"Stitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and worn, With eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, Plying her needle and thread,— Stitch! stitch! stitch! In poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch She sang the "Song of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... must knit Louis some neckties. The silk-sweater-stitch would do. Married in a traveling-suit. One of those smart dark-blue twills like Mrs. Gronauer Junior's. Top-coat—sable. Louis' hair thinning. Tonic. Oh God, let me sleep. Please, God. The wheeze rising in her closed throat. That little threatening ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... days at sea before we saw a sail, So we clapped on every stitch would stand, although it blew a gale, And we walked along full fourteen knots, for the barkie she did know As well as ever a soul on board, 'twas time for ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... I've expended all my money in buying clothes of this good lady here," explained Downy, pointing to the fat, old bumboat woman. "I hadn't a stitch to my back and had to get a rig-out ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... rolled up her knitting slowly: "It was just at the turn of the chain," she grumbled, "and I have lost a stitch in the counting. The master can come in ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... start out on races that were simply tests of endurance, running on and on along a public road over the breezy hills like hounds, without stopping or getting tired. The only serious trouble we ever felt in these long races was an occasional stitch in our sides. One of the boys started the story that sucking raw eggs was a sure cure for the stitches. We had hens in our back yard, and on the next Saturday we managed to swallow a couple of eggs apiece, a disgusting job, but we would do almost anything to mend ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... him and searched with the touch of experts every stitch of his clothing, ripped the lining of his coat, opened the soles of his shoes, split the heels and found nothing. He had been ordered to dress and given permission to go, when suddenly the officer conducting the ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... piece of old China, he may be irreverently moved to the extent of again snapping his fingers at the Monroe Doctrine, and at millions of simple Africans who refuse to eat German foods and wear not a stitch of German fabrics. Kiau-chau represents the cleverest feat of colony-building the world has seen since the great powers declared a closure to land-grabbing in ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... patching her poor little gifts, with a vague feeling that every stitch made the time a moment shorter until he should be free, with his life in his hand again. She left him at last, sorrowfully enough, but he made her go: he fancied the close air of the hospital was hurting her, seeing at night the strange shadow growing on her face. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... you wouldn't care about it," said her mother. "A little here and a little there, a stitch, a kind word, a small self-denial, these are in the power of all of us, and in course of time they mount up and make a great deal. And, Mary dear, I've always found if you once start in a path and are determined to keep on, somebody's sure to come along and lend a ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... going to work. The robber saluted him, bidding him good morrow; and perceiving that he was old, said, "Honest man, you begin to work very early: is it possible that one of your age can see so well? I question, even if it were somewhat lighter, whether you could see to stitch." ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... the cough mixture for a week, by which time other symptoms, extremely disquieting to an ease-loving man, had manifested themselves. Going upstairs deprived her of breath; carrying a loaded tea-tray produced a long and alarming stitch in the side. The last time she ever filled the coal-scuttle she was discovered sitting beside it on the floor ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... way with you curs,' said Mr Jonas, 'that when you know a man's in real earnest, you pretend to think he's joking, so that you may turn it off. But that won't do with me. It's too stale. Now just attend to me for a bit, Mr Pitch, or Witch, or Stitch, or ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... much reason a statesman has to pause before meddling with an institution which, unendurable as its drawbacks are, threatens to come to pieces in all directions if a single thread of it be cut. Ibsen's similitude of the machine- made chain stitch, which unravels the whole seam at the first pull when a single stitch is ripped, is very applicable to the ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... carbonaro of herself by sharpening her sister's crayons, and Di, as a sort of penance for past sins, tried her patience over a piece of knitting, in which she soon originated a somewhat remarkable pattern, by dropping every third stitch, and seaming ad libitum. If John had been a gentlemanly creature, with refined tastes, he would have elevated his feet and made a nuisance of himself by indulging in a "weed"; but being only an uncultivated youth, with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... has to play all sorts of things here—and the more the better. My work was to stitch, fold, (fold first) and cover, so many copies of the New Testament as I had brought with me—printed, but in sheets. I did them strong! more than that I will not answer for; but I wish I could send you a copy. It ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... we couldn't make up the difference in rent by cutting down somewhere else. We could cut the extras in half. And I won't need any new clothes for a whole year—not a single stitch. By that time—" She paused, as it seemed ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... men's socks, should he not darn her lisle-thread hosiery, and run a line of machine stitching around the middle of the hem to prevent a disastrous run from a broken stitch? If she presses his ties, why should he not learn to iron her ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... crash through layers of chalk. And huge blocks went over and splitting asunder Broke o'er the Weald like the crashing of thunder. St Cuthman wished the first hour would pass, When St Ursula, praying, reversed the glass. 'Ye legions of hell!' the Old Gentleman cried, 'I have such a terrible stitch in the side!' 'Don't work so hard,' said the Saint, 'only see, The sides of your dyke a heap smoother might be.' 'Just so,' said the Devil, 'I've had a sharp fit, So, resting, I'll trim up my crevice a bit.' St Cuthman ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... no mischief in your dropped stitch; I shall not pick it up. I know that Mrs. Orme's husband is in Europe, and I was assured that motives of a personal character induced her to make certain professional engagements in England and upon the ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... kit, a wee laundry kit for motoring, a handy kit containing baggage tags, rubber bands, and the like, an emergency kit with safety pins and threaded needle for her handbag, a guest towel with a cross-stitch kitty on one end, a cream pitcher and sugar bowl with a kitten border, a quaint kitten door stop, a painted wooden kitten twine holder, a pair of Angora skating gloves, an odd little sewing apron with linen cats appliqued on ...
