Have you thought yet what you are going to make Mother for her birthday present? How would you like to work her a handkerchief sachet in Hardanger Embroidery? You don’t know how? Well, if you follow this little talk very carefully, I think you will soon learn.

What is Mother’s favourite colour? Rose Pink? Very well; how delighted she will be with what you are going to make!

Can’t you take Mother shopping with you one day, because you will want to buy a few little things for the sachet. You will want a piece of Congress Canvas—cream or white—a square 12 inches each way, a ball of Ardern’s “Star Sylko” No. 744, size 5, a square of white silk the same size as the canvas for lining the sachet, a crewel needle, 3 yards of pink ribbon half-an-inch wide. (The best kind to get is a silk ribbon having threads running through, that you pull and draw the ribbon up into a ruche. This saves you all the trouble of running a thread through to make a ruche). You also want a little pink sewing silk, some white sewing silk, a pair of sharp scissors with points, and, of course, your thimble.

First, make sure your canvas is perfectly even all round, 12 inches on each side. When cutting it, be careful to cut between the same threads all the way down. Turn in about a quarter of an inch all round very carefully, and tack it. Fig. 1 shows the edge being tacked. When you come to a corner, just turn in again the end of the second side, to make it quite neat. You will see in Fig. 1 what I mean.

The tacking done, the pretty work begins. Thread your crewel needle with the “Sylko.” At one corner count 24 threads in from each side. The hole just where these threads cross is your starting point. Now leave 3 holes below, and in the 4th bring your needle up from underneath for a satin stitch. You will see how to do this stitch in making the doll’s bedspread (page 67), only as you are using a different kind of canvas here, you leave 3 holes instead of one. Make 4 of these stitches. Leave 3 holes, and into the 4th start another little block of satin stitches. Do 4 of these little blocks. This brings you to the corner. Fig. 2 shows the little blocks.

To turn the corner, after making your 4th stitch, bring your needle up into the 4th hole from the top of your satin stitch, not the 4th from the bottom as before. Make one little block this way. Turn another corner in exactly the same way, bringing the needle up in the 4th hole from the top of the satin stitch. Start another block. When you have put the needle down for the 4th stitch of this block, bring it up 4 holes below the last hole at which you brought it up. Then put it back into the last hole at which you brought it up. Fig. 3 will make this clear. Make 4 stitches, now working from right to left. Turn again, and make 4 stitches, working from left to right. You will notice that wherever you turn a little corner—or make an angle—2 stitches go into the same hole, one each way.

When you have made 8 little blocks in this way, turn again, and make 4 blocks of satin stitch as you did on the first side, the last stitch of the 4th block should take you back into the hole we called your starting point. If it doesn’t, you have made a little mistake somewhere—either you have missed a thread, or made two stitches in one hole, or something like that, and you will have to undo the work until you find your mistake. This sounds rather hard lines, doesn’t it, but unless you have got this outside part right, you cannot cut and draw the threads properly, and we want to have Mother’s sachet quite perfect, don’t we?

How much quicker we seem to get on with scissors than with a needle and cotton, don’t we? It is such quick work to cut a hole, but quite slow work to mend one! Well, you are going to do some “scissors work” now, but you will have to do it carefully, and make sure first just which threads you are going to cut. I want you to notice one important thing. Always cut across the ends of your stitches, never along the sides of them. Isn’t this quite clear? Well, look at the little diagram for cutting, Fig. 5. You cut the 3 threads between A and B, and between A and C, and between C and J, and between D and E, and between G and H, but never those between J and I, or between I and D. You see what I mean now, don’t you? Then be careful always not to cut too far, that is to say, never cut beyond the satin stitches, only cut the threads enclosed by them.

Pull out the threads you have cut, and you will have a little corner, like that shown in Fig. 4.

Now you have to do the weaving, and this is very easy, and nice work to do. Only remember not to drag the threads too tightly, but you must not have them loose—just firm and even. Bring your needle up from underneath, in the middle of one of the groups of 4 threads, take it over 2 threads on one side up into the middle again, and over 2 threads on the other side. Look at Fig. 4 again. Repeat this until you have 5 stitches on each side. Bring your needle up between another set of threads, and repeat. When you have finished all the weaving, fasten off neatly at the back of the canvas, and your corner is done. Work the other 3 corners in the same way.

