Fil Rouge, Part 1 [self mod]

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

Early Immanis, Era 14 PF

The search had taken her but a few brightenings, and finally Amelia had a name and an address. The former, that of Alice Burlywood, more widely known as Grandma Alice. The latter, an apartment near the Political Quarter, betraying the woman's more than decent wealth. Grandma Alice was an elderly widow who had lost her husband to the great reaper of Nexian politicians - poison. With her sons grown up and far away from home, Alice found pleasure in ladylike pursuits, and in teaching them to younger ladies almost ready for marriage, or still fresh wives who had lagged behind and needed to catch up. According to the rumors, she was an expert in the art of embroidery and had tutored quite a few noblewomen in the craft.

Which was exactly what Amelia needed, and what she had been planning for a while. Not only would this further her education in the ways of elegance, it would also come in very, very handy in the near future. Counting the number of subjects that she had already touched caused her some surprise - cooking, public speaking, fencing, now embroidering. And given that apparently she could also write poems, at this rate she would soon be an ideal candidate for being married off to a nobleman, herself. Except she had no nobility herself, nor was she interested in the lot.

The girl was sitting, back straight, on a comfortable dark green sofa, hands on her lap and a serene expression on her face. Around her was a cozy apartment, not very large - but then again more than sufficient for one person - and tastefully decorated. Examples of Alice's exquisite handiwork decorated the small tea table near Amelia's knees, the hems of the white fabric showing off intricate criss-crossed patterns. The woman, still retaining a youthful spring to her step, came carrying a tray with tea and biscuits. She was a tidy-looking old woman, with silver hair tied in a smooth bun behind her head. Her wrinkles did not subtract from her friendly visage, and it was entirely possible that she looked more natural now than she had been in her prime.

"Thank you, Mrs. Burlywood," Amelia said softly, accepting her teacup. She did not like her tea overly sugared, so she only added half a spoonful before giving the amber liquid a light stir that did not touch the inside of the cup. "Oh, please, call me Alice. Such formalities are quite misplaced inside these four walls. So, you are... Amelia, right? And you have been working for the Ablutos." The woman gave the girl a discreet look over, concluding that it showed. She had lived with nobility, this much was for sure. The straight posture, the way she sipped at her tea, her generally controlled demeanor, the tasteful light makeup. She was pretty much a black without black clothes, a cold beauty but not unfriendly. "With such illustrious employers, there is no way I could deny myself the pleasure of tutoring you."

There was a light in Amelia's eyes at hearing the Ablutos being called illustrious, and there was no telling whether the light had been one of amusement or something else entirely. "I will do my best not to disgrace that name," the girl smiled. Some light conversation ensued, nothing too serious or important, as befitting a first meeting. Alice informed her that her tutoring would cost her one hundred Crowns, which was more than a formal apprenticeship at the Guild, but did not come with the same duties and responsibilities.

When asked about her reasons for waiting so long before she'd made up her mind (not the reason why she'd decided to come - in Alice's opinion, embroidery was supposed to be as natural to a lady as breathing), the young half-elf nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, my life until now has prevented me from devoting myself to it," she said, laying the cup back on its saucer and placing it on the tray without so much as a click. "Now that my schedule has become more manageable, I am in the process of filling those gaps in my education. Embroidery happened to top the list, as you can imagine... Alice."

The old widow smiled. Fake teeth, but they gave her a more youthful look. "Of course," she responded, "very well, shall be begin? There is much practice to be had. As you know, embroidery is the art of decorating fabric - but by no means only fabric - with thread and needle. We shall go over the basics, and by the end of these lessons you will be a decent practicioner, a cut above the average self-taught hobbyist. Please, follow me, dear."

Alice stood up and motioned for Amelia to do the same. Together, they moved to the corner of the house where her lessons would take place.

OOC: Apprentice Embroidery training.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

Mrs. Burlywood's embroidery workstation was a more or less square mahogany table. Several tools of the trade rested on its top, neatly arranged by the old widow's hand. Alice had the girl sit across from her and began to explain the craft to her new student.

