of fabric that you make, before
sewing it onto the slip, the four or five buttonholes.
Translation copyright 2010 Deirdre Gawne. Not for sale. www.dressingbleuette.com