Take your ribbon and cut off two pieces, each 8 inches long. These are for the bow. Divide the remainder into four equal lengths, and mark each little division with a small pin. This is so that you will use just the same length on each of the four sides of your square. With a needle, draw out three or four threads running through the middle of the ribbon, and pull these gently to draw the ribbon up. It is not enough to pull on one thread or two, because, although it is easier to draw, it may snap before you get very far. Draw up the ribbon until it is exactly the size to go round your square; then pin the gathered ribbon round the sides, taking care to get one of the divisions marked by the pin on each side of the square.

Thread a needle with pink sewing silk, and sew the ribbon on, through the centre, taking a very tiny stitch on top, and a longer one underneath. Make a back-stitch every now and then, by putting the needle back instead of forward. This makes it a little more secure. Allow a little extra fulness at the corners, so as to turn these carefully and evenly, and here you will need one or two little backstitches. When you get round to the corner from which you started, turn in the end of your ribbon, and join it neatly to your starting end. Take out the pins.

Take the square of white silk, and turn in once all round about a quarter-inch, and tack it. Lay it on your square of canvas, so that the turned-in sides of canvas and silk come together. Pin these together all round. With the white sewing silk, hem the silk to the canvas carefully, so that each stitch catches up a thread of the canvas, but does not come through the gathered ribbon. At the second corner, slip in one end of one of your lengths of ribbon between the silk and canvas, and when you come to that, hem it in with the silk to the canvas. When the hemming is finished, the tacking stitches can be taken out of the silk.

You have now got a silk-lined canvas square, with a little end of ribbon attached to one corner. You must now fold your square so that all the worked corners meet, as you see in the picture on page 34. We will call your square A, B, C, D, as the corners are marked in the diagram, Fig. 6. Divide each side in half (just put a tiny pin in to mark the division), and call these points E, F, G, and H. Now fold along the lines E to F, F to G, G to H, and H to E. This will bring your corners A, B, C and D all together in the middle if you have done your measuring quite carefully. (See Fig. 7). Let us call D the point that has the ribbon end. Now A, B and C have all to be joined together, but D is not sewn to them. D’s little ribbon end is only tied to the centre, so that the sachet can be opened and closed. Catch A F and B F and A E and C E together with just a few tiny stitches under the ribbon, sew the points A, B, C neatly together. And here is where you attach your last little bit of ribbon having turned in one end neatly. While you are sewing on this centre you had better keep your left fingers inside the sachet, and your thumb outside. Then you will be quite sure that you are not sewing right through the sachet, because it would be serious if when Mother came to put her handkerchiefs in, she couldn’t get them down because it was sewn through, wouldn’t it? You have now only to tie your two ends of ribbon in a nice bow, and Mother’s handkerchief sachet is complete.

Of course, you will want to make some more of these sachets, and you can work them in other colours, or line them with coloured silk. It would look pretty, for instance, to have a deep cream canvas, worked with Ardern’s “Star Sylko” No. 734, Size 5, which is a lovely cream shade. Then have for the lining, forget-me-not blue, and blue ribbon to match. Or you could work the satin-stitch in dark green, No. 753, and the weaving in a paler green, No. 751, and have a white silk lining and pale green ribbon. And I am sure you will think of lots of other pretty colours you can use.

Perhaps you would rather work another kind of corner. Six others are shown, any of which you would be able to manage, I am sure. For four of them, you do not have to cut any threads. The one with the cross in the middle, Fig. 8, would be very quickly worked. The outer part of this is worked almost like the corner on the sachet, only there are no straight blocks in a row here, and you take 5 stitches over 5 threads for each block. Then you work 5 stitches over 5 threads each way into one hole in the middle for the centre cross.

Fig. 9 is another little corner, just like the one on the sachet, only instead of cutting any threads, you fill up alternate squares with satin-stitch blocks.

Then the star pattern, Fig. 10, is pretty and easy. You start by taking a stitch over 8 threads, then take one over 7, over 6, over 5, over 4, over 3, over 2. Now over 2 again, and so on, up to 8. Then start another row at right angles to the first, and two more rows in the same way. The long stitches in the middle are taken into the holes from which the short stitches were taken.

Another easy little design shows two straight rows of satin-stitch crossing two in opposite ways (Fig. 11).

Sometimes a few rows of blocks outside a design will improve it, and make it look bolder. This is the case with the open-work square, Fig. 12. A second row of blocks has been added outside the first, working the stitches the other way.

In the last open-work corner, Fig. 13, 4 stitches are taken over 4 threads, and 5 over 8 threads, then 4 over 5 threads again, and so on. All the threads are then cut away, except the 4 in the middle of each side, and these are woven as usual.

Now set to work and see what you can do. After a little practice, you will probably be able to make up some corners for yourself, but until you are quite sure of the work, it is better to practise those I have shown you.