# Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 4/Women's work: designing patterns - I

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WOMENS’ WORK. DESIGNING PATTERNS.
If, as Mr. Ruskin so often assures us, people work better who are happy in their work—and it is most agreeable, as well as rational, to believe that it is so—one can scarcely imagine anything more beneficial to women who are disposed to work, than that they should direct their attention to the invention of beautiful patterns. Who can have so much to do as women, not only with the choice of fabrics in which beautiful patterns are displayed, but in the study and enjoyment of them when they adorn our dwellings, or when they impart grace and elegance to the human figure? The avocations of men lead them so often away from these matters of social and domestic arrangement, that women are left very much to themselves in this department of taste, and must have opportunities innumerable, in which men take no part, for studying the various combinations and effects, or the harmonies and discords, both of form and colour, as displayed in the objects immediately around them. Even upon their own dresses what an amount of invention must be bestowed to produce those exqusitely delicate and elaborate patterns by which muslin, calico, and silk fabrics are now adorned. Yet how much of this devolves entirely upon men; and how much also upon the exquisite taste, and the skilful hands, of our neighbours across the Channel?
The great want, of which in the present day we behold so many instances, is of something for women to do that will not expose them to hardship—something which they may render remunerative without losing caste—something, in short, that will not vulgarise them. We have at present no recognised step between the governess and the shopwoman. For simple independence of position there can be no question but the latter bears the palm; but as a matter of feeling to a well brought up, and a well educated woman, the difference is immense the other way. It is of no use reasoning on such points. Reasoners are apt to say—“I should prefer the shop.” When their turn comes to make the actual experiment, we see which they choose.
In consequence of this universal and natural leaning to the more genteel occupation, the market for governesses is frightfully overstocked, and their services grievously reduced in value; while a worse evil still becomes incorporated into our educational systems by hundreds and thousands of women undertaking to teach—who hate the occupation most cordially—hate it from beginning to end, and who murmur against the necessity which drives them to it as the greatest calamity upon earth.
Now, if the daughter, without leaving the protection of her father’s house, could sit down in the midst of a happy and united family to draw patterns; if the lone woman in her own neat little parlour could employ herself upon graphic designs; or if the widow with her children around her, taking up her pencil, or her colours, could construct new forms of beauty, perhaps as interesting to them as to herself, and so bring in a trifle for their food and clothing, still keeping over her head the shelter of a roof to call her own, and at her feet the warmth of a hearth, her title to which no stranger could dispute—what happiness of a domestic, as well as individual nature, such women might enjoy, compared with that which falls to the share of those who “go out,” as it is called.
Of course, like all other exact and beautiful arts, that of designing patterns is not acquired in a moment. If left until the season of necessity, there is every reason to fear it will never be acquired at all. The very faculty of invention itself, if allowed to lie dormant for twenty years, will prove very inefficient when suddenly set to work for the first time under the stress of adverse circumstances. Hence the vast importance to that class of women whose position in life renders them liable to the exigences of business, or of any precarious profession, of bestowing their time and attention in moments of leisure upon something better than merely counting threads and stitches, or following with minute precision lines already traced out for them by machinery.
One day spent in observing the patterns contained in a single room, and in considering how to improve them, would do more for the minds of such workers than years occupied in fine stitching, without an idea attached to it; and when once the faculty of invention has fairly got to work, if only in improving what others have invented, it produces sensations of an animating and pleasurable kind, such as can never be the accompaniment of servile and slavish work.
In proof of how much the art of drawing patterns requires cultivation, we have only to look over the rejected patterns of any of our great Manchester cotton printers. I have myself seen the volumes of these rejected patterns, many of which, ​to my unpractised eye, looked more attractive than some that were accepted. I remember especially one that represented a little vase of flowers, most exquisite in itself. Beguiled by the beauty of this design, the manufacturers had gone so far as to have it engraved and printed, and still it would not do. There was a slight want of balance in the group of flowers, which, when they were regularly repeated, and seen from a little distance as a whole, gave them the appearance of slanting not quite diagonally; and this, the exhibitor said, had in a dress the effect of making the figure look crooked. In the same manner we have all, no doubt, detected in the papering of a room some one-sided cast of this kind in flowers, leaves, or any other figures, making the paper look as if not placed straight upon the wall, or making even the wall itself appear slanting, so that the eye becomes continually puzzled, and painfully occupied in tracing out lines which have no agreement either with the horizontal or the perpendicular.
Anxious to come at some rule or principle of art which might guide the beginner, I inquired what was the first thing to be observed in drawing patterns for fabrics to be worn as dresses. I was answered, “To avoid the last year’s fashions;” and it struck me that this simple advice embodied a principle well worth remembering, its application being by no means confined to the subject under consideration.
The prices paid for accepted patterns varied so much, and my inquiries were made so many years ago, that it might mislead more than assist others, were I to repeat all that was told me on this occasion. I know, however, that more than one lucky little pattern was shown me, in size not covering more space than a crown piece, for which seven shillings would be given. But then those bulky volumes of rejected patterns still stared me in the face, many of them rejected for no earthly reason that I could understand. I was told, too, on the same occasion—only the “long, long ago,” must be taken into account—that the principal designer of patterns for the Manchester houses was at that time receiving a salary for his work of not less than £300 per annum, and that scarcely any female skill—I think that of only one lady in England—was then engaged in this most agreeable and interesting occupation.
It is impossible, if we look around us with observant eyes, not to discover for ourselves certain facts or truths of essential service to the designer of patterns; such, for example, as that a large strong bold pattern has the effect upon the eye of coming near, and a small dim pattern of retreating. We see this in the papering of rooms, for how painful is the sensation of being in a small room, the walls of which are covered with a pattern that seems to make them come near, and almost close upon us, like the iron tomb which grew less and less every night, though by almost imperceptible degrees.
Again, architectural patterns should never be made to float. Nothing can look more absurd than figures representing the solid structure of massive walls, when the texture on which they are displayed is one which necessarily wraps itself into folds, or is generally in motion, as in the case of a lady’s dress.
Depth, too, is another important consideration, as well as aërial effect. There are very few patterns in which we require what painters call depth, and all attempts to reach this point, so desirable in a picture, had better be let alone, where the fact of a surface being level constitutes its merit. Such depth as gives the appearance of work slightly raised, as in the diaper patterns of the Alhambra in the Crystal Palace, may be always appropriate, but beyond this the effect must generally be doubtful, and often worse than that.
In the same way aerial effect producing an appearance of distance must be highly objectionable, where the fabric is of such a nature that it would be a demerit if we could see through it. Hence in all carpets this effect should be scrupulously avoided. We want to stand upon our carpets, not to slip through them. And yet some of those exquisite fabrics produced by the looms of the Messrs. Crosby have exactly this design successfully carried out—an appearance of soft atmospheric distance, alternating with the richest groups of scrolls and flowers. On a wall this effect would be more appropriate, but in the flooring of a room these alternations of depth and air convey a certain feeling that we shall stumble into holes in the dark places, and slip through in the light; thus destroying the sensation of repose and serenity, which are chiefly wanted in a foundation, in order that it may be comfortably relied upon.
It is possible that in the furnishing of our rooms generally we make too much the mistake of producing excitement rather than repose; but as this consideration of the subject would lead us up to painted ceilings, and so far away from women’s work, considered in a remunerative point of view, we must descend again to those more simple questions of relation and fitness, by observing which, such work can alone be successfully pursued.
S. S.