— Entertaining Made Easy • Emily Rose Burt
... she hurried to get through, The same as lots of wimmin do; Sometimes at night her husban' said, "Ma, ain't you goin' to come to bed?" And then she'd kinder give a hitch, And pause half way between a stitch, And sorter sigh, and say that she Was ready as she'd ever be, ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... once made him halt in the road. He wore his uniform, which was new, and made him uncomfortable—it looked too much like waving a victorious flag in the face of a beaten enemy—but it was the only stitch of clothes he had, and that ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... "It's this way," she said. "Sometimes I can't think of anything else. I can sit and sit at it for weeks on end. I don't want anything else. Then, all of a sudden, something comes over me, and I can't put in another stitch. Sometimes—when it comes—I'm that tired, it's as if I 'ad weights on me arms, and I couldn't 'old them up to sew. And sometimes, again, I'm that restless, it's as if you'd lit a fire under me feet. I'm frightened," said ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... the last of the year I seed her makin' little things slyly an' hidin' 'em away in the bureau drawer, an' one night she put away a tiny half-finished little dress with the needle stickin' in the hem—just as she left it—just as her beautiful hands made the last stitch they ever made ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... humor of the situation: He, who had tried to get away from the society of women found himself now on the mercy and generosity of a woman who did not like him. He was dependent on her, by Jove, for every stitch of clothing on him, for even the soap that he used—for his very toothbrush. Soon, he knew, she would be giving him provisions so that he might cook his own meals on the other side of the Island. She didn't want him around her, or her sister. It piqued him to be felt ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... seams, perhaps? We can stitch them neatly; and then gum them over at the joinings. I'll warrant Ossaroo ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... that night, and next mornin' we put up a blanket an the end av a pole as well as we could, and then we sailed iligant; for we darn't show a stitch o' canvas the night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin' your presence, and sure it's the wondher of the world we worn't swally'd alive by the ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... am taken with such a stitch when I laugh. You are too witty, Captain Bertram. Sophy, you must hear what the captain has said. Oh, you killing, funny man—you must repeat that lovely joke ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... put off Porthos like the rest, but D'Artagnan, showing himself, pronounced merely these words, "The king's order," and was let in with his friend.) The poor fellows had enough to do, and did their best, to reply to the demands of the customers in the absence of their master, leaving off drawing a stitch to knit a sentence; and when wounded pride, or disappointed expectation, brought down upon them too cutting a rebuke, he who was attacked made a dive and disappeared under the counter. The line of discontented ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a final stitch, snapping off the thread, and springing to her feet, all in one: 'There, have you finished, Mr. and Mrs. Lou? Well, then, take this lace handkerchief, and draw it down from his neck and pin it in his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the line. These things are, you know, a part of your system, part of you; they are the reverse of that splendid fabric and no separate thing, the wide rich tapestry of your lives comes through on the other side, stitch for stitch in stunted bodies, in children's deaths, in privation and anger. Your grandmothers did not realize that. You do. You know. In that recognition and a certain nobility I find in you, I put my hope, much more ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... suture material, ordinary cotton thread is good, if well sterilized, as are also horsehair, catgut, silk, and various kinds of wire. If the suture is made too tight the subsequent swelling may cause the stitch to tear out. In order to make a firm suture the depth of the stitch should be the same as the distance the stitch is from the edge of the wound. The deeper the suture the more tissue is embraced and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... book or newspaper Mahony watched his wife stitch, stitch, stitch, with a zeal that never flagged, at the dolly garments. Just as he could read his way, so Polly sewed hers, through the time of waiting. But whereas she, like a sensible little woman, pinned her thoughts fast to the matter in hand, ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... cheered her by his simple piety and unobtrusive goodness. Then her thoughts turned joyfully to home—for the Raymonds' house was home to her—and she sighed contentedly as the gallant Esmeralda, with every stitch of canvas that could be set, slipped gracefully over the blue Pacific on an east-south-east course, for it was the month of November, and light ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... said La Judge, obsequiously. "Prevention is better nor cure, and they say 'a stitch in time ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... I think, by Jove, that I haven't the health I used to have, since I became reutendiener. I've got a stitch—oh, oh!—right here in my left side. You laugh at it, good people, but I am really in earnest. Ma foi, I am afraid that before I know it I shall ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... quotha!" resumed that astonished lady. "And Margaret's winter's gown should, have been cut down ere now into a kirtle, and Lucrece lacketh both a hood and a napron, and thine own partlets have not yet so much as the first stitch set in them. No business! Prithee, stand out of my way, Madam Idlesse, for I have no time to spend in twirling of my thumbs. And when thou find thy partlets rags, burden not me withal. No business, ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... air 'ithin the geaerden wall Wer deadly still, unless the bee Did hummy by, or in the hall The clock did ring a-hetten dree, An' there, wi' busy hands, inside The iron ceaesement, oben'd wide, Did zit an' pull wi' nimble twitch Her tiny stitch, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... meek after her night on the ground that she was flattered by his grin. "Skip" Magruder was his title, as she learned in time. The "Skip" came to him from a curious impediment in his gait that caused him to drop a stitch now and then. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... living together," continued Clara, as she gaily flitted about from the dresser to the table, placing the cups and saucers and plates. "You can sew the seams and do the plain hemming, and I can work the buttonholes and stitch the bosoms, collars and wristbands! And 'if the worst comes to the worst,' we can hang out our little shingle before the ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... orifice back in the median line below until the offending matter can be reached and removed. In all such cases the interior of the sheath should be finally lubricated with sweet oil or vaseline. It is unnecessary to stitch up the wound made in the sheath. (See "Inflammation of the sheath," ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... Mariniere would sit all the evening long, working at her tapestry frame; Urbain would read, sometimes aloud; Angelot would draw, or make flies and fishing tackle. On this special evening the little lady sat down to her frame—she was making new seats in cross-stitch for the old chairs against the wall. Two candles, which lighted the room very dimly, and a tall glass full of late roses, stood on a solid oak ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... him, stepped into a dory that had come alongside and was rowed towards his own schooner. He had hardly gained her deck before she set main and jib topsails and a big main staysail. Our lads also sprang to their own sails, and spread to the freshening breeze every stitch of canvas that the "Sea Bee" possessed. When they next found time to look at the "Ruth," White uttered an exclamation of astonishment, for she had already gained a good half mile on them and was moving with the speed ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... could not reach Chap[98] that night, which is halfway twixt Penrith and Kendal. Lord George took up our quarters in a little villiage, where we rested that night on our arms, without thro'ing a stitch of cloaths,[99] as we were sure the enemy was very near us. Next day we marched by daylight, and for want of proper horses the artillery was very fashious,[100] and a last load with cannon shot happening to break on the road, upon Lord ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... well this morning, cousin?" queried Francis. "Doth not my lady mother instruct me in the tent and cross-stitch each day? Besides doth not even the Queen's Majesty disport herself with the bow? 'Tis the ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... came in Shane's heart—a song his father made! And following the stitch came a surge of pride. Those songs of his father! The light minor he had heard, and the others—the surge of An Oig-bhean ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... stitch we want," said Lydia Vesey. "Borrer of the dead an' borrer of the livin'. I know every rag o' clo'es that's been made in this town, last thirty years. There's enough laid away in camphire, of them that's gone, to fit out ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... couldn't come to the house that night to see her things. If I say so myself, Mrs. Suss, everybody who seen it says Jacob Sinsheimer's daughter herself didn't have a finer. Maybe not so much, but every stitch, Mrs. Suss, made by the same sisters in the same convent that made hers.... Towels! I tell her it's a shame to expose them to the light, much less wipe on them. Ain't it?... The goodness looks out from his face. And such a love-pair! Lunatics, I call them. He can't keep his ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... cooed, and dropped a stitch which later would be heard from on the march, in the shape of a blister on a Gallic heel. "You're so thoughtful and kind, Andrew! Sometimes I wonder if the McKayes really appreciate ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... I went, but in no conquering mood. I did not scrutinize the festive dresses; Of the sad hearts I thought, the poor thin hands That put of life somewhat in every stitch For a grudged pittance. All disguises fell; Voices betrayed the speakers in their tones, Despite of flattering words; and smiles revealed The weariness or hatred they would hide. And so, preoccupied and grave, I looked ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... over from a dress she was making. This thin material was ever so much easier to manage than the gray flannel, and they had the little garment done in no time, even to the buttons and buttonholes. When it came to making the buttonholes, Cousin Ann sat right down with each one and supervised every stitch. You may not be surprised to know that they were a great ...
— Understood Betsy • Dorothy Canfield
... say it aloud, but, as she cut out the gay patchwork, she thought, with a warm glow of heart, of another reason for the investment. The quilt would be such a precious reminder of Johnny's boyhood some day, when he had put away childish things. Every stitch would be dear to her, because of the little stubby fingers that worked so patiently to set them, despite the needle ...
— The Quilt that Jack Built; How He Won the Bicycle • Annie Fellows Johnston
... through the middle of the mass, and missed him by half an inch. Once more he felt his surroundings flying upwards, but this time they fell more lightly. They formed the outside of a stitch of ten. As the fork was withdrawn the binding of the sheaf was loosened. He could breathe with comfort, and he could also see. He peered out, and found the whole face of Nature changed. The waving cornfield had gone. In its place was a razed expanse of stubble. The corn-sheaves stretched ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... is her little hand sewing machine, which is an old-fashioned thing, to be fastened to a table and the wheel turned by hand. It was brought from the old country, and looks quite well worn, but is still useful and far better than no machine, if it does have a chain stitch which is liable to rip easily. We have a lot of amusement with this machine, for when Alma is sewing and one of the boys happens to be idle about her she makes him turn the wheel while she guides the cloth and ...
