With respect to the various materials used as the groundwork for embroidery and braiding, on which the design is to be traced, little need be said. Satin, from the glossy smoothness of its surface, is perhaps the most difficult to draw upon; the pencil being apt to follow the straight threads of the warp, thus rendering it less easy to produce with gracefulness the curved lines, as on other materials. In pouncing, velvet requires the greatest care, as from the elasticity of its pile, the paper pattern has a tendency to move; great care, therefore, is required, in order to adjust it properly and firmly in its place, with the weights. The richer the velvet-the pile being closer and shorter-the greater is the facility with which it can be pounced, and drawn upon; in fact, none but the best velvets should ever be used either for embroidery or braiding:-this latter remark is equally applicable to cloth. A good knowledge of drawing, and experience, will alone make a proficient in this department, which, at first sight may appear to be merely mechanical.

To many persons, especially the artist, some of the above processes may appear tedious and unnecessary, as we frequently see some of the most beautiful patterns drawn on the materials at once, without any previous design or pouncing being required. Such patterns are of course the most valuable, as being unique."

Patterns may also be drawn on paper, and the lines cut out in a way similar to that adopted for stencilling plates, but the process is both tedious and difficult.

CHAPTER XI.

Implements.

"Implements of ev'ry size, And formed for various use."

COWPER.

W

NEEDLES.

HEN, as has been justly observed, we consider the simplicity, smallness, and moderate price of a needle, we should naturally be led to suppose that this little instrument requires neither much labour nor complicated manipulations in its construction; but when we learn that every sewing needle, however inconsiderable its size, passes through the hand of one hundred and twenty different operatives, before it is ready for sale, we cannot fail to be surprised.*

It would be tedious to enter into the minutiae of the manufacture of these small but important implements, but a few cursory remarks on one or two processes through which they pass may not be uninteresting. When the wire which is to form the needle has been pointed, and flattened at the other

There are a great variety of needles, but it will be necessary for us only to mention those which are more immediately employed for decorative needlework. These are known by the names of tapestry needles, sharps, and long-eyed sharps. The tapestry needle is blunt at the point, with a long oval eye; it is made of various sizes; those in common use, being from numbers fourteen to twenty-five, and are applicable to every description of canvas work. They should be manufactured of the

extremity to form the head, it is handed to the piercer. This is commonly a child, who, laying the head upon a block of steel, and applying the point of a small punch to it, pierces the eye with a smart tap of a hammer, applied first upon the one side, and then exactly opposite upon the other. Another child trims the eyes, which he does by laying the needle upon a lump of lead, and driving a proper punch through its eye; then laying it sideways upon a flat piece of steel, with the punch sticking in it, he gives it a tap on each side with his hammer, and causes the eye to take the shape of the punch. The operation of piercing and trimming the eyes is performed by clever children with astonishing rapidity, who become so dexterous as to pierce with a punch a human hair, and thread it with another, for the amusement of visitors. The next operation makes the grove at the eye, and rounds the head; they are then tempered, polished, &c. and thrown as a confused heap, into a somewhat concave iron tray, in which, by a few dexterous jerks of the workman's hand, they are made to arrange themselves parallel to each other. They are afterwards sorted and divided into quantities for packing in blue papers, by putting into a small balance the equivalent weight of one hundred needles, and so measuring them out without the trouble of counting them individually. It is easy to distinguish good English needles from spurious imitations; because the former have their axis coincident with their points, which is readily observed by turning them round between the finger and thumb.

The construction of a needle requires, as already stated, about one hundred and twenty operations; but they are rapidly and uninterruptedly successive: a child can trim the eyes of four thousand needles per hour.

When we survey manufacture of this kind, we cannot fail to observe, that the diversity of operations which the needles undergo, bears the impress of great mechanical refinement. In the arts, to divide labour is to abridge it; to multiply operations is to simplify them; and to attach an operative exclusively to one process, is to render him much more economical and productive. Abridged from Dr. Ure.

finest steel, but they are occasionally made of gold or silver for use in warm climates. The same kind of needle made with a sharp point, is employed for chenille embroidery, and for working on cloth through canvas.

The sharps are the common sewing needles, with round eyes; they are made of various qualities, both as to steel and workmanship. There is also a similar kind of needle, but shorter, termed blunts; the first are useful for all general purposes, the latter are principally employed by the tailor, the glover, the shoe binder, and workers in leather. They are made in sizes. numbering from one to fifteen. The truer the eye-whether diamond-shaped or round-the less it cuts the thread, and the easier it passes through the work. Needles called long-eyed sharps, having a long eye, are used for embroidery both in silk and wool-those most generally employed, number from one to ten. Darners are a similar kind of needle, but much longer than the former; they are mostly applicable to domestic purposes. Aiguilles à l'Y grec, are used in France for embroidering, but those familiarly known as Whitechapel needles, are better.*

* The needles used in ancient times, were principally of bronze: Pliny mentions them of this metal. Sewing and netting needles have been found both at Herculaneum and Pompeii; and several are preserved in the Hamiltonian and other collections. On the two marbles brought from the neighbourhood of Amycle in Lyconia, by the earl of Aberdeen, are represented, among other requisites for the toilet of a Grecian female, combs, pins, needles, and bodkins. See Walpole's Memoirs relating to European and Asiatic Turkey, p. 244. It is supposed that needles, similar to those now employed, were originally made in Spain, from the circumstance of their having been called Spanish needles when first used in England, although the art of manufacturing them was brought into this country from Germany. Needles were first made in England about the year 1565, by Elias Crawse or Krause, a German, who settled in London. The reputation long enjoyed by Whitechapel needles, points out the particular locality in London where the manufacture was carried on. The principal needle manufactories are now at Redditch in Worcestershire, at Hathersage in

KNITTING NEEDLES, OR PINS.

Knitting needles are manufactured of steel, ivory, boxwood, and whalebone, in sizes varying from that of a fine sewing needle to three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and of proportionate lengths. Some have a very small ivory ball at one end to prevent the work from slipping off, but with this exception, they are always pointed. The size of steel knitting needles is designated by their numbers, which vary from 6 to 25, and are determined by a filière or gauge; but as all writers on knitting do not appear to employ the same gauge, it frequently leads to error, and will continue to do so until there be some general standard.

NETTING NEEDLES AND MESHES.

For netting purses, and other small articles, steel needles and meshes are always employed, and those of the highest finish are to be preferred. The mesh or pin, which determines the size of the netting, is a plain polished piece of steel wire of any suitable diameter, and like the knitting-needles, measured by a gauge. The needle is of flattened wire, and cut into a fork of two prongs at each end, the ends of the prongs meeting and forming a blunt point, which will allow of it being passed either end foremost through a small loop. The silk is wound upon the needle, by passing it alternately between the prongs at each end, so that the turns of the silk may be parallel to the length of the needle, and be kept on it by the forks.

Derbyshire, and in Birmingham and its neighbourhood.-Bush Lane in London seems to have been formerly famous for very small needles ;-" And now they may go look this Bush Lane needle in a bottle of hay."-Lenton's Leas, c. 9.