"Hand sewing and embroidery have a certain amount of overlap, dear, but here we will be focusing on the latter. While a number of stitches and techniques you will be learning are common to sewing as well, we'll be using them in the context of decoration rather than the practical handiwork of a seamstress. We shall begin by getting familiar with the tools of the trade, most of which I am sure you are already somewhat familiar with." Alice opened a small wooden box and showed its contents to Amelia.

Needles, obviously. Quite a few of them, actually, and more than the girl would have imagined a single person could use. "Now, probably the most commonly used needle in embroidery is the crewel. Compare it with a sharp, which is the average hand sewing needle, and tell me what differences you can see." Alice held the needles in her hands for Amelia to see, and the girl soon offered her response.

"I can see only one difference, and that is in the eye. The eye of the crewel is much longer than that of the sharp," the half-elf answered. Alice nodded. "Indeed. In embroidery we deal with thicker flosses and yarns, hence the need for a longer eye. It should be added, though, that all of these needles have their use in the craft, depending on the nature of the thread and the underlying fabric. Other than the crewel and the sharp, we have the between, also called quilting needle, which is, as you can see, a little shorter and fatter than the sharp and has some uses, for instance with certain satin fabrics. A chenille is long, fat and has a very important eye, it is used for wool, ribbon and tapestry among other things. This other needle, long but thin and with a small eye is a straw. There are many more, some are very specialized. For now, we will be using the crewel and the sharp for the most part. These needles come in different sizes, as well, and you will be expected to maintain a small arsenal of them." She smiled in the mirthless fashion of old ladies. "Make sure the eye can always accomodate the thread, or you shall risk damaging it. There should be some room for it to move about, but not so much that it will slip out."

Amelia simply nodded, this was making sense so far. "As for thimbles, they are used to push the needle through once the stitch has been taken. They are not as mandatory as you may think. They are strongly suggested for sturdy work on the heavier linens and other such fabrics. Some people find them cumbersome... in your case, I would use one. Your hands are not calloused enough and you may bleed on your work rather easily." The girl agreed, and the teacher showed her how they were worn on the middle finger of one's main hand.

The next tool, Amelia looked at curiously. Rings? They looked like a couple of metal rings, bound with thread, and joined. "Embroidery hoop," Alice explained, "useful in quite a few works of embroidery, they keep the fabric evenly tight so you can stitch correctly the area inside. You remove them after you're finished for the brightening, and you can resume your work later. For particularly large pieces, you can mount them as a whole piece onto a wooden frame. Later, I will show you how to place your fabric in a hoop."

The other tools were pretty straightforward, scissors and shears of various shapes and sizes. "This is a needle threader," Alice continued, showing Amelia a small item with a thin wire loop at the end. "It helps you get the thread through the eye of the needle, which can be a frustrating experience at times. You just insert the wire in the eye, place the thread through the loop and pull back."

"Finally, certainly the most important tool of them all - the threads! Or yarns, as they are sometimes called." Alice opened a drawer in the table and showed Amelia a small selection of yarns. "This one here is excellent for beginning projects. Cotton floss, it's soft and easy to work with. You will find skeins of floss rather easily, or you can spin it yourself - these fibers can even be spinned by hand, if you so wish, dear. Threads vary in the amount of twisting that is applied to them during the spinning; cotton floss has a medium twist, but other threads, such as this pearl cotton and this silk, have more twist and are very often made of a single strand of fiber. Please, spend some time feeling them."

She gestured for Amelia to touch the various yarns, and the girl felt them on her fingertips, weighing their patterns, robustness, smoothness, and tendency to unravel. Her hands moved slowly at first, but gained more confidence after a while. After a few minutes, she told Alice that she thought she had memorized the features of those yarns.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

"Good," the woman nodded graciously, "we shall be spending the first brightening or two getting you familiar with needle and thread, then I shall have you work on your very first full project. For now, find a relaxed position on your seat and mount this piece of fabric on the hoop."

