"Needlework" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "all day .long. I never was fond of staying at home, or of reading, and needlework I absolutely hate. In fact, I do ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... self-effacing medium for creating facsimile impressions of drawings and for illustrating and decorating books, periodicals, and cheap popular broadsides. At its lowest ebb, in the late 17th century, and in the 18th, it was used to make patterns for workers in embroidery and needlework and to supply outlines for wallpaper designs to be filled in later ...
— John Baptist Jackson - 18th-Century Master of the Color Woodcut • Jacob Kainen
... fully made. Instead, his interest was abruptly diverted to that which he beheld reposing beneath its shadow. A girl was sitting, half reclining, against the dark old trunk, with a sewing basket at her side, and a perfect maze of white needlework ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... theological. It includes the study of the Bible, of the doctrine and discipline of the Salvation Army and the rules and regulations governing the labours of its Social Officers. In addition, these Cadets attend practical classes where they learn needlework, the scientific cutting out of garments, knitting, laundry work, first medical aid, nursing, and so forth. The course at this Institution takes ten months to complete, after which those Cadets who have passed the examinations are appointed to ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... ways. On the other side of the bed sat the manly form of Natty Grove. But who is that fair girl with the curling golden hair, whose face exhibits one continuous blush, and whose entire body, soul and spirit is apparently enchained by an insignificant piece of needlework? Can that be Nellie Grove, whom we last saw with her eyes shut and her mouth open—howling? Yes, it is she, and—but ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... necessary and join together again. What perplexes her is this. A friend assures her that there need be no more than four pieces in all to join up for the new quilt. Could you show her how this little needlework puzzle is to be solved ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... for boys and girls, and perhaps a little sewing for the latter. Their sign was—"Children taught to read and work here," and their furniture the cap and bells, the rod in pickle, and a corner for dunces. The finishing stroke was seen in the parlour of the inn, or the farm-house, in the shape of needlework as a samplar;—"Lydia Languish, her work, done at —— school, in the year of our Lord, 1809." Such were the schools in country places then in existence, the little ones doing nothing. In after-life, I thought a remedy was required and might be found, and therefore set about working ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... preparation of treacle and flour) which his brother would else have compelled him to share. Now that the days were longer, she had plenty of time to read; for although her so-called guardians made cutting remarks upon her idleness, they had not yet compelled her to nursing or needlework. If she had shown the least inclination to either, her liberty would have been gone from that moment; but, with the fear of James Dow before their eyes, they let her alone. As to her doing anything in the shop, she was far too much of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... THE NEEDLEWORK GUILD OF AMERICA was organized April, 1885, to collect new garments and distribute them to hospitals, homes and other charities, and to extend its usefulness by the organization of branches. It has distributed to hospitals, homes and other charities ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... his strong parvenu physiognomy, and my father at all ages. Underneath these works of art was a bookcase, in which I found all my father's school prizes, piously preserved. What a feeling of protection I derived from the portieres in green velvet, with long bands of needlework, my aunt's masterpieces, which hung in wide folds over the doors! With what admiration I regarded the faded carpet, with its impossible flowers, which I had so often tried to gather in my babyhood! This was one of the legends of my earliest years, one of ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... teach her to live in sympathy with all that is beautiful—comely landscapes, the ideal scenes of poetry and history, the emotional charm of noble music. I would make lovable to her everything I would wish her to love. Even her needlework I would make pleasurable to her, by a proper choice of fabrics, the style of embroideries, the designs of lace. I would give her a beautiful dog, and a pony to teach her how to manage animals; I would give her birds ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... o' money in d' fightin' game, an' I'm fightin' all for Hermy. If ever I get a champ, I'll have money to burn, an' then she'll never be shy on d' dollar question no more, you bet! There'll be no more needlework or Mulligan's for Hermy; it'll be a farm in d' country wid roses climbin' around, an' chickens, an'—an' automobiles, an' servants to come when she ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... comfort, or employment of women of every rank and age. Day by day, it increases its votaries, who enlarge and develop its various branches, so that any addition and assistance in teaching or learning Needlework will be welcomed by the Daughters of England, "wise of heart," who work ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... beverage is water. The men are extremely indolent; and all the laborious occupations, except that of procuring food, are performed by the women. They sew with the sinews of deer; and much of their needlework is very neat. The Esquimaux cannot reckon, numerically, beyond six; and their compound numbers reach no further than 21: all beyond this are ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... gentleman wears a portentous hat, which tickled the fancy of the Boxing-day people immensely. There were great speculations too among them as to whether the curious Tuscan pictures at the top of the stairs were "needlework" or not. Still, who shall say that these visitors were not the better for their visit, surrounded as they were by forms of beauty on every side, even if they did not examine them with ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... at the theater, she had noted the rich elaborateness of Mrs. Sohlberg's dainty frock, the endless pleatings of pale silk, the startling charm of the needlework and the ribbons—countless, rosetted, small—that meant hard work on the part of ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the Aquarium is more popular than Tank 14. Enthusiastic people will sit down here with needlework or luncheon, and calmly wait for a ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... was stooping over a piece of needlework beside a window in the Mellor drawing-room, trying to catch the rapidly failing light. It was one of the last days of December. Marcella had just come in from the village rather early, for they were expecting a visitor ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fourth day of their voyage. Here many choice curiosities were bought, such as "the picture of a man's voice," an "echo drawn to life," "Plato's ideas," some of "Epicurus's atoms," a sample of "Philome'la's needlework," and other objects of vertu to be obtained nowhere else.—Rabelais, Pantagruel, iv. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... lady's industry of needlework, plain or fancy, she got through an amazing quantity; but she was also, in her early years, of great use to her father, whose companion she had been in a literary life of great loneliness, by relieving ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... of Needlework dates from the earliest record of the world's history, and has, also, from time immemorial been the support, comfort, or employment of women of every rank and age. Day by day, it increases its votaries, who enlarge and develop its various branches, so that any addition and assistance ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... who had been directing her daughter's hands in some needlework, felt that the latter's attention ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... and mother should be. My father often referred to her as an example of the affection and love of a wife to her husband, and of a mother to her children. The only relic I possess of her handiwork is a sampler, dated 1743, the needlework of which is so delicate and neat, that to me it seems to excel everything of the kind ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... chirping around with a hundred inquiries about the packing of luggage which was then proceeding, with a view to the carriage that had been ordered for eleven o'clock. Mrs. Quiggin betrayed only the most languid interest in these hurrying operations, and settled herself with her needlework in a chair near to Jenny Crow. Jenny watched her, and thought, "Now, wouldn't she jump at a good excuse ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... knew no burdens of life save those they voluntarily assumed. The women who sewed night and day upon garments for field and hospital, were the same who were wont to employ their white hands with