— A Woman who went to Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... and mantua-makers swarm With clumsy hands to deck the female form— With brawny limbs to fit fine ladies' shapes, Or measure out their ribbons, lace and tapes; Or their rude eye the bosom's swell surveys, To cut out corsets or to stitch their stays; Or making essences and soft perfume, Or paint, to give the pallid cheek fresh bloom; Or with hot irons, combs, and frizzling skill, On ladies' heads their daily task fulfil; Or, deeply ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Foster looked up from under his green shade with an expression of perplexity. "Have I dropped a stitch here or not?" he asked. "I wish you knew something about knitting; I don't like to call Medora or one of the girls away up here to straighten me out. Look; what ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... patiently adding stitch after stitch to the long strip of her crochet-work, was often much amused by the dialogues between sitter and painter, pricked up her ears to hear what a Frenchman would say to what was evidently ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... nothing in them to strengthen or refresh the soul. The isolation was the more painful because there was everything around her to remind her of the lost and the absent. Flora's unfinished embroidery still remained in the frame, with the needle in the last stitch of a blue forget-me-not. Over the mirror was a cluster of blush-roses she had made. On the wall was a spray of sea-moss she had pressed and surrounded with a garland of small shells. By the door was a vine she had transplanted from the woods; and under ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... tuck pity on the feller; and havin' houseroom to spare, and railly in need of a good hand at the mill, he said all right; and so the feller stopped and the wagon druv ahead and left 'em; and they didn't have no things ner nothin'—not even a cyarpet-satchel, ner a stitch o' clothes, on'y what they had on their backs. And I think it was the third er fourth day after Bills stopped 'at he whirped Tomps Burk, the bully o' here them days, tel you ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... grant to me A slice of thy philosophy? Haply, in thy many trudgings, Having found unchallenged lodgings, Thy thoughts, unused to saddle-crupper, Ambling no farther than thy supper— Thou, by the light of heaven-lit taper, Mendest thy prospective paper! Then, jolly pauper, stitch till day; Let not thy roses drop away, Lest, begrimed with muddy matter, Thy body peep from every tatter, And men—a charitable dose— Should physic thee with food and clothes! Nursling of adversity! 'Tis thy glory thus to be Sinking fund ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... expansive of the familiar sayings or proverbs which stand for their titles, as, "It will do for the present," "I told you so," "He is sowing his wild oats," "He would have his own way," "A stitch in time saves nine," "Any other time will do as well," "He has come out at the little end of the horn." The papers are all short, and no time is wasted in coming at the point; indeed, there is a succession ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... weary, all the way home. He carried this so far, that an old musty Hebrew concordance, which we had in a present from a neighbouring priest, by mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages, acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by forty years ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... that morning, Flood and the two placer miners packed the beef on their two pack horses, first cutting off enough to last us several days. The cattle, when we overtook them, presented a sorry spectacle, apparently being as cold as we were, although we had our last stitch of clothing on, including our slickers, belted with a horse hobble. But when Flood and our guide rode past the herd, I noticed our pilot's coat was not even buttoned, nor was the thin cotton shirt which he wore, but his chest was exposed to that raw morning air which ...
— The Log of a Cowboy - A Narrative of the Old Trail Days • Andy Adams
... to wear a stitch underneath," Lady Betty announced decidedly, while she pirouetted before a cheval glass—they were all in Lady Anningford's room—with some stuff draped round her childish form. "The gowns must have the right look, just long, straight things, with hanging sleeves and perhaps a girdle. I shall ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... the other side of the street!—Were those sleeves of her evening dress quite right? They were not caught down, she thought, quite in the right place. No doubt there would be time before dinner to put in a stitch. And she did hope that pleat from the neck would look all right. It was peculiar, but Miss Helby had assured her it was much worn. Would there be many titled people, she wondered, and would all the ladies wear diamonds? She thought disconsolately ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... suspicious barque, with the English flag at the peak, hove in sight. Immediately the Alabama set every stitch of canvas, the stranger did the same, and away the two dashed before the fresh south-wester that was blowing. The chase was most exciting, and lasted seven hours; but gradually the Alabama overhauled the suspicious ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... "she told me that when she was at home she had ample to do, that she kept busy as late as the third watch, and that, if she did the slightest stitch of work for any other people, the various ladies, belonging to her family, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... lion on some horned herd of beeves. At once his polish'd buckler he advanced 355 With leafy brass o'erlaid; for with smooth brass The forger of that shield its oval disk Had plated, and with thickest hides throughout Had lined it, stitch'd with circling wires of gold. That shield he bore before him; firmly grasp'd 360 He shook two spears, and with determined strides March'd forward. As the lion mountain-bred, After long fast, by impulse of his heart Undaunted urged, seeks resolute ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... be out late o' night and dead beat, Out Islington way, arter ten, with a bundle, a child, and a cage, As canaries is skeery at night, and a seven mile walk, at my age, All along of no 'Bus to be had, love or money, and cabs that there dear, And a stitch in my side and short breath, ain't as nice as you fancy,—no fear! Likeways look at my JOHN every morning, ah! rain, hail or shine, up to town, With no trams running handy, and corns! As I sez to my friend Mrs. BROWN, Bless the 'Buses, I sez, they're a boon to poor souls, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... "Northward, through the Circassian Gates, or eastward it's all the same. There's a man in a room across the way who was stripped stark naked and beaten because they thought he might have money in his clothes. When he reached this place without a stitch on him he still had all his money in his clenched fists! Quite a sportsman—what? Imagine his juggling with it while they whipped him ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... Mr. John's ruffles. Yesterday Miss Betty Roldham came to spend the afternoon and insisted on doing some of her work. I knew that Lucy was up very early this morning and I wanted to see what she was doing; I found her busy unpicking what Miss Betty had done. She would not have a single stitch in her present done by any ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... But in spite of herself, glancing at the graceful figure sitting in tense waiting at the fireside, she smiled. "You are a pretty creature," she said; and Mrs. Richie started and blushed like a girl. "If Robert Ferguson had any sense!" she went on, and paused to pick up a dropped stitch. "Queer fellow, isn't he?" Mrs. Richie had nothing to say. "Something went wrong with him when he was young, just after he left college. Some kind of a crash. Woman scrape, I suppose. Have you ever noticed that ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... ask you—just as soon as you seemed able to talk. I would have gladly sent her word and invited her to come here, but I didn't know the name nor the address. You didn't have a stitch of clothes when you came except your underwear; the rest had been taken off, the men said, because they were soiled and bloody, and there wasn't a clew of any sort to your identity, except that you were a lieutenant in a Virginia regiment. I thought we should ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... across with her needle, she marked out the warp and woof; and, following the way the threads were joined, she first and foremost connected the foundation, and then keeping to the original lines, she went backwards and forwards mending the hole; passing her work, after every second stitch, under further review. But she did not ply her needle three to five times, before she lay herself down on her pillow, and indulged in a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... pair of precious old rascals," he cried, "knocking each other about without a stitch on you, like a couple of old he-goats! Into bed with you—and if I hear another sound, you'll get something to be ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... course engaged in needlework. I never saw her fingers idle. It appeared that at this moment she had a difficult stitch to execute. ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman
... embroidered with gold; others of blue kid, delicately traced in crimson lines; foxes heads stared at us in startling perspective from a scarlet ground; or black jim-crow figures disported themselves on orange tent-stitch. Then these slippers were all more or less of an easy fit, and had a way of flying out on the lawn suddenly, startling my dear dog Nettle out of his ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... away from him ever' new turn he undertook. Whilse Wes jest peared to git more deliber't' and certain ever' game; and that unendin' se'f-satisfied and comfortin' little whistle o' his never drapped a stitch, but toed out ever' game alike,—to'rds the last, and, fer the most part, disasterss to the feller 'at had started in with sich confidence and actchul promise, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... of great regret to observe articles of use, where the material is in good condition, rapidly becoming useless owing to the inability of the possessor to do the necessary repairs. Again, it may be that the article is completely worn out, and the old proverb that "a stitch in time saves nine," will not be advantageously applied if carried out. In that case a knowledge of making new what we require, whether in order to replace something already worn out or as an addition to our store, must prove beneficial to the thrifty amateur. My object in writing these articles ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 561, October 2, 1886 • Various
... let alone. So they, in their over-zeal and ambition, either make the path of love so easy and inevitable that all the zest is taken out of it for both (for lovers never want somebody to go ahead and baste the problem for them; they want to blind-stitch it for themselves as they go along), or else, by critical nagging, and balancing the eligibility of one suitor against another, these friends so harass and upset the poor girl that she doesn't know which man she wants, and so turns her ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... quick to resent an insult and how bold to avenge it! His absurd little tweed cap was lying on the seat, and I picked it up almost sentimentally. The lining was frayed and torn. From my suit case in the van I got out a small sewing kit, and hanging the reins on a hook I began to stitch up the rents as Peg jogged along. I thought with amusement of the quaint life Mr. Mifflin had led in his "caravan of culture." I imagined him addressing the audience of Whitman disciples in Camden, and wondered how the fuss ended. I imagined him in his beloved Brooklyn, strolling in Prospect ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... occurred. Everything had been foreseen; everything happened as I had been assured everything must. Nobody was about below, only the ship's boys on deck, and nobody on the bridge. It was twenty-five minutes past one when Raffles, without a stitch of clothing on his body, but with a glass phial, corked with cotton-wool, between his teeth, and a tiny screw-driver behind his ear, squirmed feet first through the ventilator over his berth; and it was nineteen minutes to ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... dinner, the hours for labor would be regulated and understood. The want of economy, not of time only, but of material, too, and labor, was then touched on. His Majesty seemed to be hinting at the old saying that "a stitch in time saves nine," a fact usually disregarded by the natives of this country. One gap in a fence is generally a prelude to its total destruction, whereas half a day's work might save it for years ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... you had something to communicate from my lord and husband; so at least I understood Master Foster, and therefore I removed my waiting-maid. If I am mistaken, I will recall her to my side; for her needle is not so absolutely perfect in tent and cross-stitch, but that my superintendence ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... down!" announced Kazimoto cheerfully, and promptly proceeded to divest himself of every stitch of clothing. ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... more years; but it was certain that he would go on reappearing till he vanished utterly. At the end of the first week of this visit at Fort Luke, so completely had he conquered the place, that he had won from the Chief Factor the year's purchases of skins, the stores, and the Fort itself; and every stitch of clothing owned by Lazenby: so that, if he had insisted on the redemption of the debts, the H. B. C. and Lazenby had been naked and hungry in the wilderness. But Pierre was not a hard creditor. He instantly and nonchalantly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... women should be erected in every county in England, and ten colleges of the kind in London. 'I have often thought of it, 'he says,' as one of the most barbarous customs in the world that we deny the advantages of learning to women. Their youth is spent to teach them to stitch and sew, or make baubles. They are taught to read, indeed, and perhaps to write their names or so, and that is the height of a woman's education. And I would but ask any who slight the sex for their understanding, "What is a man (a gentleman I mean) good for that is taught no more?" What ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... sorry,' said Philip. 