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Embroidery   Listen
noun
Embroidery  n.  (pl. embroideries)  
1.
Needlework used to enrich textile fabrics, leather, etc.; also, the art of embroidering.
2.
Diversified ornaments, especially by contrasted figures and colors; variegated decoration. "Fields in spring's embroidery are dressed." "A mere rhetorical embroidery of phrases."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Embroidery" Quotes from Famous Books



... Rape of Proserpine) in which the feet of the dead king were placed, are still preserved in the cathedral, where I saw them last year, together with some portions of the robes, and some curious ancient embroidery: these last are not usually ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various

... of Bavaria large gardens are attached, in which, the boys are taught the principal operations of agriculture and gardening in their hours of play; and, in all the schools of the three states, the girls, in addition to the same instruction as the boys, are taught knitting, sewing, embroidery, &c. It is the duty of the police and priest (which may be considered equivalent to our parish vestries) of each commune or parish, to see that the law is duly executed, the children sent regularly, and instructed duly. If the parents are partially or wholly unable to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... repeated: and, while the happy children were being hugged and kissed, I could but rub my eyes and say "Where, then, are the rags gone to?"; for the old man was now dressed in royal robes that glittered with jewels and gold embroidery, and wore a circlet of gold ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... it was a bag, cunningly made of some delicate vegetable stuff, and ornamented with feathers. Next, he brought out a green silk waistcoat of very antique fashion, trimmed about the edges and pocket-holes with a rich and delicate embroidery of gold and silver. This (as the possessor of the treasure proved, by tracing its pedigree till it came into his hands) was once the vestment of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burleigh: but that great statesman must have been a person of very moderate girth in the chest and waist; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... with effort Of chasing the corridors up to their whispering gloomy recesses. Nations were ranged in the halls, nations ranged at a banquet, Even then lightly proceeding with timbrel, dulcimer, hautboy, Gong and loud kettledrum and fierce-blown tempestuous organ. Banners floated in air, colossal embroidery tissues Of Tyrian looms, scarlet, black, violet and amber, Or the perfectest cunning of trained Babylonian artist, Or massy embossed, from the volant shuttle of Phrygian. Banners suspended in shade, or in the full glare of the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... to Needle-Work and Embroidery. Containing Clear and Practical Instructions, whereby any one can easily learn how to do all Kinds of Plain and Fancy Needle-Work, etc. With One Hundred and Thirteen Illustrations. By Miss Lambert. Philadelphia. T.B. Peterson ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... as bright as the skies were, with only shadows of expression to give the brightness new beauty. But no such light was on Elizabeth Royal's face as she sat at the open window of her room with a piece of delicate embroidery in her hands. Her future had not opened out into life; the winter had killed its ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... known this kind of sewing was so easy and so fascinating," Blue Bonnet declared, "I'd have taken it up before. It's much nicer than embroidery or mending. Just see how much I've done!" She proudly held up the bright ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... pretty dress of thin white muslin, with ruffles of embroidery. She wore a broad pink sash, and her dark curls were clustered into a big pink bow, which bobbed and danced on top of her head. Pink silk stockings and dainty pink slippers completed her costume, and her father declared she looked good ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... order, and encircling it was a veil of some sort of stiff material, more like crinoline than crape. There were YARDS of it, and so stiff that it stuck straight out behind her like a horse's tail. Under the brim was a white WIDOW'S ruche. Her waist was a black silk one adorned with cheap embroidery, and a broad belt displayed a silver buckle at least four inches in diameter, ornamented with a huge glass carbuncle at least half the buckle's size. On her own huge feet were a pair of shining patent-leather shoes sporting big gilt buckles, ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... in his deshabille. The old gentleman had laid aside his coat, probably that it might be spared unnecessary wear and tear; he wore a claret coloured waistcoat with large flaps, on which were apparent certain tarnished remains of embroidery; his lower extremities, as far as the knees, were encased in a texture the colour of which had once been pepper and salt, and from the knee downwards he wore a pair of home-manufactured, grey worsted ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]

... was a very frequent guest at the house. The ladies sat at their embroidery frames and embroidered splendid pieces of work, and Otto must again read the "Letters of the Wandering Ghost;" after this they began "Calderon," in whom Sophie found something resembling the anonymous author. The world of poetry afforded subjects for discourse, and ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen

... Brentham, where the mistress of the mansion sat surrounded by her daughters, all occupied with various works. One knitted a purse, another adorned a slipper a third emblazoned a page. Beautiful forms in counsel leaned over frames embroidery, while two fair sisters more remote occasionally burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new air, which had been dedicated to them in the manuscript of ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... came forward. Lady Tu wore a dress of heavy Chinese embroidery with a long skirt and a short full coat. Her hair was inky black and built out on each side of her head. She had a band of gold across it and golden flowers set with jewels hung above each ear. Her face was enameled in white and a small patch of crimson ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane

... ridiculous seemed the assertion that to appear at King Charles's Court she must spend thrice as much! Yet she could but remember that Hyacinth had described trains and petticoats so loaded with jewelled embroidery that it was a penance to wear them—lace worth hundreds of pounds—plumed hats that cost as much as a year's maintenance in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... servant still lives with us, and goes abroad and makes our purchases. Our neighbours are all artisans and attend to their own business. It is supposed among them that I am one who has been ruined in the troubles, and now support myself by embroidery; but in fact I am well supplied with money. When I came here I brought all my jewels with me; besides, I have several good friends who know my secret, and through whom, from time to time, money has been transmitted to me from my steward ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... of Candaules were hung upon wooden pegs. They comprised garments both simple and double; that is, capable of going twice around the body. A mantle of thrice-dyed purple, ornamented with embroidery representing a hunting scene wherein Laconian hounds were pursuing and tearing deer, and a tunic whereof the material, fine and delicate as the skin which envelops an onion had all the sheen of woven sunbeams, were especially noticeable. Opposite to the trophy ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... on a dais made of glittering gems set in gold and silver, the steps of which were covered by a carpet of marvellous embroidery, stood a throne of ivory and gold under a canopy of translucent enamel, and on each side two palm-trees three thousand years old, in gigantic vases carved in some bygone time by the greatest artists among the dwarfs. King ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... Sunday night supper in Gloucester Street was the guest seat empty. There was more than one guest seat now, and the honest barrister himself was the most pleased at the change. As I took my accustomed place on the settle cushion,—Patty's first embroidery,—he would cry: ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... and I cannot. I am not sure whether it was not Thursday. But I know it was Saturday evening when the next thing happened which stands clear in my memory. I was in my own room, forlornly endeavouring to work some worsted embroidery; - though the sickness of my heart seemed to find its way into my fingers, and it was with pain and difficulty that they pulled the needle in and out. It was only more difficult to sit still and do nothing; and ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... . The waist is low-cut with a yoke of cream-colored embroidery, the skirt is plain with a shirred hem, the hat is trimmed with violets," another girl was recounting, as she slipped her ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... finer stuff, with more pretensions to ornament; and her neck and wrists are embraced by a variety of those glancing circlets so seductive in the eyes of an Indian belle. The buskin-mocassin is purely Indian; and its lines of bead-embroidery gracefully adapt themselves to the outlines of feet and ankles of perfect form. The absence of a head-dress is another point of Indian resemblance. The luxuriant black hair is plaited, and coiled like a coronet around the head. There are no combs or pins of gold, but in their place a ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... then went she / where she herself had sat, To couches rich and costly, / in sooth believe ye that, Wrought in design full cunning / of gold embroidery. And with these fair ladies / did pass the ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... asked him in for a cup of tea. Occasionally, when she was overheated, or damp from the fog, she would excuse herself and slip into a soft negligee. With lamp and fire lit they made a very cozy tete-a-tete. He smoked contemplatively; she stitched at the inevitable embroidery of the period. Occasionally they talked animatedly; quite as frequently they sat in sociable silence. Gringo slept by the fire dreaming of rabbits and things, his hind legs twitching as he triumphantly ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

... closed their eyes, Betty dug idly in the sand, and Amy produced a handkerchief and a tiny embroidery frame and ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope

... at the bottom of her box, reflecting, between a sigh and a smile, that the choice was "just like mother." It was not agreeable to the bride to picture her daughter living in an ugly lodging-house parlour, so she had mentally covered the ugliness beneath the gorgeous embroidery of that cloth, and happily dismissed the subject from her mind. At the time of the opening of the parcel, Claire had felt a sense of sharp disappointment, amounting even to irritation, but this morning she could ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... have patience." I rested my well arm on the table, and went carefully—almost day by day—over the time that separated me from May. I gave detail but not embroidery. Facts even if they be numerous can be disposed of shortly, if fancy and philosophy be put aside. So my recital did ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... vulgaris).—Small and blue on Otterbourne Hill, as a stitch in the embroidery of the turf; but larger, blue, pink, or white in the water-meadows beside the Itchen, deserving the American ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... are inordinate vanity in their appearance, causing them to impoverish themselves for the sake of gorgeous clothes, and gambling. They gamble to an excessive degree, heaping debt after debt upon their heads. Both these vices have caused an active legislation. Gold embroidery has been abolished on the uniforms of the army officers, and Prince Danilo has already declared that on coming to the throne he will abolish the national costume altogether, i.e. amongst the officials and ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... should pity her," said Joyce, not looking up from her embroidery. There was just the merest tremor in her voice. Miss Sally ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... opens with a beautiful choral embroidery in which different choruses, most striking in contrast, are interwoven with masterly skill. It is a picture, in music, of the old Paris. The citizens rejoice over their day's work done. The Huguenots shout their ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton

... magnificent bust? How splendid she would look if she were sitting in a drawing-room and dressed in a cap with pink ribbons and a silk gown—not one like Mimi's, but one like the gown which I saw the other day on the Tverski Boulevard!" Yes, she would work at the embroidery-frame, and I would sit and look at her in the mirror, and be ready to do whatsoever she wanted—to help her on with her mantle or to hand her food. As for Basil's drunken face and horrid figure in the scanty coat with the red shirt showing beneath it, well, in his every gesture, in ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy

... with her, time flew on very rapid wings. She had grown quite industrious, and generally plied her needle in the evenings while he read or talked to her. But occasionally he would take the embroidery, or whatever it was, out of her hands, and toss it aside, saying she was trying her eyes by such constant use; and, besides, he wanted her ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley

... on mind-cure are calculated to make much and serious evil. I have read them with care, and have always risen from them with the sense of confusion which one would have if desired to study a pattern from the back of a piece of embroidery. There is, however, a class of minds which delight in the fogs of mystery, and, when a book puzzles them, accept this as evidence of depth of thought. I have been bewildered at times by the positiveness and reasoning folly of the insane, and I think ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... herring-bone and the fox- and geese-patterns being prime favorites. Initials were knit into mittens and stockings; one clever young miss of Shelburne, N. H., could knit the alphabet and a verse of poetry into a single pair of mittens. Fine embroidery was to New England women and girls a delight. The Indians at an early day called the English women "lazie Squaes" when they saw the latter embroidering coifs instead of digging in the fields. Mr. Brownell, the Boston schoolmaster in 1716, ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle

... her embroidery drop to the table as she rose. "I like him myself. There's something about him that's very attractive. I do hope you are wrong, Mr. Bleyer. He does not look like an ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... are naturally given to manual occupation habit begets with them an antipathy to mental labor; their judgment is readily but erroneously convinced by their feelings, which easily lead them to believe that they are sufficiently occupied when their fingers are engaged in fixing an embroidery or something similar. To reason the matter, they will readily admit that labor exclusively manual having no share in the exercise of the mental faculties, cannot be considered to give sufficient occupation to an intelligent being; since the imagination would ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi

... that get accustomed to economy, to calculate the value of things, and to keep their own accounts. But, in general, they must all be occupied during three fourths of the day in manual work; they ought to know how to make stockings, chemises, embroidery—in fact, all kinds of women's work. These young girls ought to be considered as if they belonged to families who have in the provinces from fifteen to eighteen thousand francs a year, and be treated accordingly. You will therefore understand that hand-work in the household ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... of the word used in this book, is a pictured cloth, woven by an artist or a talented craftsman, in which the design is an integral part of the fabric, and not an embroidery stitched on a basic tissue. With this flat statement the review of tapestries from antiquity until our time may be read without fear ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... be sure, when she was at last ready to go, he may have thought her furs a trifle too magnificent for her height. They drove in a hansom to Bond Street. There were few people in the rooms, certainly no one whom he knew; she could study those gorgeous treasures of embroidery from Italy and the East, he could examine the swords and daggers and coats of mail, as they pleased. And when they had lightly glanced round the rooms, he was for getting away again; but she was bent on remaining ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... morning, being then appropriately dressed in a flaming red silk ball-dress, with a front of tarnished gold embroidery and a necklace of plate-glass diamonds, she made chocolate and carried ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling

... without so much as a pocket-handkerchief lawn between them and the street. Persons of that class at home would be far too shy to lounge about and be stared at, not only by the neighbours, but by twenty strangers a minute; yet here they sat on rugs, and read, or did embroidery, or swung back and forth in chairs that rocked like cradles, paying no more attention to the passers than if they had ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... pleasantness of your home. Where we cannot hope to possess the original masterpiece, we may have photographic or lithographic copies, which are within the compass of very humble means. You will freely toss away five dollars in useless embroidery or surplus furniture, and it would buy you a lithograph of Raphael's immortal picture, giving the results of a whole age of artistic culture, or a photograph of Cheney's Madonna and Child, bearing the very spirit ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... embroidery in her lap and watched them. Their faces would have to be washed in any case, and they might as well be washed for an acre as for an inch of paint. She never nagged with, "Don't do this," and "Don't do that" about everything, if ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... Lady Mary sitting to embroidery on the great terrace in the shade, and I holding her threads, she threw Mr Swift a word as he past, to ask the name of the nymph that was turned to a bush to escape the pursuit of Apollo; for that was the ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... being followed and gazed at by passengers in the streets, for their beauty; and there are many still living in Edinburgh who long after gazed with admiration on the fine old lady, the Dean's mother, bending over her embroidery frame in her window ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... Chow dynasties revived by men who appreciated their spirit but could not help making the revival an excuse for the display of their own superior skill. The monstrous vases and incense-burners of the past thus appear once more, but are now decorated with a delicate embroidery of inlay, are polished and finished to perfection, but lose therewith just the rudeness of edge and outline which made the older work so gravely significant. At times even some grandly planned vessel will appear with such a festoon of pretty tracery wreathed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... the open grand piano, and the pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat little lady in mourning, whose light-brown ringlets are falling over the colored embroidery with which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in the extremely abbreviated face of the "King Charles" lying on the young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond ring, attar of roses, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... caps, and a simple string for a girdle, some of whom, hold in their hands all the traffic of Central Asia; and, lastly, Tartars, wearing boots, ornamented with many-colored braid, and the breast a mass of embroidery. All these merchants had been obliged to pile up their numerous bales and chests in the hold and on the deck; and the transport of their baggage would cost them dear, for, according to the regulations, each person had only a right to ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne

... a mother would pray for her son-in-law to possess. She discovered herself feeling as the burdened mother, not providently for her girl, in the choice of a mate. The perception was clear, and not the less did she continue working at the embroidery of Mr. Sowerby on the basis of his excellent moral foundations, all the while hoping, praying, that he might not be lured on to the proposal for Nesta. But her subservience to the power of the persuasive will in Victor—which was like the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... then naturally ask what kind of embroidery Athena put on her own robe; "[Greek: peplon heanon, poikilon, hon r' aute poiesato ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... room, the backs of the chairs had been covered with newly-washed embroidery in raspy woollens and starched linen thread. There had also been a tablecloth, and upon it (neatly arranged by Mrs. Craven's daughter Amelia) a selection of the family "good books"—to wit, the Holy Bible containing ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin's, Bella had seen such traces of a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being held, that she had not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were left alone. Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until her busy hand was stopped by Mrs Boffin's hand being lightly laid upon it. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul's lips, and felt a ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... articles thus carried home with them by the lovers of art has consisted of modern imitations of ancient workmanship, but the quantity of genuine mediaeval articles—pottery in its various kinds, furniture, carving in wood, in marble, in stone and in ivory, lace, bronzes, embroidery, metal-work, brocaded stuffs, etc.—has been so enormous as to reveal in a very striking manner the extraordinary wealth of the country in the days when it was the mistress of Europe in civilization, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... stern of our galley was covered with sheets of beaten gold, the sails were of the scarlet of Tyre, and the oars of silver touched the water to a measure of music. And there, in the centre of the vessel, beneath an awning ablaze with gold embroidery, lay Cleopatra, attired as the Roman Venus (and surely Venus was not more fair!), in thin robes of whitest silk, bound in beneath her breast with a golden girdle delicately graven over with scenes of love. All about her were little ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery,' ii. 88. ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell

... vary fonny child, madam," Mademoiselle answered Mrs. Bolling's inquiry. "She has taste, but no—experience even of the most ordinary. She cooks, but she does no embroidery. She knits and knows no games to play. She has a good brain, but Mon Dieu, no one has taught her ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... the Custom sand Policies of his native Country, and has not yet fixed in his Mind the first Principles of Manners and Behaviour? To endeavour it, is to build a gawdy Structure without any Foundation; or, if I may be allow'd the Expression, to work a rich Embroidery upon ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... At each movement or antic that may soil their clothing they are pinched and scolded, so the fact is that they do not laugh or feel happy, while in their round eyes can be read a protest against so much embroidery and a longing for the ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal

... silk and bright embroidery At the first call of Spring the fair young bride, On whom as yet Sorrow has laid no scar, Climbs the Kingfisher's Tower. Suddenly She sees the bloom of willows far and wide, And grieves for him she lent to fame ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... and dressing for the first time in more than a month in a perfectly clean suit, I donned a snowy shirt, a pair of dashing drills, Parisian pumps, and a Turkish fez, tipped with a copious tassel. Our interpreters were clad in fresh Mandingo dresses adorned with extra embroidery. My body-servant was ordered to appear in a cast-off suit of my own; so that, when I gave one my double-barrelled gun to carry, and armed the others with my pistols, and a glittering regulation-sword,—designed as a gift for the Ali-Mami,—I presented a very respectable and picturesque appearance ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer

... pictures, lace, embroidery, nick-nacks, Italian singers, and French tumblers; and those who vote for them will never get a dinner of them ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... Giant was dead they had resumed their natural forms. As you may imagine, they were all very grateful, and Princess Placida entreated them never, never to do another stitch of work so long as they lived, and they promptly made a great bonfire in the courtyard, and solemnly burnt all the embroidery frames and spinning wheels. Then the Princess gave them splendid presents, or rather sat by while Prince Vivien gave them, and there were great rejoicings in the Green Castle, and everyone did his best to please ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... humor in his face and a folio volume under his arm, but his aspect was that of a man vexed and tormented beyond all patience and harassed almost to death. He went hastily down, and was followed by a dignified person dressed in a purple velvet suit with very rich embroidery; his demeanor would have possessed much stateliness, only that a grievous fit of the gout compelled him to hobble from stair to stair with contortions of face and body. When Dr. Byles beheld this figure on the staircase, he shivered as with an ague, but continued to watch ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... whole night, if she thought the boy had a better fruit or a larger cake than hers; would fling away a ribbon if he had one too; and from the earliest age, sitting up in her little chair by the great fireplace opposite to the corner where Lady Castlewood commonly sat at her embroidery, would utter childish sarcasm about the favour shown to her brother. These, if spoken in the presence of Lord Castlewood, tickled and amused his humour; he would pretend to love Frank best, and dandle and kiss him, and roar with laughter at ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... church door, in the midst of the smoke of two censers, Don Consolo appeared, resplendent in a violet chasuble, with gold embroidery. He held aloft the sacred arm of silver, and conjured the air, ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian • Various

... a leading counsel, quietly talking over a matter of law with the judge, or a matter of fact with the jury, like men of business as they are, and shunning, as they would a rattlesnake, all clap-trap arguments, figures, flowers, and the obsolete embroidery of rhetoric? ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various

... Mrs Lilly took her lodger into the front room and gave her embroidery work to do. She found it by no means difficult, having learned something like it during her residence with Ben-Ahmed's household. At night she retired to the dark lumber-room, but as Sally owned ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne

... dollars the corge; sleeve silk, the best made colours, 3 dollars the cattee; the best musk, 22 dollars the cattee; the best sewing gold thread, 15 knots, and every knot 30 threads, one dollar; velvet hangings with gold embroidery, 18 dollars; upon sattins, 14 dollars; white curtain stuffs, 9 yards the piece, 50 dollars the corge; flat white damask, 9 yards the piece, 4 dollars each; white sugar, very dry, 3-1/2 dollars the pekul; very dry sugar-candy, 5 dollars the pekul; very ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... am in a house which is newly founded—as will appear hereafter; [5] and so I am writing, with very many interruptions, by little and little at a time. I wish I had leisure; for when our Lord gives the spirit, it is more easily and better done; it is then as with a person working embroidery with the pattern before her; but if the spirit be wanting, there is no more meaning in the words than in gibberish, so to speak, though many years may have been spent in prayer. And thus I think it a very great advantage ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila

... be scarcely unfair to describe these as for the most part the beauties of decay; they are as rich embroidery upon rotten cloth, and are achieved by careful elaboration of sensuous imagination, and the art of arresting the attention upon a commonplace thought by the use of some striking epithet or novel and daring turn of expression. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... taught in the schools, the mother should give every opportunity to her children to practice it at home. Where it is not a part of the school course, parents should study to devise home substitutes for it, the mother teaching the girls sewing, embroidery, etc., and the father instructing the boys in carpentry and ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... to sternness, with which Mrs. Fisher received her, and explained to her the duties she was expected to perform, awed in the first place, and mortified in the second. The establishment of this fashionable modiste, with which Myra had associated nothing but laces and ribbons, dresses and trimmings, embroidery and feathers, flattery and display, struck cold and dull upon her imagination. She was introduced into a handsomely but very plainly furnished sitting-room, where not one trace of any of those pretty things were to be seen, and heard of nothing but regularity of hours, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... Spanish commander, he was induced to resume his former timid and conciliatory policy, and sent an embassy consisting of two young nephews of his own and four of his chief nobles to the Spanish quarters. As usual they bore a princely gift of gold, rich cotton stuffs, and wonderful mantles of feather embroidery. The envoys on coming before Cortes presented this offering, with the emperor's thanks to him for the courtesy he had shown to the captive nobles. At the same time Montezuma expressed his surprise and regret that the Spaniards should have countenanced the rebellion. He had no doubt, he said, that ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... of his predictions to his 'clients' with all kinds of hokum, and he's been doing it so long that he really isn't sure how much of any prediction is truth and how much is embroidery work. ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett

... stopped in the middle of an embroidery stitch, and gave her a look as if she were about to ask for her testimonials—"I could well wish, if it pleased God, that I were as near home ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... Scriptures and other good books upon parchment— because there was no paper in those days, nor any printing—drawing beautiful painted pictures at the beginning of the chapters, which were called illuminations. The nun did needlework and embroidery, as hangings for the altar, and garments for the priests, all bright with beautiful colors, and stiff with gold. The English nuns' work was the most beautiful to be ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge

... in a series of little falls, rushing and tumbling among the boulders that filled its path. This was a favorite spot with Juana, and here she came frequently for an afternoon holiday, sitting in the shade of the cottonwood trees lining the brook on either side, working on some piece of embroidery for the church, or, perhaps, some more humble domestic bit of sewing, or, in idle revery, watching the water hurrying by, but never long at a time forgetting her baby, which was always, of course, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter

... changes as clay under the seal, And all things appear therein as an embroidery;[253] But from the wicked is withholden their hiding-place, And the raised arm ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon

... mistake when we demand of Whitman what the other poets give us,—studies, embroidery, delicate tracings, pleasing artistic effects, rounded and finished specimens. We shall understand him better if we inquire what his own standards are, what kind of a poet he would be. He tells us over ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... is indeed not only "embroidery," but mere talk about shipwrecks, and the terrors of the deep. Homer realizes the situation by sensory images; he makes the reader see the white foam, and hear the wind howl through the torn sails, yes, and ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark

... richly embroidered altar cloth on which stood a strikingly handsome set of communion plate; to a font chastely carried out in marble; to an altar chair in oak and velvet that few less than a suffragan bishop would have dared take seat in; and to an example or two of highest art in needlework and embroidery in the form of offertory bags and testament markers. The other window of the central shop was a lesson to the profane in the beauty, the dignity and the variety of vestments. It also informed rural choirboys, haply in Tidborough ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... locked up for millions of years. These examples may serve as a small specimen of the infernal ingenuity displayed in the descriptions of the Hindu hells, which are all of one substantial pattern, however varied in the embroidery. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... me into a handsome salon, or drawing-room, in which I saw two ladies seated, engaged in embroidery work. They both rose as we entered. The eldest was a stately and handsome dame, but my eyes were naturally attracted by the younger. It was fortunate, perhaps, that Monsieur Planterre had described her, or I do not know ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston

... burrowing in it, and the birds building their nests upon it, and the trees growing out of its sides, like hair to clothe it, and the lovely grass in the valleys, and the gracious flowers even at the very edge of its armour of ice, like the rich embroidery of the garment below, and the rivers galloping down the valleys in a tumult of white and green! And along with all these, think of the terrible precipices down which the traveller may fall and be lost, and the frightful gulfs of blue air cracked in the glaciers, and the ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... Therefore, looking about us we find in her bazars the skilled product of real artisans, in the form of brass ware of such admirable finish as to monopolize the markets of the world in this line. And again, there is produced in her dark alleys and dirty lanes an article of silver gilt embroidery of unequaled excellence. Specimens of these remarkable local products are sure to be brought away by appreciative travelers, while the local demand from rich natives is very large in the aggregate. So there are many homes in this ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou

... levee was held at the Castle, the most brilliant ever known in Ireland. The costume of the queen attracted the highest admiration. She wore a robe of exquisitely shaded Irish poplin, of emerald green, richly wrought with shamrocks in gold embroidery. Her hair was simply parted on her forehead, with no ornament save a light tiara of gold studded with diamonds and pearls. On the Friday the royal party visited the Duke of Leinster, the premier peer of Ireland, and the same evening embarked at Kingstown for Belfast. Her departure, like her arrival, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... soon, with her guitar or her embroidery-frame; and they would sing and chatter till the early dinner. Rita's songs were all of love and war, boleros and bull-fights. She sang them with flashing ardour, and the other girls heard with breathless delight, watching the ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... gasped the heiress, flinging aside her embroidery and pacing up and down the floor like a caged animal. "I shall take a bitter revenge on her for this, or my name is not ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey

... instruments, in a small boat In another boat were the presents which he carried for the rajah from the king of Portugal. There were, six beds of fine Holland, with their pillows of the same, all wrought with gold embroidery. Two coverlets or carpets of unshorn crimson velvet, quilted all over, having three guards of cloth of gold, that in the middle a span in width, and the others two fingers broad. The bedstead was gilded all over, having curtains of crimson satin, fringed with cold thread. On putting off from his ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... Clichy!" At the name of Persigny, the same voice exclaimed, "At Poissy!" The inventor of these two jokes, which by the way are very poor, has since allied himself to the Second of December, to Morny and Persigny; he has covered his cowardice with the embroidery of a senator. ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo

... lace, embroidery, scarlet, Are things immortal to immortal man, As purple to the Babylonian harlot: An uniform to boys is like a fan To women; there is scarce a crimson varlet But deems himself the first in Glory's van. But Glory's glory; and if you would find What that is—ask the ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... special faculties and capacities, and we know perfectly well that other (generally many other) capacities and faculties will not be found in them at all. We do not dream of finding rollicking mirth in Milton, or gorgeous embroidery of style in Swift, or unadorned simplicity in Browne. But in Hazlitt you may find something of almost everything, except the finer kinds of wit and humour; to which last, however, he makes a certain side-approach by dint of his appreciation ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... like a piece of fairies' embroidery; far more beautiful than jewels would be. Oh, I wonder how people can make such a fuss about jewels, when they are so much less beautiful than these ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... it. "Let me have it," she said; "I'll put in a few tucks and a little embroidery—I shall be glad to have my ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey

... round him in the solitude of the little drawing-room. There was nothing to keep him in the house, and yet he lingered in it. It was something to be even near Agnes—to see the things belonging to her that were scattered about the room. There, in the corner, was her chair, with her embroidery on the work-table by its side. On the little easel near the window was her last drawing, not quite finished yet. The book she had been reading lay on the sofa, with her tiny pencil-case in it to mark the place at which she had left off. ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... took place at La Rochelle on the 24th of March, 1571. "Madame Jacqueline wore, on this occasion," says a contemporary chronicler, "a skirt in the Spanish fashion, of black gold-tissue, with bands of embroidery in gold and silver twist, and, above, a doublet of white silver-tissue embroidered in gold, with large diamond-buttons." She was, nevertheless, at that moment almost as poor as the German arquebusiers who escorted her litter; for an edict issued by the Duke of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... by the fire. Rosamund was sitting on a low chair doing some embroidery. Gold thread gleamed against a rough cream-colored ground in ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... halves of the ripe apricot at the insertion of the stem, look very much like the external genitalia of the human female. The significance and importance of the pomegranate in the mixed religion of the Ancient Hebrews are well brought out in rules laid down for the ornamentations and embroidery of the robes of the priests, etc., etc., Vid. ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... all, he demanded of himself, what did a girl want to know such things for? He would have liked better to see her in the shade with an embroidery hoop. ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... met mine. (But why did I choose moments when the playing of the piece demanded less than all his attention?) The Berceuse was a favourite. In sentiment it was simpler than the great pieces that had preceded it. Its excessive delicacy attracted; the finesse of its embroidery swayed and enraptured the audience; and the applause at the close was mad, deafening, and peremptory. But Diaz was notorious as a refuser of encores. It had been said that he would see a hall wrecked by an angry mob before he would enlarge his programme. Four times ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... the pain of this injury, I was pushing my way towards the man to take my revenge, when I was confronted by two handsome youths of about eighteen to twenty, wearing a brilliant costume, covered with rich embroidery, who were the sons of the chieftain of this clan. They were accompanied by an elderly man who was some sort of tutor, but who was unarmed. The younger of his two pupils did not draw his sword, but elder did and attacked me furiously...I found him so immature and lacking ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot

... shaddocks, oranges and pineapples, but in spite of the cool refreshing air, many of the girls were frankly lounging, as became the tropics, others were turning the leaves of the Journal des Modes, dabbling in water colours, pensively frowning at an embroidery frame. Of the three young men present one was absorbed in the Racing Calendar, another was making himself generally agreeable, offering to read aloud or hold wool, and a third was flirting in a corner ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... hither, Ritta. [She returns.] I saw your new embroidery in the hall,— The needle in the midst of Argus' eyes; It should ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker

... his cloak again Of ermined frost, and wind, and rain, And clothes him in the embroidery Of glittering sun and clear blue sky. With beast and bird the forest rings, Each in his jargon cries or sings; And Time throws off his cloak again. Of ermined frost, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... produce jerking angles, and stop-short abruptness, fatal at once to the grace and ease of the sentence;—which are, in language, what the rusty black silk handkerchief and the brass ring are upon the beautiful form of the Italian countess she mentions, arrayed in embroidery, and blazing ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi

... them in a perfect shower; the second jupe having attached to the edge of the hem a narrower fringe; the two sides of the upper skirt being open to the waist, is ornamented upon each side with an embroidery of gold and white silk, caught at regular distances with noeuds of white and gold gauze ribbon, the floating ends of which are edged with fringe; body a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various

... being an angel all my life Carbuncle is a kind of jewel Compliment that helps us on our way Defeat waits somewhere for every conqueror Don't reform any more. It is not an improvement Edited manuscript-by a half wit Embroidery line Every man is strong until his price is named Feverish desire to admire the newest thing Flood-tide is a temporary condition Genius has no youth God is on both sides in this war Good-by. Will healing ever come, or life have value again? Honor is a harder master than ...
— Widger's Quotations from Albert Bigelow Paine on Mark Twain • David Widger

... solemnly. "It'll be as easy as kissing your hand, and they'll know at once how to engrave the emeralds with the old Sanskrit inscription, and make the belt of the same kind of leather, so beautifully soft, dull, and yellow; and there are plenty of people in London who can do that Indian embroidery." ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... don't, you may anyhow go ahead with the machine; it isn't a motor-car, though I started by comparing it to one. And even when, having to a certain extent mastered, through sensible management of the machine, the art of achieving a daily content and dignity, you come to the embroidery of life—even the best embroidery of life is not absolutely ruinous. Meat may go up in price—it has done—but books won't. Admission to picture galleries and concerts and so forth will remain quite low. The views from Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or along Pall Mall at sunset, the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett

... is a splendid sight to see (For one who hath no friend, no brother there) Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery, Their various arms that glitter in the air! What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair, And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey! All join the chase, but few the triumph share: The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away, And Havoc scarce ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... "Purchased Wife," the Princess Anastasia, the Beautiful, enables the youth Ivan, who ransoms her, to win a large sum of money in the following manner. Having worked a piece of embroidery, she tells him to take it to market. "But if any one purchases it," says she, "don't take any money from him, but ask him to give you liquor enough to make you drunk." Ivan obeys, and this is the result. He drank till ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... the stroke of the hour set for lunch, and to his chagrin was shown to the library, where Deena was sitting alone. His trouble deepened, for, after motioning him to a chair beside her, she resumed her embroidery and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... volatile, garrulous, "neighbourly" woman, or one who can do little save strum on the piano or make embroidery as intricate as it is useless, means divorce or murder. For him, sweetness, gentleness, self-control, sound common sense, shrewdness, and domestic virtues are incomparably superior to any mental brilliance ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs

... one and one-half years; designing, two years; passementerie making, one year; dyeing, one year; embroidery, one-fourth year. ...
— The Condition and Tendencies of Technical Education in Germany • Arthur Henry Chamberlain

... outline and slender frame was lying on the bed. She was wearing a fashionable rest gown of soft silk trimmed with gold embroidery, her fair hair partly covered by a silk boudoir cap. By her side stood a small table, on which were bottles of eau-de-Cologne and lavender water, smelling salts in cut glass and silver, a gold cigarette case, ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... a squalid room, dressed as a work-woman, and employed on some embroidery, the millionaire turned pale. At the end of a quarter of an hour, while Asie affected to talk in whispers to Esther, the young old man could ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... that "that was no news to hear of his wedding but, if she could hear of his death, that was something." At last it was thought better that he and they should part; and they were put out, at considerable expense to their father, to learn embroidery work and other "curious and ingenious manufactures" for their living. It is pleasant to hear that the youngest, Deborah, who was visited by Addison not long before he died, and received fifty guineas from Queen Caroline, was "in a transport" of delight when shown ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... to show her how to begin her new piece of embroidery; Papa Jack had forgotten to bring out the magazines she wanted to see; Walker had failed to roll the tennis-court and put up the net, so she could not even practise serving the ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston

... both in such Babylonian works of art as we possess and on the Assyrian sculptures, where the tree, or a portion of it, appears not only in the running ornaments on the walls but on seal cylinders and even in the embroidery on the robes of kings. In the latter case indeed, it is almost certain, from the belief in talismans which the Assyrians had inherited, along with the whole of their religion from the Chaldean mother country, that this ornament was ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin



Words linked to "Embroidery" :   embroidery hoop, needlework, faggoting, fagoting, expansion, drawnwork, cutwork, crewelwork, fancywork, elaboration, embroidery stitch, embroider, embroidery needle, embellishment, needlepoint, sampler



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