fragile china and heirloom plate, or dally with needlework in the morning room. These were the mothers who, standing by the slaughtered first-born, gave his sword to the next son, and bade him go at his country's call. There was the spirit of heroism not surpassed by the heroes of ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... woman, whether in the bud or in the blossom, as the plaything of man's idler moments, and the helpmeet—but in a humble capacity—of his daily life. He sometimes bade her go to the kitchen and take lessons of crusty Hannah in bread- making, sweeping, dusting, washing, the coarser needlework, and such other things as she would require to know when she came to be a woman; but carelessly allowed her to gather up the crumbs of such instruction as he bestowed on her playmate Ned, and thus learn to read, write, and cipher; which, to say the ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the 13th century began, there stood the great church—enriched by the accumulated offerings of centuries, and glowing with dazzling splendour of jewels and cloth of gold, and glass that glorified the very sunshine, and wonders of sculpture and colour and needlework filling the heart to overflowing with inexplicable hopes and longings for an ideal that seemed possible of realization, if only the Church in heaven should be as far removed above the actual of the Church on earth, as the glories of the Church on earth were removed above the ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... gone on for nearly a twelvemonth, to my infinite annoyance, when one day, as I was sitting at some needlework with my companion, Emily, as was my habit, in the parlour, the door opened, and my cousin Edward entered the room. There was something, I thought, odd in his manner, a kind of struggle between shame and impudence, a kind of flurry and ambiguity, which made him appear, ...
— Two Ghostly Mysteries - A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... but without logic or foresight. Look at that accursed Madame de Stael! Look at the Salons of the Quartier St. Germain! Their eternal clack, clack, clack give me more trouble than the fleet of England. Why cannot they look after their babies and their needlework? I suppose you think that these are very ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... single piece of leather, while the Ahirwars cut the front separately. The latter also ornament their shoes with fancy work consisting of patterns of silver thread on red cloth. No Ahirwar girl is married until she has shown herself proficient in this kind of needlework. [447] Another well-known group, found both in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere, are the Jaiswaras, who take their name from the old town of Jais in the United Provinces. Many of them serve as grooms, and are accustomed to state their ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... drops of water like a lump of chipped red granite in a shower. It was all very well for that old sea-dog to cry. He had to read on to the end; but after the splash he did not remember much of what happened for the next few days. An elderly sailor of the crew, deft at needlework, put together a mourning frock for the child out of one ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad
... be no very great misfortune, but Ellen was a silly little girl to think so, and so she was convinced when the poor woman said that Mary did needlework enough to keep her in shoes, and with the pennies she got by reading her book well at school she had bought two nice pinafores ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... risking a rupture with his own people who, certainly, would never tolerate Lalage; he was face to face with an ugly financial situation, almost penniless himself and with another dependent on him; and yet he felt more at peace than he had done for many months past. Lalage, intent on her needlework, frowning prettily over the large holes in his socks, looked so sweet and girlish, so entirely unsoiled, outwardly at least, by what she had been through, that it seemed as if, after all, there could be nothing ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... and dressing-table. The former held an ewer and basin of silver-gilt, much grander articles than Amphillis had ever seen, except in the goldsmith's shop. In front of the curtain was a bench with green silk cushions, and two small tables, on one of which lay some needlework; and by it, in another yellow satin chair, sat the solitary inhabitant of the chamber, a lady who appeared to be about sixty years of age. She was dressed in widow's mourning, and in 1372 that meant pure snowy white, with chin and forehead so ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... whole room was lighter and more feminine than Milly would have made it, but at bottom the taste that reigned there was more severe than her own. The only pictures on the panels were a few eighteenth century colored prints, already charming, soon to be valuable, and one or two framed pieces of needlework which harmonized ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... broadly, red is the colour for feasts of martyrs, white for virgins, violet for penitential seasons, &c.; no less than sixty-three different uses differing in details have been enumerated. A similar panel of needlework (the dossal) is suspended behind ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Here were girls and women, mostly young, in bright, cheery, and well-lighted rooms, going through all stages of graded and scientific instruction in the cutting and making of dresses, mantles, and underwear, plain needlework, and in all kinds of embroidery and lace-work. The use of a sewing-machine is taught in a term of two months, six lessons each week. Millinery in all branches, the making of the finest artificial flowers by French methods, ...
— In and Around Berlin • Minerva Brace Norton
... are equal, and he gives us a delightful impression of enjoying his own resources. Of all the painters of his time he affects us least as positively not of ours. He enjoyed a crimson mantle spreading and tumbling in curious folds and embroidered with needlework of gold, just as he enjoyed a handsome well-rounded head, with vigorous dusky locks, profiled in courteous adoration. He enjoyed in short the various reality of things, and had the good fortune to live in an age when reality flowered into a thousand ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... them to return to their homes for the summer. They made marked progress both in study and deportment, and before leaving for their homes passed a creditable examination both in their studies and in needlework. The fact was thus established to the astonishment of the citizens of Latakiah, that the Nusairiyeh girls were equal in intellect and skill in needlework to the brightest of the city girls. In the autumn of ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... did; but he took to growin' that spring, and I chanced to ask him to supply me with a couple o' good holders, but I found I'd touched dignity. He was dreadful put out. I suppose he was mos' too manly for me to refer to his needlework. Poor Marthy! how she laughed! I only said that about the holders for the sake o' sayin' somethin', but he remembered it against me ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... entrusted with the training of young children should not be, in reality. She had innumerable and admirable testimonials from various employers of what she termed "aristocratic standing"; endless certificates that testified unto her successful struggles in Music, Drawing, Needlework, German, French, Calisthenics, Caligraphy, and other mysteries, including the more decorous Sciences (against Physiology, Anatomy, Zoology, Biology, and Hygiene she set her face as subjects apt to be, at times, improper), and an appearance and manner ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... have been justified in regarding Mulvaney as mad. He was hatless and shoeless, and his shirt and trousers were dropping off him. But he wore one wondrous garment—a gigantic cloak that fell from collar-bone to heel—of pale pink silk, wrought all over in cunningest needlework of hands long since dead, with the loves of the Hindu gods. The monstrous figures leaped in and out of the light of the fire as he settled ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... her needlework beside the window, looked out and saw Mrs. Rhoda Meserve coming down the street, and knew at once by the trend of her steps and the cant of her head that she meditated turning in at her gate. She ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman
... no idea of the incredible amount of slippers sent (thousands of them); church vetements by the hundreds, embroidered by millions of women who must have worked themselves blind; the most exquisite articles of needlework, incrusted with pearls and precious stones which have probably cost a ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... what hands we hired to do that work? Who designed those beautiful patterns? They seem to stand up and move about, as if they were real—as if they were living things and not needlework. Well, man is a wonderful creature! And look, look, how charming he lies there on his silver couch, with just a soft down on his cheeks, that beloved Adonis—Adonis, whom one loves, even though ...
— Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... your Grace's mother, will have me essay to learn the maid needlework," added Juana ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... out, from the wrong side, when the lace will separate itself from the backing without difficulty; it has then to be damped and ironed also on the wrong side. (See the concluding chapter on the different processes for finishing off needlework). ...
— Encyclopedia of Needlework • Therese de Dillmont
... has taught the two elder ones to be wonderfully good when she is called off. 'The butcher, ma'am'; or, 'Mrs. Tyler wants to speak to you, ma'am'; or, 'Jane Cox is come for a hospital paper, ma'am.' Then early dinner, of all things detestable, succeeded by school needlework, mothers' meeting, and children's walk, combined with district visiting, or reading to old women. Church again, high tea, and evenings again pleasingly varied by choir practices, night schools, or silence, ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and men-at-arms who formed the garrison. The doors of these humble dwellings were mostly open, and against the yellow glare from within Alleyne could see the bearded fellows cleaning their harness, while their wives would come out for a gossip, with their needlework in their hands, and their long black shadows streaming across the yard. The air was full of the clack of their voices and the merry prattling of children, in strange contrast to the flash of arms and constant warlike challenge ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... as is said, "And thou shalt make an hanging for the door of the tent," etc., "of needle-work."(621) The words of R. Nehemiah. R. Nehemiah usually said, "every place where it is said cunning work (there were) two figures—in the needlework (there was) but one figure only." And the branches of the candlestick were right opposite to the breadth of the table. And the golden altar was placed in the middle of the house, and divided the house, and its half inward was right ...
— Hebrew Literature
... Square, the very extraordinary production of female genius, Miss Linwood's Gallery of Needlework promised a gratification to the Squire exceeding in novelty any thing which he had hitherto witnessed in the Metropolis. The two friends accordingly entered, and the anticipations of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... will be glad to see you again, dear girl. Did I tell you what old Mrs. Lester said to me? You remember her poor hands, all twisted with rheumatism and yet what beautiful needlework she does. She said, 'I should like to make her a pretty handkerchief, for a wedding gift. Do you think ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... no son in the field the Queen of England would be working for the soldiers. It is a part of the tradition of her house. But a good mother is a mother to all the world. When Queen Mary is supervising the great work of the Needlework Guild one feels sure that into each word of direction has gone a little additional tenderness, because of this boy of hers at ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Sunday, Lucy, after Sandy was safe in bed, brought down some needlework to do beside David while he read. It was not very long since she had induced herself to make so great a breach in the Sunday habits of her youth. As soon as David's ideals began to tease her out of thought and sympathy, ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they both loved where, protected by towering rocks, they spent many a happy hour. It was just out of reach of the sea, exposed to the sun and sheltered from the wind—an ideal spot; and here they brought letters, books, or needlework, and were busy or idle according ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... bear the punishment, without alloying Ermine's happiness while it lasted. How it could be so bright Alison knew not, but so it was she recognised by every tone of the voice, by every smile on the lip, by even the upright vigour with which Ermine sat in her chair and undertook Rachel's tasks of needlework. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be hardships through this and also that there would probably be a great waste of material if voluntary effort was not wisely guided. So she called at Buckingham Palace a committee of women to consider the position and Queen Mary's Needlework Guild was the outcome of it. The following official statement, issued on August 21, 1914, intimated the Queen's ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser
... pity your mother for being so much taken up with her patients. She, at all events, has something to occupy her." And addressing herself to Madame de Jonquiere, she added: "If you only knew how long we find the time in our fine first-class carriage. We cannot even occupy ourselves with a little needlework, as it is forbidden. I asked for a place with the patients, but all were already distributed, so that my only resource will be to try ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... the beautifully carved oak doors of the press and offered such a tempting sum for them that Aunt Janet had let them go, nailing a piece of old crested tapestry across the press to hide her books and needlework inside. They usually sat there together, Marcella reading or dreaming, Aunt Janet sewing or sitting listless, not even dreaming. But into Marcella's dreams had come frequent movements of her aunt's ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... himself into his old coon-skin coat and lay down on the box-sofa to think. Under his cheek he felt a hard object with strange protuberances. It was a cushion which Zeena had made for him when they were engaged—the only piece of needlework he had ever seen her do. He flung it across the floor and propped his head ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, "What's a convict?" Joe put his mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I could make out nothing of it but ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... embroidered with gold and gems, or lined with ermine, or stuff of various colours, in accordance with a text of Scripture: "The King's daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in a vesture of needlework." (Ps. xlv. 13.) In the Immaculate Conception, and in the Assumption, her tunic should be plain white, or white spangled with golden stars. In the subjects relating to the Passion, and after the Crucifixion, the dress of the Virgin should ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... of one Tom Mattocks, in Rhode Island; but he'd never hearn of his having any brother. So with Mrs. Wheelwright—Mr. Syntax was equally a stranger to her. But she had seen some coarse pieces of embroidery from the rustic pupils of country boarding schools, and knew that they were needlework, of some sort. She therefore set herself to teaching that elegant branch of the fine arts. The first group attempted, was a family picture—a mother and her six children at the tomb of their deceased ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... It's too bad to miss a chance because we cannot interpret the metaphor in which some bashful swain thinks it decorous to couch his proposals; and I once knew a young lady who, happening to dislike needlework, and replying in the negative to the insidious question, "Can you sew a button?" never knew for months that she had actually declined a man she was really fond of, with large black whiskers, and two-and-twenty hundred a year. Women can't be ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... she hath ever sat, to welcome him,' young Margrett noticed. The thunder rumbled ominously overhead. The first big drops fell from the gloomy clouds that had been gathering for hours; while upstairs, in her panelled chamber, a big tear splashed on the delicate cambric needlework that lay between the elder Margaret's fingers, before she laid it aside and descended the shallow, oaken stairs ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... the public, and old Jasper nursed it as a social pension. But it did not bring in revenue sufficient to sustain life, so he made a pretense of collecting difficult accounts while his wife and "old maid" daughter did needlework and attended to the few wants of one boarder, Sam Lyman. The "banker's society" recognized the Staggs family in the evening of the day which followed Sam Lyman's call at the First National, and was in excitable progress while Lyman, in ignorance ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... her native tongue, and she sang English songs and ballads. The passing Indian ceremonials she knew, and the perishing traditions. The tribal dress of the daughter of a chief she knew how to wear upon occasion. But for the most part she dressed as white women dress. Not for nothing was her needlework at the Mission and her innate artistry. She carried her clothes like a white woman, and she made clothes that could be ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... made her throw herself more than she might otherwise have done on His fatherly care, and she felt her heart lightened in a way she had not supposed possible. She had abundance of occupation; for Mrs Treviss was accustomed to take in needlework, to assist her limited means, and as her eyesight had of late become dim, Jessie endeavoured to relieve her by labouring ...