'I was up late last night, and I'm a bit dazed to-day. Well! this is nice work, Phoebe, and I'm sure I'm very much beholden to yo'. And here's five sticks o' barley-sugar, one for every stitch, and thank you ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... thus repaid a gift of charity with a perennial treasure. Some local artist whose heart had misguided his brush had painted portraits of M. and Madame Popinot. Even in the bedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes in cross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as to show the senseless labor ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... as one might idly glance at a shrew-mouse in the path. He saw a brown body pitifully lean, a shock black head, a pair of piercing grey eyes. Further, he saw that the child had not on a stitch of clothing, and that he was splashed to the knees ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... the hill. These will probably be tall, slender, and branchless, therefore comparatively unproductive. In order to have any fruit at all, we must shorten them one-third, and tie them to stakes. It thus may be clearly seen that with blackberries "a stitch in time" saves almost ninety-nine. Keep out coarse weeds and grass, and give fertilizers only when the plants show signs of feebleness ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... look so white and well-kept as he stands by his easel in the full glare of the gas-jets, had been his sole reliance during these days of toil and suffering. They had provided all the bread that had gone into his mouth, and every stitch of clothes that had covered his back. And they had not been over-particular as to how they had accomplished it nor at what hours or places. They had cleaned lithographic stones, the finger-nails stained for weeks with colored inks; ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... sheep open whilst watching for the boss's boots or yarning to a pen-mate, and then when you have stuffed the works back into the animal, and put a stitch in the slit, and poked it somewhere with a tar-stick (it doesn't matter much where) the jumbuck will be all right and just as lively as ever, and turn up next shearing without the ghost of a scratch ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... who is no contemptible scholar, taught me Greek and Latin, as well as most of the languages of modern Europe. I assure you there has been some pains taken in my education, although I can neither sew a tucker, nor work cross-stitch, nor make a pudding, nor—as the vicar's fat wife, with as much truth as elegance, good-will, and politeness, was pleased to say in my behalf—do any other useful thing in the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 the garden under the balcony the ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... to stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time of the sun-stitch—as she called all the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... running fight with her opponents, had the captain been disposed. To this, however, he objected strongly, as his vessel was sure to be hulled and knocked about severely, and perhaps some of his masts cut down. He was confident in his power to beat off the two privateers, and he therefore did not add a stitch of canvas to the easy sail under which he had ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... brains; for one book tells them one thing, and another book another, and so on, till they are dazed with all the contrary lying; and if you see a bookish man, be sure you see a very poor creature who could not hoe a patch, or kill a pig, or stitch an upper-leather, were it ever so.' But I do not believe that Bac said ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... do, or a coat rolled up. It pulls you along. You look like an idiot, of course, but that doesn't matter. No one who minds looking foolish will ever have a really good time. It is a good thing to prevent a stitch in your side to carry a little pebble in your mouth. Squeezing a ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... straining it tightly across her chest whilst she backed hastily from the vicinity of the window. "Lightin' up sudden like that in the middle of the night! I feel for all the world as though I hadn't got a stitch on me! Come away from the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... work in cross-stitch upon a wreath of tulips and roses. The tutor took his book and withdrew to the table and the candles thereon. The laird came and dropped his great form upon the settle. He held silence a few moments, ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... from your pretty work to take a stitch in my old glove?" he asked, coming up to the table strewn with ribbon, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... she DOES patronize me. She would patronize the prophets of old. I don't believe she ever says her prayers without infusing a little patronage into her petitions. The other day Grandmother Evarts actually inquired of me, of ME! concerning a knitting-stitch. I had half a mind to retort, "Would you like a lesson in bridge, dear old soul?" She never heard of bridge, and I suppose she would have thought I meant bridge-building. I sometimes wonder why it is that all my brother's family are so singularly unsophisticated, ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... up then, wearily, but forbore to seem curious, and she coaxed him into the kitchen, to bathe the dust and tears from his countenance, and stitch up some rents in the big shirt, where Big Tom had torn it. All the while she talked to him comfortingly. "Ach, mine heart it bleets over you!" she declared. "But nefer mind. Because, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... it away if you choose—but it is mine, and the pretty little maid, and all that belongs to it. And I will take you and both your hands, bewitched fingers and all, home with me. There they may weave and stitch as much as you like; but as man and wife no one shall part us, and we will lead a life such a life! The joys of Paradise shall be no better than a rap on the skull with an olive-wood log ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... disablement. The father, a little drunker than usual, pushed the wife downstairs and their Billy after her, the result being a broken hip for the first and a broken arm for the last. Nelly, who had begun to stitch sacks not long before, filled her place as she could, and cared for the other seven, all not much more than babies, and most of them in time mercifully removed by death. She was but twelve when her responsibility began, and it did not end when the mother ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... embroider fine cambric. I do all our underlinen, and it is quite as nice as that in the shops in the Rue de la Paix. Grandmamma says a lady, however poor, should wear fine linen, even if she has only one new dress a year—she calls the stuff worn by people here "sail-cloth"! So I stitch and stitch, summer ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... morning were things of the past; she plied her needle every moment of the working day, her thoughts fixed on one unchanging subject. Yes, for she could not really think even of Ackroyd; he was always, it is true, a presence in her mind, but there was no more pondering about him. Every stitch at the lining of a hat meant a fraction of a coin, and each day's result was to have earned something towards the money saved for ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... stitch all on one pick and so form a continuous cut line, or be divided in groups, of which one will bind in the middle of the floats of the other group. The following designs show both the face and ...
