Interest In Needlework

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19130, 26 September 1936, Page 10

Interest In Needlework

r\V late, since her engagements have been fewer, Queen Mary has had more time to indulge hu her-favourite pastime, writes a London correspondent. She works complicated designs for chairs and cushions in tapestry stitch while her ladies-in-waiting read to her. The eighteenth-century, which is influencing both fashions and decorations at the moment, has been chosen both by the Queen and .other members of tlie Royal Family for their needlework designs. A Queen Anne design for a cushion cover is the latest piece of embroidery which the Queen'litis ordered from the Royal School of Needlework. It shows a delicate tracery ot flowers worked in old tapestry colours. An Aubusson carpet at Harcwood is being copied for chair covers which the Princess Royal is making. Copyists from' the Royal School of Needlework were sent down to her home to take a design of the carpet. The Duchess ,of Gloucester has chosen for her needlework a Chinese Chippendale design for a set of eight chairs. The panels have for their central figure a Chippendale dragon, surrounded by twined branches and flowers. The embroidery will be carried ont in soft reds and greens.

In country houses, trans-Atlantic liners and New York flats, women are working on the old English designs.

London hostesses and American visitors to Britain alike are choosing quilting as their chief form of needlework. They find that this old-fashioned embroidery worked on curtains, bedspreads and cushion covers harmonises perfectly with modern mirror glass decorations in their homes.