— The Two Shipmates • William H. G. Kingston
... be said to be self-educated. Her schooling had been of the narrow type afforded by a 'decayed gentlewoman' in a neighbouring large village, who had undertaken to instruct her pupils in reading, writing, and arithmetic, with fine needlework ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... tires—it is hung in a large finishing room in the newer building over a glass screen lighted with sixteen electric lights which shine through the texture of the material and reveal its slightest defect. After it has been rolled over the screen, it is sent to girls who remedy these defects by needlework. ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... remark rang through the hall, drowning the muttered response of the comedian, Leta glided softly and rapidly from behind the screen of tapestry which veiled the open doorway. There, crouching out of sight, she had remained concealed for the last hour—watching the revellers through a crevice in the needlework, and vainly hoping, either in the words or face of Sergius, to detect some tone or expression indicative of regretful thought or recollection of herself. When at last her name had been mentioned, for a moment she had eagerly held her breath, lest she might lose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... pastures when she should be doing other things. Mrs. Thacher, perhaps unconsciously, had looked for some trace of the father's good breeding and gentlefolk fashions, but this was not a child who took kindly to needlework and pretty clothes. She was fearlessly friendly with every one; she did not seem confused even when the minister came to make his yearly parochial visitation, and as for the doctor, he might have been her own age, for all humility she thought it necessary to show in the presence of this chief ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... little meagre woman, who did not speak very good English, and who appeared to me to employ the major part of her time in bawling out from the top of the stairs to the servants below. I never saw her either read a book or occupy herself with needlework, during the whole time I was in the house. She had a large grey parrot, and I really cannot tell which screamed the worse of the two—but she was very civil and kind to me, and asked me ten times a day when I had last heard of my grandfather, Lord Privilege. ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... Spanish wines, cloth of gold and silver, French shaggs, fine Norwich stuffs, light armour, emeralds, and other precious stones set in enamel, fine arras hangings, large looking glasses, bows and arrows, figures in brass and stone, fine cabinets, embroidered purses, needlework, French tweezer cases, perfumed gloves, belts, girdles, bone lace, dogs, plumes of feathers, comb cases richly set, prints of kings, cases of strong waters, drinking and perspective glasses, fine basons and ewers, &c. &c. In consequence of the privileges granted the East India Company ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... clear and frost touched. He left his horse in the lane and walked up to the house. As he came on to the porch he looked in through the window. The bright fire on the hearth, the soft glow of the shaded lamp, and the fair-haired girl seated by a table, needlework in hand, gave him a hunger for a hearth of ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... village library she had read, as well as those in the possession of her aunt. She had tried needlework, problems of patience, and the translation of a few chapters of an Italian novel into English in order to occupy her time. But those hours when she was alone in her little upstairs room with the sloping roof ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Own Paper" contains 848 pages of interesting and useful reading. Stories by popular writers; Music by eminent Composers; Practical Papers for Young Housekeepers; Medical Papers by a well-known Practitioner; Needlework, Plain and Fancy; Helpful Papers for Christian Girls; Papers on Reasonable and Seasonable Dress, etc., etc. Profusely Illustrated. Price 8s. handsome cloth; 9s. 6d. gilt ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... College for Girls.' Seeing a sign of this sort, I rang the door-bell of the house to which it was attached, entered, and was told the lady was at home. As I waited for her, I took up the 'Prospectus,' and it was enough,—'music, dancing, drawing, needlework, and English' were the prominent features, and the pupils were children. All well enough,—but why ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... experience. One day, during recreation, the portress came to ask for a Sister to help her. I had a childish longing to do this work, and it happened the choice fell upon me. I therefore began to fold up our needlework, but so slowly that my neighbour, who I knew would like to take my place, was ready before me. The Sister who had asked for help, seeing how deliberate I was, said laughingly: "I thought you would not add this pearl to your ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... boarded a trolley and in a short time reached the Fair grounds, which offered many attractions to Ralph as well as Mary. The latter was interested in the fine display of needlework, fruits, flowers and vegetables of unusual size. Aunt Sarah's bread won a prize. A blue ribbon attached to Frau Schmidt's highly-prized, old-fashioned, patchwork quilt, showed it to be a winner. Ralph, being ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... the faggots nearer, while one hides from the heat of the fire behind his shield, and another, already dead, is consumed by the flames. Above in a gallery of marble, decked with beautiful rugs and hangings of needlework, the sultan looks on astonished amid his courtiers. Or it is the story of our Lord he tells us: how in the evening Mary set out from Nazareth mounted on a mule, her little son in her arms, Joseph following afoot, with a pipkin for the fire in the wilderness, and a fiasco of wine lest they ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... Dennistoun could not help but see the lonely figure in her own foreground, against the brightness of all the entertainments in which Elinor should appear as a queen. They were sitting thus, the mother employed at some fine needlework for the daughter, the daughter doing little, as is usual nowadays. They had been talking over Lady Mariamne and her requirements again, and had come to an end of that subject. What a pity that it was so hard to open the door of their two ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... in southern Texas. With the coming of prosperity Clint had sent his children to Tennessee to school, and Ramona had been patiently trained to the feebleness of purpose civilization in those days demanded of women of her class and section. She had been taught to do fancy needlework and to play the piano as a parlor accomplishment. It had been made plain to her that her business in life was to marry and keep the home fires burning, and her schooling had been designed, not to prepare her as a mate for her future