the hand, not looking at the needle-point. Use the eye only to select colour, and then to keep the work within certain bounds. The practice of following with the needle lines traced on the material with a pen or chalk is fatal to colour inspiration (not necessarily to colour knowledge); as the retina, fatigued by unnatural exercise, loses its sensitiveness to immediate colour-impulses.
If any tracing be used, let the design be as simple as possible, and purely Geometric. Trace on the back of the material, and run a thread through to the front. This thread will not need to be absolutely covered, as it can be afterwards removed.
If gold thread be used, wind it first on a reel, till it takes a curved set; shake it off the reel, and use the natural coils into which it falls, arranging these to please the fancy. Avoid using gold over a tracing. Some of the very ancient curves of Indian Art occur naturally when Japanese gold is shaken off a reel.
If the hand is stiff, it may be loosened and trained into tune with Nature's formative processes by the practice of drawing the Pentagram and Heptagram. I have the sanction of Dr. Maudsley for the opinion (which is confirmed by my experience) that this exercise is eminently suited to produce, in the muscles of the hand, a kind of automatic skill, a consonance with Nature's growth-processes, such as might well seem to primeval peoples miraculous. The copying of actual forms puts the hand into harmony with certain accidental outcomes of Nature's Laws; the Pentagram is an Algebraization of Nature's processes of development.
A good test whether the hand is properly in tune with Nature, consists in feather-stitching an irregular