Amelia inspected the fabric Alice had given her. It was rather heavy, with a thick weave that made it easy to count the threads. "Muslin, excellent for practice. Everyone should start by embroidering small, flat surfaces such as napkins and towels - you are then expected to grow more ambitious. Now, to mount this on the embroidery hoop... be careful. If the fabric is not tense enough as you embroider, it may pucker; if it too tense, it may likewise get damaged with certain stitches or simply become ugly to look at." The girl nodded and picked up the two rings making up the instrument, separating them. Following Alice's indications, she took the piece of muslin and placed it on the inner hoop. If she were working on a particular design, it would have to be centered in the middle of the area.

Then, she placed the top hoop on about halfway vertically, turning the screw slightly to tighten it and start generating some tension. "Good, do not tighten all the way through just yet. Adjust the fabric so there are no wrinkles or loose areas. If you are hasty now, you will regret it later. When the fabric seems to be evenly tense throughout the area, tighten the screw a little more and again make the same checks till it is tightened as much as you can. Then you will be ready to start working."

The witch worked her hands over the fabric, feeling the little wrinkles and fixing them before continuing. After a while, she was satisfied with her work and the piece of muslim was braced between the two hoops under the correct amount of tension. "Very well, you said, yourself, that you have never held a needle before, so we shall begin with the very basics. Today you are going to learn the easiest stitch of them all, your average hand sewing stitch - called the running stitch. While very simple, it has quite a few uses in embroidery. It is a delicate stitch for finer outlining work, and its length can be modified to fit different purposes."

"Yes," Amelia nodded, picking up the crewel needle and a measure of red cotton floss, almost anticipating her teacher. "Quite a few types of yarn are made up of several strands - this floss has six, for example, making it rather thick. In many practical applications, two or three will be enough. You can simply peel the desired strands off with your hands. Make three two-strand threads from that floss after you've snipped off a length of it. You generally work with lengths of thread ranging from about sixteen to twenty-four inches - twenty is a good average value. Make it too long and the thread will twist and generally get in the way."

Amelia obeyed, snipping a length of thread and obtaining the required thickness of the red yarn. "Now you have to thread your needle, which may take some time getting used to. Place your thread between your thumb and index of the left hand - I see you are a right-hander." The girl nodded and did as instructed, holding the thread between the delicate fingers of her left hand.

"Now pull the thread down between your pinched fingers. Do so until you can barely see the end of the thread, just the little colored dot between your fingers. When you have done this, bring the needle over the thread with the eye being horizontal, on your fingers." Amelia struggled a little with this, but nodded. "Now push down. Push the eye of the needle down and between your fingers - it should catch the thread in the process. Finish by pulling on the thread to move it up. And you should have a threaded needle."

Amelia found that her fine motor skills had increased due to her practice with accurate swordplay in El Viatre. After a couple of attempts, she had the technique pretty much down. "Of course, this is much easier with embroidery thread than it is in hand sewing, but it is a handy technique to know nevertheless."

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

"Now that I have threaded the needle," the Adjurator asked, "do I have to knot the thread to work with it?" Mrs. Burlywood answered gently but firmly. "It is a possibility, but I teach my pupils to avoid it whenever possible. Of course, there are projects when thread knotting cannot be avoided, but most often you can secure your stitches without resorting to knots, and I will teach you how. Aside from making the back of your work look very untidy, knots often show through after a while, making the fabric bulge on the front - a very amateurish sight, indeed, not to mention the risk of the knot tearing the fabric. I pride myself on teaching my students to respect the back of their works as much as the front."

Alice picked up a needle and threaded it in front of Amelia. "Just leave it like this. Leave a tail past the needle's eye, long enough that it will not slip. Do not knot, but simply start stitching this way." The old woman moved her seat next to the student's and showed her how to proceed. She pulled the thread through the muslin, from the back side, but left a short tail dangling there, stopping perhaps one inch before the end of the floss. She held that short length on the underneath with her finger. "Here is the trick, Amelia. On our first stitch, we make sure we catch this little tail as we go, so this end of the thread would be secured."