husband, but to fit her with the little graces ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... explanation of which, we may say that the mother, having something in her power during her husband's life, had foreseen the advantages of using it in the instruction of her quick and intelligent daughter in an art of far more importance then than now—that of artistic, needlework. Nay, of so much importance was this beautiful art, and to such perfection was it brought at a time when a lady's petticoat, embroidered by the hand, with its profuse imitations of natural objects, flowers, and birds, and strange devices, would often cost twenty pounds Scots, that a sight of one ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... stood by the coffers wherein were her robes of curious needlework which she herself had wrought. Then Helen, the fair lady, lifted one and brought it out, the widest and most beautifully embroidered of all, and it shone like a star, and lay far beneath ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... Great Britain are very much oblig'd to you for putting them upon such tedious Drudgeries in Needlework as were fit only for the Hilpa's and the Nilpa's that lived before the Flood. Here's a stir indeed with your Histories in Embroidery, your Groves with Shades of Silk and Streams of Mohair! I would have you to know, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... on the subject of the children"—her eyes blinked hard—"which Hugo did not share. We throw out the hint, then, that Clara, during the course of the dispute—we must call it a dispute—accidentally took up this dagger and toyed with it. You know her habit of toying, when she had no knitting or needlework. In the course of playing with it (we suggest) she tried to pull the knife out of its sheath; failed; held it up, so, point upward; pulled again; pulled harder—with a jerk, at last the sheath came off; the dagger sprang up; it wounded ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... to the nervous incomer to be met, the door still in his hand, by a sound as of people springing suddenly into the air, followed by a weird scuttling of feet, and then to discover the occupants sitting stiffly in opposite corners, deeply engaged in book or needlework. But, as I have said, with regard to some households, such ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... fashion in Whitechapel. She is short with very strong calves. Her jaunty husband comes behind, with his red bonnet or turban cocked on one side, the sword and red tasselled bag hung from his left shoulder. The square Kachin bag or satchel is a pure joy of bright threads and patches and wonderful needlework, and is a little suggestive of a magnificent sporran. His expression is said to be sly, but I don't think so. His head is held straight on a longish neck for his size, his dark, slightly oblique eyes are wide open and mildly startled looking—ditto his mouth, he is ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... mistress had to live a week alternately at each house, and went from thence to her school, but she found this so uncomfortable that she ended by sleeping at home every night. She struggled on, teaching in various schools, doing needlework in after-hours, trying to improve herself, and always contending with great delicacy of health, which must have made it most trying to cope with what she calls in one of her letters "a little regiment of wild cats" for about seven years, when some of the friends she had made obtained of two ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... to-day, the quilt is the result of combining two kinds of needlework, both of very ancient origin, but widely different in character. Patchwork—the art of piecing together fabrics of various kinds and colours or laying patches of one kind upon another, is a development of the primitive desire for adornment. Quilting—the method of fastening together ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... glass case on a side-table; there were ancient candlesticks on the mantelpiece and an antique snuff-box set between them. Also there was a small, old-fashioned bar in a corner of the room, and a new-fashioned young woman seated behind it, who was yawning over a piece of fancy needlework, and looked at Spargo when he entered as Andromeda may have looked at Perseus when he made arrival at her rock. And Spargo, treating himself to a suitable drink and choosing a cigar to accompany it, noted the look, and dropped into the ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... the same pleasant place as ever, only little Em'ly and I seldom wandered on the beach now. She had tasks to learn, and needlework to do. During the visit I had a great surprise, which was no less than Peggotty's marriage to the carrier who had taken me on so many trips, and whose affections it seemed, had long been fastened upon Peggotty. He took ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... cottage. It had been let when I knew it, to a poor invalid woman and her only child, a boy about nine or ten years old. They were very poor, this mother and son; and the little living they had, came mostly by means of needlework, which the woman did for people in the town, and by the sale of dried herbs and suchlike. As for the cottage itself, it was a crazy, tumble-down tenement, half in ruins, and all the outside walls of it were covered with clinging ivies and weeds and wild climbing plants. I was one of these. I grew ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... old women in former days, but now almost a lost art. Tambayang was used for the uppers of sleeves for fiesta, and it formed the scarf worn by mothers to carry the baby. There is a taboo on young women doing this special sort of needlework. ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... a slender pink forefinger. "See how it is pricked! For three Saturday afternoons I have shown little girls that smelled of fried potatoes how to sew. I shall really learn something myself about the feminine art of needlework if I continue in my present straight, ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... when the rain was falling drearily, they chanced to see a woman stagger and drop on the pavement before their door, and, hurrying to her assistance, discovered that she had swooned from exhaustion. A bundle of unfinished needlework was hidden under her shawl, and they soon ascertained that she was delirious from some low typhus fever that had utterly prostrated her. For several weeks she was dangerously ill, and was just able to sit up when Mr. Minge discovered ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... once, during this fortnight, that she would be able to devote only a fraction of her day to flagmaking. But he was at the end of his tether by the time a parcel and a letter were left for him at the store—again by hand: little Polly had plainly no sixpences to spare. The needlework as perfect, of course; he hardly glanced at it, even when he had opened and read the letter. This was of the same decorous nature as the first. Polly returned a piece of stuff that had remained over. He had really sent material