Page:Embroidery and Fancy Work.djvu/129



The heading of this chapter will, to most readers, I fancy, bring to mind the leather work so fashionable some years ago, which consisted in cutting out leaves, flowers, etc., from sheet leather, and, after veining and moulding them into graceful and natural positions, glueing them on to a foundation. This work was sometimes left the natural color of the leather, but more often was stained almost black. Some of the work done was very beautiful, but it soon went out of favor, and little of it is now seen. The art of making it is very simple, hardly requiring directions. The leaves (which were the most desirable objects to be copied) are cut out, and while damp, veined with a bodkin or a tooling wheel (a tracing wheel without the sharp points), bent into shape and mounted on stems. These stems, as in wax flowers, are made of fine wire, covered, however, with thin leather instead of silk. Tendrils are made of narrow strips of leather, well dampened in salt or alum water, and rolled about a round stick to dry. The leaves are stretched over any suitable curved surface, such as the bowl of a spoon, a ball, etc., to give the desired shape. Sometimes moulding with the fingers is all that 125