Alice turned the work to show Amelia that she was holding the short thread tail on the other side with her finger. Then she repositioned it and took a stitch from the front, her hand almost horizontal as the needle entered the fabric and emerged a little further, capturing the dangling tail in the process, while the needlepoint was on the other side. "Oh..." Amelia thought she'd understood. Alice simply pulled the floss, completing the first stitch. "Here it is, dear, a running stitch. In and out, in and out. Very simple, but still effective. This is the hand sewing method of stitching, and there is another one called the stab method, but I think you should be just fine with this one for the moment. You try and take a few now, from right to left."

The girl nodded and readied herself. It sounded so easy! Yet... it wasn't, really. Amelia lacked a real feel for the fabric, and the sensitivity that her teacher had. She reproduced the actions as best she could, keeping the tail part in place and struggling to trap it underneath the backside of her first stitch. She succeeded somewhat, though the thing was rather loose and Alice had her try again. She fared better this time, though the stitch had been less than perfect - had it been performed on a more delicate cloth, it might have damaged it.

Alice was a patient teacher. "I will have you work every new stitch on samplers like this one until you are ready to use them in real projects. You should give me ten running stitches, evenly spaced. The point where the needle goes in and the point where it comes out, these points decide what the line will look like. Generally you will want to show more thread on the front than on the back, of course, but that depends on what you want to do with the outcome, which is a lovely dashed line." The half-elf, on the other hand, found working on the samplers rather boring, and turned that feeling into motivation to learn faster. Her next stitch was given with more finesse, puncturing the muslin and then emerging a few threads later, finally pulling the thread through.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

"Good!" the widow said, "now pay attention to where the next stitch should begin. The distance between the endpoint for the last stitch and the starting point for the next is thread that will be visible on the front. Make that distance even across all the stitches in the series; you can count the threads to aid yourself." "Yes, Alice," the girl agreed, focusing on her work once more. After a while she had the required ten stitches complete.

Alice nodded sagely. "Yes, Amelia, like this. Now you need to know how to finish the thread and secure the other end. Again, a knot is most often ugly and not at all necessary. Just turn the project over so you can work on the back." Pale hands carried out the order, and Amelia could see all the thread that was invisible on the front. "It is actually pretty straightforward. You just backtrack and slip the needle underneath the last few stitches. When you have run it through the last four or so stitches, you only have to snip off the excess thread and you are finished."

Understanding the rationale behind the action, the half-breed carried it out. She used the underneath of her previous stitches to fix the other end of her current thread; running the needle through the loops they had created and making sure it did not end up too tense nor too loose. Finally, she snipped the remaining thread off and concluded that section. "Yes, this is an adequate sequence of running stitches, even on the right side, tidy on the wrong. Practice some more, dear, and tomorrow we shall begin work on your first project."

Amelia did not really want to continue practicing the running stitch, but apparently Alice would not accept any excuse. With each line on the sampler, she grew a little more confident, not to mention significantly faster and also more accurate. Alice was a demanding teacher, always ready to point out the smallest imperfection. The woman was detail-oriented, and would not tolerate sloppiness. "At times, you may be tempted to carry the thread over when doing short lines. Rather than starting a new thread, you could simply move from one point of the fabric to another, thinking that the thread will not be visible from the right side. Again, this is rather poor behavior. The underneath deserves as much respect as the front does, even though the piece is to be hung or otherwise displayed in such a way that you think the back will never be shown."

Amelia had long realized that her teacher was a nitpicker. "As a rule, do not carry thread over for longer than, say, half an inch, and even then, never do that if the thread you are using is darker than the underlying fabric, or else it will show through, with rather bad-looking consequences. Ideally, such thread shall also be sewn over, whipped or covered to mask its color. Do you understand, Amelia?" The girl nodded, her eyes tired from the brightening's effort. "Excellent. You have done remarkably well for a first-timer. I shall see you again tomorrow in the afternoon."

And with that, Amelia thanked the woman and returned to the manor.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

The following brightening Alice presented her with a napkin. It was a simple linen thing, off-white and totally devoid of decorations. As promised, this would be the medium of Amelia's first real project. "The first thing you need to do when starting your work is sketching an outline upon the fabric. There are various methods; you can simply do it with freehand drawing if the design is simple or you are artistically inclined. Another option, if the fabric will allow it, is to draw your outline in a dark color upon paper or parchment, and then position your fabric on it and trace over. This is what we are going to do today, but there are other ways, such as stencils and I have even heard of strange substances made by Alchemist to transfer a design onto fabric."