enough for two flags, she wrote; ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... summoned Basil. The room in which she sat was hung with pictured tapestry, representing Christ and the Apostles; crude work, but such as had pleased Faltonia Proba, whose pious muse inspired her to utter the Gospel in a Virgilian canto. And at Aurelia's side, bending over a piece of delicate needlework, sat the Gothic maiden, clad in white, her flaxen hair, loosely held with silk, falling behind her shoulders, shadowing her forehead, and half hiding the little ears. At Basil's entrance she did not look up; at the first sound of his voice she bent her head yet lower, ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... On the floor below dwelt at present two sisters who kept themselves alive (it is quite inaccurate to use any other phrase in such instances) by doing all manner of skilful needlework; they were middle-aged women, gentle-natured, and so thoroughly subdued to the hopelessness of their lot that scarcely ever could even their footfall be heard as they went up and down stairs; their voices were always sunk to a soft ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... that the Competitions for the year now closing have been so popular with you, and I heartily thank you on behalf of the little ones in the Hospitals—among whom the articles of Needlework, Dolls, Illuminated Texts, Scrap Albums, Toys of various kinds, and the hundreds of Illustrated Story-books written by yourselves, which you have sent to me, will be distributed at Christmas—for all the trouble and care you have so lovingly bestowed on ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... sought the lace-work held in her busy fingers. Mademoiselle de Clericy had, I remembered, worn a piece of such dainty needlework at her throat on the previous morning. I learnt to look for that piece of ever-growing lace-work in later days. Madame was never without it, and worked quaint patterns, learnt in a convent on the pine-clad ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... appeared, all over gay, But wanton, full of pride, and full of play; The world can't shew a dye but here has place; Nay, by new mixtures, she can change her face; Purple and gold are both beneath her care, The richest needlework she loves to wear; Her only study is to please the eye, And to ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Elsie resumed her studies regularly, reciting as before to her father; while Rose undertook to instruct her in the more feminine branches of housekeeping and needlework, and a master came from the city several times a week to give her lessons in music and drawing. She had been so long without regular employment that she found it very difficult at first to give her mind to her studies, as she had done in former days; but her father, though kind and considerate, ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... were in London," she stammered, moving forward and holding out her hand mechanically. "Please come and sit down." She cleared a chair of the miscellaneous needlework upon it. ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... woven, with a pile like velvet, and with stitches on the back that resemble needlework. A rug has scarcely reached its prime until it has been down ten years; and it should last for centuries, if carefully used. As a partial explanation of this wonderful durability, it should be remembered that in their own homes the Persians use their ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... clearness to his brain. In the evenings, he wrote in the little log house by the river, with Auntie Sue sitting in her chair beside the table,—the lamp-light on her silvery hair, and her sewing-basket within reach of her hand,—engaged with some bit of needlework, a book, or perhaps with one of her famous letters to some other pupil, far away. The stormy days gave him many hours with his pen, and ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... learning, and perhaps the most learned woman that ever lived. The Frenchman Naud says of her, "You find in her alone all that the hand can fashion or the mind conceive. No one paints better, no one works better in brass, wax, and wood. In needlework she excels all women past or present. It is impossible to say in what branch of knowledge she is most distinguished. Not content with the European languages, she understands Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and writes Latin so well that no one who has devoted his whole ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... were one glory of warmth and color this sunny November morning in 1565, and there were signs of unusual activity in the Campo San Rocco before the great church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, which, if only brick without, was all glorious within, "in raiment of needlework" and "wrought gold." And outside, the delicate tracery of the cornice was like a border of embroidery upon the sombre surface; the sculptured marble doorway was of surpassing richness, and the airy grace of the campanile detached itself against the entrancing blue of the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... great source of superiority was, after all, in the men themselves. The English sailor was then, as now, a quite amphibious and all-cunning animal, capable of turning his hand to everything, from needlework and carpentry to gunnery or hand-to-hand blows; and he was, moreover, one of a nation, every citizen of which was not merely permitted to carry arms, but compelled by law to practise from childhood the use of the bow, and accustomed to consider sword-play and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... a dozen men in front, firing guns and shouting, then came the women, with light veils of gauze over their faces, singing shrilly, and in the midst of them, in gay attire, but half-concealed with long, dark mantles, the bride and "the virgins, her companions, in raiment of needlework." ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... in the national election but this year, where the presidential candidates were mentioned once, Levine and his opponent were mentioned a hundred times. Ministers preached sermons on the campaign. The Ladies' Aid Society of the Methodist Church, the Needlework Guild of the Episcopalian, the Woman's Auxiliary of the Unitarian, hereditary enemies, combined forces to work for Levine, and the freeing of the ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... not exactly the head and font of piety at Littlebath. It was not on his altars, not on his chiefly, that hecatombs of needlework were offered up. He was only senior curate to the great high-priest, to Dr. Snort himself. But though he was but curate, he was more perhaps to Littlebath—to his especial set in Littlebath—than most rectors are ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... beside Mrs. Swordsley, her bead slightly bent above the needlework with which on these occasions it was her old-fashioned habit to employ herself—Isabel also had doubtless her reflections to make. As Wrayford leaned back in his corner and looked at her across ...