— Theory Of Silk Weaving • Arnold Wolfensberger
... what she is saying, can she? Poor girl! she will never do another stitch." Mrs. Latimer fairly broke down. The unfinished embroidery which never could be finished brought the truth home to her. It is hard to realize that a life with its interlacing roots and fibres is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... lies, he would scarcely know his once familiar vehicle as it whirls glittering along the main road to the village. For the rest, all things go on as usual; the miller grinds, the blacksmith strikes and blows, the cobbler and tailor stitch and mend, old men sit in the autumn sun, old gossips stir tea and scandal, revival meetings alternate with apple-bees and bushings,—toil, pleasure, family jars, petty neighborhood quarrels, courtship, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and Children all sorts of Fine Works as Feather works, Filigree, and Painting on Glass, Embroidering a new Way, Turkey-work for Handkerchiefs two new Ways, fine new Fashion purses, flourishing and plain Work." We find a Newport dame teaching "Sewing, Marking, Queen Stitch and Knitting," and a Boston shopkeeper taking children and young ladies to board and be taught "Dresden and Embroidery on gauze, Tent Stitch and all sorts of Colour'd Work." Crewels, embroidery, silks, and chenilles appear frequently in early newspapers. Many ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... in excising the loose tag or the whole meniscus, according to circumstances. The recovery of function is usually complete. It is not advisable to attempt to stitch the torn ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... ill-used sea in her path, and spreading before her broad bows a far-reaching area of snowy foam, while her wake was as wide as any two ordinary ships ought to make. Five or six times a day the flying East India or colonial-bound English ships, under every stitch of square sail, would appear as tiny specks on the horizon astern, come up with us, pass like a flash, and fade away ahead, going at least two knots to our one. I could not help feeling a bit home-sick ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... such disasters, one of which I witnessed, consoled me somewhat when I saw Phil Adams skimming over the water in a spanking breeze with every stitch of canvas set. There were few better yachtsmen than Phil Adams. He usually went sailing alone, for both Fred Langdon and Binny Wallace were under the same restrictions ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... awkward either in mounting or dismounting. The worst hardship of all, however, is the being obliged to halt to rest the horses in a meadow during the rain. The long skirts suck up the water from the damp grass, and the wearer has often literally not a dry stitch ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... moment from his Encyclopedia. He looked intently for some time at the group by the table, as if studying all their thoughts, and then said, gravely, in a loud, clear voice, so that Ellen dropped a stitch, Edward stopped whispering, and Mr. and ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... prowl,— Sly Grab-and-Snatch, the cat, Grave Evil-bode, the owl, Thief Nibble-stitch, the rat, And Madam Weasel, prim and fine,— Inhabited a rotten pine. A man their home discover'd there, And set, one night, a cunning snare. The cat, a noted early-riser, Went forth, at break of day, To hunt her usual prey. Not much the wiser For morning's feeble ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... ship, which having lain becalmed with every stitch of canvas set, bounds away before the breeze which springs up astern, so the mind of Descartes, poised in equilibrium of doubt, not only yielded to the full force of the impulse towards physical science and physical ways of thought, given by his great contemporaries, Galileo and Harvey, but shot ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Gulian have set their hearts upon my wearing it on New Year's day, so 't is useless to fill my breast with discontent when I have so good a gown as this to wear to-night. The skirt is a little frayed—oh! how vexing!" and Betty flew to her reticule for needle and thread to set a timely stitch; "now that will not show when the muslin slip goes over." Another anxious moment, and with a sigh of relief Betty slipped on the short waist with its puffed sleeves and essayed to pin the fichu daintily around her neck. Then she dived down to the very depths of a chest ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... resort to very artful methods of hiding their money. They sometimes conceal it between the boards of the boxes in which their eggs are packed, or stitch it into the stuffing of their asses' saddles. They often submit to be killed rather than avow where their ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... that Sir Richard states. "Short separate poems on cognate subjects" can certainly co-exist for long anywhere, but they cannot automatically and they cannot by aid of an editor become a long epic. Nobody can stitch and vamp them into a poem like the ILIAD or Odyssey. To produce a poem like either of these a great poetic genius must arise, and fuse the ancient materials, as Hephaestus fused copper and tin, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... could not find his coloured chalks, came out during an operation, and he would curse his assistant to the face for the slightest fault or fancied fault, and he would speak to the nurses as no Frenchman ever spoke to Frenchwoman unless with deliberate intent to insult. When the last stitch was in, all this changed; nurses and assistant forgot what had been said, and in the ease of released tension, worshipped more than ever the cadaverous genius who was now unwinding from his ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... impossible to detail every step of the lapsing of these monsters,—to tell how, day by day, the human semblance left them; how they gave up bandagings and wrappings, abandoned at last every stitch of clothing; how the hair began to spread over the exposed limbs; how their foreheads fell away and their faces projected; how the quasi-human intimacy I had permitted myself with some of them in the first month of my loneliness became a ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... once a year, and their trim spotlessness gave an air of homely opulence to the place. The bench which her young relatives sought was placed beneath a beneficent cedar tree that stretched out long, kindly branches, and looked as though it were wrought of stitch-work in deep blue satin. Jane wiped her fingers upon the baize apron, ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... the lieutenant thinks of nothing less than to bring this to a rupture, and takes for his second, Tobias Armstrong of the Counter,[296] and sends him with a challenge in a script of parchment, wherein was written, "Stitch contra Maggot," and all the fury vanished in a moment. The major-general gives satisfaction to the second, and all was well. Hence it is, that the bold spirits of our city are kept in such subjection to the civil power. Otherwise, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... pretty rose-leaf pattern. Think of her knitting for my Johnnie! He will soon know grandmamma's socks!' and she put her fingers into one to judge of the size, and admire the stitch. Theodora could see her do such things now, ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flutings and box-plaitings and flouncings, and sew them on exquisitely, even now, with her old eyes; but she never had adapted herself to the modern ideas of the corsage. She could not fit a bias to save her life; she could only stitch up a straight slant, and leave the rest to nature and fate. So all her people had the squarest of wooden fronts, and were preternaturally large around the waist. Delia sewed with her, abroad and at home,—abroad without ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... plush on his kerridge," Pearl said proudly, "and every stitch he has on is hand-made, and was did for him, too, and he's fed every three hours, rain or shine, hit ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... happened because I had a stitch in my side. When I was housekeeper at the Nursery, I also had to attend to the furnace, and, strange but true, the furnace was built across the large basement from where the coal was thrown in, so I had to tote ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... a song which should be interdicted by law, or of a dialogue that ought to land the speakers in jail, or of Hope Booth, posing in imitation nudity as Venus Aphrodite, or some beefy actor, also an imitation nude, as Ajax defying the lightning, or Antinous, facing the audience full front without a stitch of clothing on him. This is pleasant for the wife and daughter, but how about you? You do not look anything like Ajax and your daughter's brothers bear ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... turned the dress over and over again, calculated each stitch, and, come to his proper conclusions, packed it up in the handkerchief, as he had been commanded; but no sooner had he done this than a man of lofty demeanour and appearance, whose look made the poor tailor shrink within himself, came into the room, ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... silks, and were introduced to her ladyship. And don't you think we found her knitting and with a speckled (check) apron on! She received us very graciously, and easily, but after the compliments were over, she resumed her knitting. There we were without a stitch of work, and sitting in State, but General Washington's lady with her own hands was knitting ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... excellence of the code. When a man has walked for six months over stony ways in the same boots, he will be believed when he says that his boots are good boots. No assertion to the contrary from any by-stander will receive credence, even though it be shown that a stitch or two has come undone, and that some required purpose has not effectually been carried out. The boots have carried the man over his stony roads for six months, and they must be good boots. And so I say that the Constitution ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... found a chance to send it to her. By that time, what she had suffered from anxiety had made her unable to cope with the perils of the winter before her, and she often said to the few visitors who came in to see her, "I've dropped a stitch I can never take up again," but never a word of blame for Marion did she speak; indeed, she had come to love the young girl so well, that it is doubtful whether, even in her heart, she harbored one hard thought ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... thirty-four put down four and carry three eyes, and then she looked in the hand for bits of glass, and there were fortunately no bits of glass there. And then she said to two chubby-legged Princes who were sturdy though small, "Bring me in the Royal rag-bag; I must snip and stitch and cut and contrive." So those two young Princes tugged at the Royal rag-bag and lugged it in, and the Princess Alicia sat down on the floor with a large pair of scissors and a needle and thread, and snipped and stitched and cut and contrived, ...
— The Magic Fishbone - A Holiday Romance from the Pen of Miss Alice Rainbird, Aged 7 • Charles Dickens |