Alice showed her student what kind of decoration she would be embroidering on the napkin. It was a simple project, not too ambitious, but still a little daunting to a beginner. It was, it seemed, a vase of flowers with large petals and ample, hanging leaves. The woman instructed Amelia to trace it over on the napkin with a piece of special blue pencil. "Keep in mind that this tends to fade out in time. This is something you should consider if you are planning on taking more than a few cycles to complete a project. Do not worry if the stitches do not cover your marks; we will rinse the cloth afterwards and the marks will go away with no lasting consequences on the fabric."

And so it was that Amelia set herself to the test of sketching an outline for the project. She dutifully copied the lines down to the smallest ones, trying to make them as natural and smooth as in the original. After a while, Alice nodded approvingly. "This will do, Amelia. You can also aid yourself with a ruler when you need to draw straight lines. For example, I would like you to outline a square frame for this pattern and then decorate it with running stitches." Alice produced the required ruler, and from there it was merely an exercise of accuracy to draw a square shape.

With the napkin mounted on the hoops, Amelia performed the running stitches, starting from one of the corners and moving in a right-to-left manner. She was using blue thread contrasting with the greens and reds that would feature in the center of the pattern. Obviously this was merely a warm-up exercise for the apprentice, before she tackled the picture proper. "Good, Amelia, you seem to have grasped the basic stitch. The running stitch is very versatile, it can be used to outline as well as fill. When filling, for example, you make sure the lines are offset by half a stitch, so the full and empty parts form an interesting brick-like pattern. As you can see, the stitches are only instruments of our creativity, and they can be used to achieve a number of different effects."

"Shall I begin to outline the picture, Alice?" came the question, but the old woman shook her head. "We need to broaden your repertoire a little first, dear. Let us move back to our sampler for a while. I am going to teach you another easy, basic stitch that is called the backstitch. It is another stitch no serious embroidener can be without. I would like to demonstrate it first."

Alice took the sampler Amelia handed her - she still did not like working on samplers, but Alice would not let her experiment on the actual project. Her hands moved swiftly but without confusing the apprentice as she watched. "These are called line stitches because you can complete a row with a single journey of the needle," she explained. The backstitch started not unlike the running stitch, but it soon began to differ. The woman's hand, instead of advancing after the first stitch, retreated to the right, and she inserted the needle in the exit point of the previous stitch. The exit point was further down the line than that of the last stitch, and it all started over, with the hand moving back to the right and reusing that exit point.

One could argue, Amelia thought, that while the running stitch advanced one step at a time, the backstitch advanced by two and retreated by one. The result was a continuous line, with the typical look of a bead necklace. Once she had demonstrated this, Alice turned the sampler over and finished the thread pretty much as before, by running the end of the yarn underneath the last few stitches on the backside. Again, the woman motioned for Amelia to try in her own time. Ugh. Samplers.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

The main difficulty with the backstitch for the half-elf was keeping the line straight and its thickness even. Moreover, it took more accuracy than with the running stitch, because one had to push the needle through exactly where it had been pulled out before. Still, it did not take her too long to familiarize with this stitch. "In hand sewing, the backstitch is appreciated for its sturdiness, as it is one of the most robust line stitches; it has several variants that I teach to more advanced students. Here its main use is in the creation of full outlines both fine and thick, depending on the thread you are using. When you are ready to move from the sampler to the real thing, you can begin backstitching the outlines of our project."

After a few more attempts, Amelia's production changed from a chain of rather uneven-looking beads of thread to a much more convincing line that stuck out of the underlying fabric. Once she felt confident enough, she put the sampler aside, prepared a length of green yarn to outline the stalks and leaves, and began working on the napkin. While the concept was pretty much the same, two things had changed; one, the fabric was no longer muslin but rather higher-quality linen, and two, the lines were no longer straight but curvy. "Make the stitches long enough that you can work with them comfortably, Amelia, but not so long that you will lose the roundness of the curves. When stitching an outline, find a good starting point to move from, such as the stem of a leaf or fruit, and work your way from there. If you make a mistake, we can pull the thread out, but it is possible that the fabric will have been deformed a little and you will have to stitch something over the part to hide it from view."

The whole thing was, of course, easier said than done. The girl started from the stems, following the blue outline she had traced not too long before. The stitches did not cover all of the blue, but as Alice had told her it would go away when rinsed, she was not too worried about it. More than once was she tempted to carry her thread over from one leaf to the next, but she knew that her teacher would not approve of it, and even though securing the end of a thread was somewhat boring and time-consuming, she did it as many times as she needed. Alice wanted the leaves and flowers outlined with a thicker floss, so she used three strands instead of two, with more delicate, two-strand yarn being used for the smaller details on each element.

"It is not necessary in this project," Alice added at some point, "given the nature of the fabric and thread you are using, but if there is a lot of attrition between the two, you can coat your thread with beeswax to ease the embroidering. That will help you apply your stitches without damaging the materials, but on the other hand remember that too much beeswax will give your thread a dull look that will be displeasing to the eye and easily recognizeable by the trained eye." The apprentice nodded ever so slightly, wishing she would not distract her in the middle of a difficult, sudden bend in the foliage.

At the end of the afternoon, she had yellow flowers, green leaves and a brown vase containing them. And with that, Alice called it a brightening and offered her tea and pastries. Just like the first day, Amelia was literally stuffed with sweet baked goods, and the Adjurator suspected that by the end of her lessons, most of the hundred Crowns would have made it back to her in the form of cakes. Alice was as demanding when teaching as she was prone to overindulging outside of it. Amelia would probably have to skip pracenda that darkening, and exercise a little more with the sword if she was to retain her figure.

Back at the manor, she started making a list of things she would need as part of her personal embroidery kit. She went over the needles, hoops, yarns, scissors, outlining supplies and other tools she would have to buy. Granted, embroidery would never be the most expensive of Amelia's passions - fencing was - but it would still cost her. Thankfully, this happened to be a profitable trade as well, so she may be able to squeeze some money out of it in the future.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

The next brightening, as Amelia had wisely but sadly anticipated, started with her in front of the sampler, as Mrs. Burlywood wanted to teach her a new stitch. "Today's stitch is another basic one you cannot be without. It is called chain stitch and it is still rather simple, though probably a step up from the other two you know. The concept behind it is a little different, too, and it actually works like a chain. Look carefully, Amelia, you shall have to include some chain stitching in the project."

Alice showed her apprentice with the sampler. She pulled the needle through the fabric as with the other stitches, but this time she pushed it down through the same hole. The needle emerged one stitch length further, and at this point she pulled the thread all the way through, thus creating a small loop in the front of the muslin. Then, she repeated the process by pushing the needle through near the end point of the previous stitch, making another loop that intersected the first one. This was obviously the 'chain' it was named after, and Alice performed a few more, finally ending the thread in the usual way, stabbing the muslin near the end of the last link and securing it underneath.

"The one tricky thing about this stitch compared to the other two," she explained to a very focused Amelia, "is forcing the chain to go in the direction you want it to. You may have to pull the thread with your other hand to move the latest link of the chain where you want it to. Other than that, it is a really simple stitch once you have gotten the gist of it." And indeed, it was the 'getting the gist of it' part that worried the younger artisan in training. She got it wrong the first time around, the link turning out horribly loose for some reason. Alice took advantage of that mistake to make her practice with pulling out thread.

The second try gave better results but was still quite unsatisfactory by Alice's standards. She was not wrapping the thread with the correct amount of tension, and she realized it. Getting more familiar with this stitch, she learned to apply the right amount of strength as well as fine-tune its direction correctly, and finally how to finish it gracefully. "I think I get it now," she nodded, still in full concentration. The teacher nodded and smiled. "You are doing quite well. Three stitches in three brightenings is a very good result, but remember to rest your eyes, hands and shoulders every once in a while."

"You will want to take frequent breaks when working. Do not worry, it is well worth it, and in fact you will be more productive that way, and less prone to mistakes. Embroidery requires attention, good lighting and a healthy posture. I have noticed one thing about you, dear, and that is a tendency to watch the left and right sides of your work at different distances. It seems to me that you have a slight defect to your eyesight, Amelia, and a rather common one." The girl raised her head from her stitching, and looked at the old woman. Very observant, indeed. "Yes, it looks slightly... out of focus if I don't, and it tires my eyes," she answered, hoping it would not compromise her success.

"I see. I will bet that you also get tired easily when reading, maybe you even get headaches from it." The girl nodded, surprised that the embroiderer could infer that much. However, there was some relief washing over her. She had always feared that her headaches from reading books were due to some sort of stupidity on her part, but if her eyes were the reason, well... the thought comforted her.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

"I have had quite a few students with the same problem as yours. Most choose to do nothing about it, it does not affect their ability to create beautiful works of embroidery, it just makes it more annoying and it takes them a little longer. But some have resorted to glasses and spectacles that they wear when they have to focus on details, and it helps them. You may want to consult with one of these lens makers to find the correct ones for you." Amelia thought it over for a few seconds, remembering how Viskyia used a special lens to inspect the gems. Same principle here, and she may inquire with the Free Thinker's Guild to find a specialist. Definitely something worth pursuing.

"Thank you, Alice. I didn't know that some glass could solve my problem," she smiled gratefully. Alice told her to think nothing of it, gave her a ten-minute break and then put her to work on the project once more. The witch understood now, why her mentor had not wanted her to backstitch the central buttons of the main flowers during the previous brightening's work. She had saved those for the chain stitch, and admittedly this technique would look very pretty on a rounded, almost circular outline.

Granted, a full circle was something new to her. She had to measure her stitches very carefully, so the figure would close with the first and last links evenly spaced and not overlapping. She was starting to appreciate the differences between the various stitches, and how they added to create an end result that was pleasing to the eye. This napkin would be nothing really special, but she would have the knowledge required to make something beautiful.

And the thought crossed her that the immediate applications of her training did not require a large amount of technical skill. Merely assembling unusual materials and using the basic techniques.

So, the flower buttons were completed with some efforts, but Amelia felt satisfied with the result. The raised chain of the inner area complemented the back stitching on the petals rather nicely, and Alice agreed with her. "Good. Now back to the sampler. I will show you a simple but very good-looking version of the chain stitches that is especially used to make small flowers. It is the detached chain stitch, but it is more commonly known as the lazy daisy."

She showed Amelia how to perform it. It started exactly like the normal chain stitch, up to the creation of the first thread loop on the front. "This is the first petal of your flower," she explained, and then anchored that petal by pushing the needle through near the far end of it and bringing it back near the starting point, where the next petal would begin. She repeated the process, but angling the next loop differently to form the next petal, which was again anchored before the needle moved again to the center of the flower. In the end, seven loops formed as many petals of the 'daisy'.

"Is this not lovely? No wonder it is one of the most widespread stitches in embroidery! You can modify it to achieve different effects than just daisies and other flowers, depending on the floss you use and the direction of the stitches - they do not have to spread out evenly like in my example." As usual, Alice had her practice the new stitch on a sampler before trusting her to do the same on her project. Amelia appreciated the simplicity of this technique, given that she had already learned the chain stitch and this was almost the same. She only needed some practice with placing the petals evenly so they would not be packed too tightly nor stand out too lonely on their own. A lazy daisy or two were applied on the project as a small, secondary decoration and mostly for practice.

Then Amelia was expected to gorge herself with cake, and finally went back to the manor.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

"We are going to up the difficulty a little today," Alice announced after a few brightenings or rather repetitive practice that had consolidated Amelia's budding skills. So far it had all been outlining work with various stitches, even though she had learned to experiment with multiple colors inside the same motif. She had grown familiar with thread and gauging the ins and outs of each stitch. She had also learned to alternate between the hand sewing method of stitching and the more exotic stab method, in which the needle was pushed through vertically, depending on the position and nature of the work to be done.