— The Choice - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... attend the college lectures, they row in a boat, and they perambulate the High Street. They are even offering a serious competition against the men. Last year they carried off the ping-pong championship and took the chancellor's prize for needlework, while in music, cooking and millinery the men are said ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... assistance, the plan of escape was arranged. In the company of a lady friend—and also of her husband, now scared and penitent, but fearing to let her out of his sight—she drove to a neighbouring convent, ostensibly to inspect the nuns' needlework. On reaching her destination she ran up the convent steps, entered the building, and the door was slammed and bolted behind her in the very face of Charles Edward, who had followed as fast as his dropsical legs would ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... and comfortative of the natural member. The exiture, outjecting or outstanding, of his codpiece was of the length of a yard, jagged and pinked, and withal bagging, and strutting out with the blue damask lining, after the manner of his breeches. But had you seen the fair embroidery of the small needlework purl, and the curiously interlaced knots, by the goldsmith's art set out and trimmed with rich diamonds, precious rubies, fine turquoises, costly emeralds, and Persian pearls, you would have compared it to a fair cornucopia, or horn of abundance, such as you see in antiques, or ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... his store of guttah. The cover was off, with no one near by, and the whole of my crew just missed going heels over head into that beastly hole. Jurumudi Itam, our best quartermaster, deft at fine needlework, he who mended the ship's flags and sewed buttons on our coats, was disabled by a ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... floor, however, there were two rooms suitable for Madame Bridau and Joseph. Old Hochon now repented that he had kept them furnished with two beds, each bed accompanied by an old armchair of natural wood covered with needlework, and a walnut table, on which figured a water-pitcher of the wide-mouthed kind called "gueulard," standing in a basin with a blue border. The old man kept his winter store of apples and pears, medlars and quinces on heaps of straw in these rooms, where the rats and mice ran riot, so that ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... examining we have seen something of the outdoor life of the French peasants, and now we are shown the interior of one of their houses, where a Knitting Lesson is being given. The girls of the French peasantry are taught only the plainest kinds of needlework. They have to begin to make themselves useful very early in life, and knitting is a matter of special importance. In these large families many pairs of stockings are needed, and all must be homemade. This is work which ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... Caerlleon upon Usk; and one day he sat in his chamber; and with him were Owain the son of Urien, and Kynon the son of Clydno, and Kai the son of Kyner; and Gwenhwyvar and her hand-maidens at needlework by the window. And if it should be said that there was a porter at Arthur's palace, there was none. Glewlwyd Gavaelvawr was there, acting as porter, to welcome guests and strangers, and to receive them ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... supper; but father was dead now. She had seen the pretty daisies growing above his grassy grave in that distant churchyard; and the mother, who had come up to London hoping to do better, was so ill and weak, scarcely able to do the needlework with which to ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... don't care who, offered me her hand and I saw that the first finger was smooth I'd refuse to take it! Beryl must needs weigh in with, "But, my dear Blanche, she wouldn't offer you her left hand! It's the left forefinger that gets punished in needlework." "The principle is the same," I answered coldly. "And besides, some people are left-handed." Beryl has decent qualities, I know, and one doesn't want to find fault with anyone just now, but she was always like that—and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... gardens or in the inclosed park, which recreation lasted only a short while, and her Majesty soon returned to her apartments, and occupied herself with embroidery, while talking with her ladies, like herself, occupied with some kind of needlework. When it happened that they were not interrupted by visits, between two and three o'clock in the afternoon the Empress took a drive in an open barouche; and on her return from this the grand toilet took place, at which the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... habitations have become an interesting museum in Herning. This little mid-Jutland town is in the centre of the moors, so its museum contains a unique collection from the homes of these sturdy peasants. The amount of delicate needlework these lonely, thrifty folks accomplished in the long winter days is surprising. This "Hedebo" needlework is the finest stitchery you can well imagine, wrought on home-spun linen with flaxen thread. Such ...
— Denmark • M. Pearson Thomson
... chap? A year or more? It's a rotten big place where gentlemen aspire to sell gloves and handkerchiefs and needlework over the shop counters. At any rate, that's what every one said every one else was doing, and advised me to—to get a situation doing the same. You know, Tazzy, I couldn't well afford to starve and I wouldn't sell things, so I came away. But it's ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... dwells its usual inmate—the door of the house was merely on the latch: so I entered and ascended the moon-lit staircase. The door of the inhabited room was ajar: looking in, I saw Lucy sitting as at work at the table on which the light stood; the implements of needlework were about her, but her hand had fallen on her lap, and her eyes, fixed on the ground, shewed by their vacancy that her thoughts wandered. Traces of care and watching had diminished her former attractions—but her simple dress and cap, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... cup and brought it to the end of the table, for she loved to wait on the old man. As she did so, his sharp eyes caught the glitter of a piece of needlework across the back of her chair, and with a curt gesture ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... old-fashioned school every morning, where she learned to work samplers as well as to read and spell. They used to tell that, at the age of seven, she came home one day with two prizes which she had taken. One was for scholarship, and one was for neatness in her needlework. When she brought them home, her grandmother (that is your great-great-grandmother, you know) praised her for the first; but her grandfather (the one whose portrait Stuart shot) said: 'Nay, it is for the neatness that ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... tells us of Margaret's favourite occupations, mentioning that when she was alone in her room she more often held a book in her hand than a distaff, a pen than a spindle, and the ivory of her tablets than a needle. He then adds: "And if she applied herself to tapestry or other needlework, such as was to her a pleasant occupation, she had beside her some one who read to her, either from a historian or a poet, or some other notable and useful author; or else she dictated some meditation ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... he came home, she proposed, as an emergency measure, that she should resume her needlework and help keep the pot boiling until the strike was over. But Billy would hear ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... aside from the fact that he had been devoted to little Lucy's mother, it never occurred to him to marry again. Little Lucy talked no more than Miss Martha, and nobody dreamed that she sometimes wanted somebody to talk to her. Nobody dreamed that the dear little girl, studying her lessons, learning needlework, trying very futilely to play the piano, was lonely; but she was without knowing it herself. Martha was so kind and so still; and her father was so kind and so still, engrossed in his papers or books, often sitting by ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... profusion. At one place we stopped to examine some most exquisite ivory carvings, as delicate in tracery as frost on a window pane. Next we lingered before a shop where the women of our party went into raptures over the exquisite gowns and the beautiful needlework displayed. Here are shown padded silks of the most delicate shades, on which deft fingers have embroidered the ever-present Chinese stork and cherry blossoms, as realistic as if painted ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... wind is blowing without—MADAME, seated by the fireside in a large armchair, is engaged in needlework —MONSIEUR, seated in front of her, is watching the flames of the ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... of an intellectual hobby, they knew nothing. With much pains and labour they had been drilled in arts and sciences, in languages and "the usual branches of an English education." But, apart from social duties and amusements, the chief occupation of their lives was needlework. I have known many people who never received proper instruction in music or drawing, who yet, from what they picked up of either art by their own industry and intelligence, nearly doubled the happiness of their daily lives. But in vain had "the first masters" made my cousins glib ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... abroad that any man shall hear or read of. Many of the gentlewomen have sound knowledge of Greek and Latin, and are skillful in Spanish, Italian, and French; and the noblemen even surpass them. The old ladies of the court avoid idleness by needlework, spinning of silk, or continual reading of the Holy Scriptures or of histories, and writing diverse volumes of their own, or translating foreign works into English or Latin; and the young ladies, when they ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... stirred the love in their hearts; though they knew it no more than the soup in the pipkin knows why it bubbles and boils. For it cannot see the fire. But to them she did not seem old; her strength and eagerness were still upon her, and that silver needlework with which time broiders all men had in her its special beauty, setting her aloof in the unabandoned dream which the young so often desert as their youth deserts them. Those of her age, seeing that unyouthful ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Needlework had a strenuous approver in Dr. Johnson, who said "that one of the great felicities of female life was the general consent of the world that they might amuse themselves with petty occupations, which contributed to the lengthening their lives, and preserving their minds in a state of sanity." ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... sort of person." In return for Martha's kindness to him Arthur brought her books and magazines when he found that Martha now spent most of her time reading instead of working at the never-ending needlework. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... staircase went up at either side of the entrance, meeting in a bridge on the first floor. The huge drawing-room was on the ground floor to the right and was hung with tapestries representing birds and foliage. All the furniture was covered with fine needlework tapestry illustrating La Fontaine's fables, and Jeanne was delighted at finding a chair she had loved as a child, which pictured the story of ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... extremely pleasant, and even touching,—at least, of very sweet, soft, and winning effect,—in this peculiarity of needlework, distinguishing women from men. Our own sex is incapable of any such by-play aside from the main business of life; but women—be they of what earthly rank they may, however gifted with intellect or genius, or endowed with ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pleasant even in winter. And at the back, looking into the gardens and orchards, was a pleasant porch, a very large one, grown with roses as well as ivy, wherein Althea and I have spent many a happy hour in summer-time, sitting there with our needlework or our lutes. I can see it in fancy, and would very fain be in it, looking on our lily beds and green walks and arbours, instead of these hot and dreary streets. But it's too likely I shall never see West Fazeby or any other pleasant ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... intentions, Alfaretta carefully set the burned pudding back on the stove, wherein the wood fire had nearly gone out, and sat down to her task of needlework. In reality, she was a very tired little girl. Madam was daintily neat and vigorous for a woman of her years. Never very robust, she still exercised what strength she had in a ceaseless round of sweeping and ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... directions as to going into debt, etc. We prayed together, and had a very happy meeting. They all seemed comfortable. Twelve shillings sixpence was taken out of the boxes in the three houses, twelve shillings one of the laborers gave, and one pound one shilling had come in for needlework done by the children. One of the sisters, who is engaged in the work, sent a message after me, not to trouble myself about her salary, for she should not want ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller
... house, and to make a nest where my mother, my little girl, and I could live happily together. The difficulty was the "something"; I spent various shillings in agencies, with a quite wonderful unanimity of failures. I tried to get some fancy needlework, advertised as an infallible source of income to "ladies in reduced circumstances"; I fitted the advertisement admirably, for I was a lady, and my circumstances were decidedly reduced, but I only earned 4s. 6d. by weeks of stitching, ...
— Autobiographical Sketches • Annie Besant
... of father, who was away at sea at the time; but, in a weak moment she once confessed she had started the bird-keeping business more for the sake of having her hands employed than anything else, she not being partial to needlework, like most west-country women, while she was particularly ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... the pouched turkey had been devoted to her whim. Every stitch was neatly set. I praised her beautiful needlework, and she said she would make ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... sitting-room at Burwood Catherine Elsmere and Mary were sitting, the one with her book, the other with her needlework, while the snow and wind outside beat on the little house. But Catharine's needlework often dropped unheeded from her fingers; and the pages of Mary's book remained unturned. The postman who brought letters up the dale in the morning, and took ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... near relations than a collection for public eyes to see; but that makes the poignant charm of it. I could have sobbed on a pink print frock with a cape, such as Jane Eyre might have worn at Thornfield, and on bits of unfinished needlework, simple lace collars, and water-colour sketches with which Charlotte tried to brighten the walls of her austere home. There was the poor dear's wedding shawl, and a little checked silk dress of which I'm sure she was innocently proud; a few fantastic ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... nice of you, Magsie," Rachael said, watching her closely, and conscious still of that absurd flutter at her heart. Both women had seated themselves, now Rachael reached for the silk- lined basket where she kept a little pretence of needlework, and began to sew. There were several squares of dark rich silks in the basket, and their touch seemed to give ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... ranging apparently from eight to twelve in age. They had good play-ground set off for them, and shady galleries to walk up and down in. Coming from their quarter, the girls' department seemed quiet enough. Here was going on the eternal task of needlework, to which the sex has been condemned ever since Adam's discovery of his want of wardrobe. Oh, ye wretched, foolish women! why will ye forever sew? "We must not only sew, but be thankful to sew; that little needle being, as the sentimental Curtis has said, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... burning on the hearth, and a man sat by it. A woman was engaged at needlework by the light of ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... what he told me,' replied her mother, leaving her and taking up a piece of needlework that lay on the table. She could not be idle. 'That was what he told me,' she repeated thoughtfully. 'And I answered that he ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... still, and the air had been close in the choir during the Benediction service, which was just over. She leaned back in her chair, and her lips parted as she breathed, with a perceptible desire for refreshment in the breath. She held a piece of needlework in her heavy white hands; the needle had been thrust through the linen, but the stitch had remained unfinished, and one pointed finger pressed the doubled edge against the other, lest the material should slip before she made up her mind to draw the needle through. Deep in ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... chap. 15. By this account, the court had profited by the example of the queen. The sober way of life practised by the ladies of Elizabeth's court appears from the same author. Reading, spinning, and needlework occupied the elder; music the younger. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... her, was an Englishwoman by birth, but had married a French refugee whom circumstances had obliged to become French teacher in the school. Madame was a handsome woman, with bright eyes and a very dignified presence. Mary tells us that she danced remarkably well, played and sang and did fine needlework, and "spoke well and agreeably in English and in French without fear." Mrs. Latournelle was a funny, old-fashioned body, whose chief concern was with the housekeeping, tea-making, and other domestic duties. She had a cork leg, and her dress had never been known to ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... year or two, or three, hopelessly involved in debt, a life time of labor would fail to cancel. Many, from pride, resort to this means of getting a living, because—why I never could comprehend—taking boarders is thought to be more genteel than needlework or keeping a small store for ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... that just at this period, it being vacation-time, we were paying a visit to a family in the neighborhood. A few hours after the receipt of the welcome letter, my wife chanced to call on Esther relative to some fancy needlework; and on her return, I was of course favored with very full and florid details of this little bit of cottage romance; the which I, from regard to the reader, have carefully noted down, and as ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren |
