[Illustration:  A SPANGLED WOOL NETTED COVER FOR A TEA-POY, SQUARE WORK-TABLE, OR, IF DRAWN TOGETHER AT THE TOP, MAKES A GLITTERING FIRE-VEIL.]

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NETTED ANTI-MACASSAR

[Illustration]

MATERIALS.—­Brooks’ Great Exhibition Prize Goat’s-head Knitting Cord, No. 40, and Embroidery Cotton, No 70; mesh, one-third of an inch wide.

This anti-macassar is done in the fashionable style of netting, with a pattern darned on it after it is worked.  Make a foundation, on which work 67 stitches.  Repeat these, backwards and forwards, until a square is done, of as many holes up the sides as along the width.  Remove the foundation, and add either a crochet-bead border all round, or a netted one.  The bead border makes the shape more solid; the netted one is certainly lighter, and the following is very pretty:—­

With a mesh three times the size of that used for the square, do one entire round, with three stitches in one at the corners.

2nd round:  With the small mesh.  Miss the first stitch, net the second, then the missed one, repeat all round.

3rd:  X Net a stitch in each of seven stitches, miss one stitch of last round, X repeat all round.

Observe, before doing this round, count the number of stitches; if they cannot be divided by eight, add at the corners as many as may be required.  Supposing there are so many eights and five over, then three more will be wanted, and one must be added (by doing two in one) in each of the three corners.

4th:  X 6 over seven, miss the long stitch, X repeat.

5th:  X 5 over six, missing as before, X repeat.

6th:  X 4 over five, as before, X repeat.

7th:  X 3 over four, as before, X repeat.

8th:  X 2 over three, as before, X repeat.

Before darning netting, wash it perfectly clean, stiffen it by dipping it into a little gum-water, and pin it out on a pillow, in the proper form, to dry.  Then darn it with embroidery cotton, every square of the pattern being closely filled up.

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SHORT PURSE, IN NETTING.

As the following specimen is done only in the ordinary netting stitch, we do not think any particular explanation of the art of netting can be needed by our readers, it being so universally known.  Indeed, it would be extremely difficult to teach the stitch by writing.  Whenever any stitch, except that used in common netting, may occur in any of the following designs, we will endeavour to explain it as clearly as possible.

MATERIALS.—­Very fine crimson netting silk, and gold thread.  Two steel meshes are required, one about No. 15, and one No. 11.  Eagle card-board gauge.

Make a piece of foundation of 9 stitches, and join your silk in the first.