"Filling stitches are what is generally used in embroidery to fill large areas with color; they tend to be somewhat trickier than simple line stitches at first, but they are actually easier than they seem. As a beginner, you can easily use your line stitches to cover an area, row by row. It is perfectly acceptable and visually pleasing if done right, but I am going to teach you a filling stitch called the fishbone stitch, which is ideal for leaves and other pointy shapes. It is also an excellent stepping stone for the satin stitch that I teach to more advanced students and is arguably the king of filling stitches."

Yes. A sampler. Only, this time there was an area marking on it, representing the leaf to be filled. Amelia was all eyes. The teacher started from the point of the leaf and took a first, straight stitch towards the interior of it. Then the needle emerged to the left of this first stitch, next to it and about halfway through, and Alice pushed it down again a little ahead of the first stitch's end point. This time the needle came out to the right of the central stitch, and again, she brought it down in the middle, ahead of the last time. Alternating between left and right, and advancing in the middle with each iteration.

The leaf was slowly being filled from its extremity, and the coolest thing about it was that a thicker 'spine' was forming in the middle, just like the central vein of a leaf. This was due to all the stitches accumulating along the central line, one after another, hence why it was called a fishbone. It was a beautiful work, the thread merging into an area veined with lines of different lengths to accomodate the varying size of the leaf throughout its shape. Alice ended the thread and gestured for Amelia to try.

Of course, it was not so easy for the young witch. This technique, while not terribly hard, was noticeably harder than those that had come before it. She messed it up the first time, leaving gaps in the area, slipping out of the borders and generally making the leaf more edgy and strange-looking that it should have been. It took her a couple of brightenings training specifically in the fishbone to come to grips with this method and feel familiar enough with it to carry it to the main project, where the leaves seemed to have been designed especially for the fishbone.

However, it was a rewarding experience when she did master it. She even surprised Alice by switching colors as she went. She began working the far end of the leaf with a more yellowish color and then moved to deeper greens as she approached the stem, making it look like a late summer leaf slowly getting ready to fall. The old widow saw that her apprentice could think on her feet, after all. Said apprentice was thoroughly fed cake and pastries afterwards.

[Amelia Lynsdaughter]

"Now that we have leaves, we want a proper stem to connect them to the stalks," Alice explained the next brightening. "We are going to study a new stitch named, very aptly, the stem stitch, as well as a closely related one called outline stitch. They are both good for sinuous, stem-like curves, and have a rope-like look, but slightly differ in their appearance, with the stem stitch retaining more of the individual stitches and the outline stitch merging them more evenly."

The stem stitch was not particularly difficult to perform when Alice demonstrated it, but it had something peculiar that made it different from the others; it was worked from left to right for a right-hander. The basic idea was that the embroiderer inserted the needle further to the right and pulled it out just where the last stitch had entered, so the individual stitch still moved from right to left but the sequence moved towards the right side of the canvas. It had this cute look with a twist that the previous stitches did not, and Amelia loved it from the very first moment. The main trick consisted of keeping the working thread pressed down against the fabric with one's thumb to keep it in the correct position below the needle.

The outline stitch, on the other hand, was almost the same as the stem stitch. The only difference was that instead of keeping the working thread below the needle with a finger, it had to stay above the needle, or when curving upwards, to the left of the needle. Aside from that, it was a stem stitch, but the individual stitches looked more lost in a continuous line. "These are very rewarding stitches, ideal for fine lines as well as filling; in fact, you shall be using the stem stitch to fill our flower vase, row by row. The outline stitch curves beautifully, so you may want to add a few vine-like stalks to make use of it."

Filling the vase with various shades of brown took quite a lot of patience on Amelia's part. It was the repetitive task of completing each row, moving up and starting over; but it helped to strengthen her skillset. She used several shades to give the vase a more realistic and pleasing appearance, using her previous backstitches as boundaries for the area. In the next project, she decided, she would not be outlining with backstitches, but it was obvious that Alice had wanted her working on a real project as soon as possible.

She stem stitched the vase and the leaf stems, finding a couple of uses for the outline stitch as well, to display some little curvy buds that had never been outlined before. And with that, her work for the brightening was done and her project was nearing completion, as were her lessons.