"Stitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that boy, and no mistake! You've either beaten the spirit all out of him, or you have shut up a devil in him that'll break out one o' these days, worse'n them that went into the pigs that we read about! But 'tain't too late to mend, an' if a stitch in time does save nine, it's better to take the nine stitches than to wait till they are ninety times nine. You've got to be a thousand times kinder to the boy than you would if you hadn't been so hard on him ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was to see him sit there and tell Mrs. Clemens what had been happening while they were away during the summer, holding the slipper up toward the end of his nose, imagining the canvas was a "subject" with a scalp-wound, working with a "lovely surgical stitch," never hesitating a moment in his talk except to say "Ouch!" when he stuck himself ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... 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 lords formed a truly remarkable picture. Our captain of musketeers, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... 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; ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... came; and he called at the door, and the old man within knew his tongue so soon as ever he heard it; so he opened, and they all came in. Then said Mnason their host, How far have ye come today? So they said, From the house of Gaius our friend. I promise you, said he, you have gone a good stitch, you may well be a weary; sit down. So ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... made the old crone beside it wince and mutter in her sleep. Having shielded her from its fierce light, she then, with trembling fingers, opened a little penknife which lay upon the table, and cut the twine with which the cover was sewed at the back. The last stitch severed, the cloth fell with a solemn rustle at her feet, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. Strength and time, I repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plow, to sow, to reap, to grind corn, to cook, to weave, to stitch and perform the other numerous functions required to keep life going; to say nothing of the arts and sciences which are also entirely necessary to the perfection and blessedness of human nature. We see that peoples ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... eagerly, and, in the impulse of the moment,—before I reflected that I was wronging Flora,—pressed it to my lips. Yes, I found the place where it had been mended, the spot Margaret's fingers had touched, and gave it a kiss for every stitch. Then, incensed at myself, I flung it from me, and hurried from the room. I walked towards the Place de la Concorde, where the brilliant lamps burned like a constellation. I strolled through the Elysian Fields, and watched the lights of the carriages swarming like fire-flies ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... "A stitch in time saves nine." The old nursery lines fully explain the philosophy of this doctrine. "For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the man ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... indescribable emotion passed through every heart. Every eye was turned upon the point to which attention was now directed. The graceful vessel, with every stitch of canvass set, was shooting rapidly past the low bushes skirting the sands that still concealed her hull; and in a moment or two she loomed largely and proudly on the bosom of the Detroit, the surface of which was slightly ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... big kiss, and went back to the kitchen, where she resumed work upon her hat. It had lost its interest for her. She stitched quickly and roughly, not as one interested in needlework or careful for its own sake of the regularity of the stitch. Ordinarily she was accurate: to-night her attention was elsewhere. It had come back to the rows, because there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it ever so much more important than it really is. Loneliness with happy thoughts is perhaps ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... for stitch. Look closely at them both, I beg, and tell me if in your judgment it is not evident that this strap or loop, or whatever we may call it, has been cut away from this coat to which it had been previously sewed—and by no ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... Temperance village wore calico, or flannel shirts, except on Sundays, but Father never wore any but white ones with starched bosoms. He was very particular about them and mother used to stitch and stitch on the pleats, and press and press the bosoms and collar and cuffs, sometimes late ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... through the water on a bowline; for, the sea having gone down a bit, besides running the same way we were going, she did not take in so much wet nor heel over half so much as she did an hour before, when beating to windward, while every stitch she had on drew, sending her along a good eight knots or more, with a wake behind ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... retiring to rest. If there were a common hour for breakfast and 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 to ...
— Speeches of His Majesty Kamehameha IV. To the Hawaiian Legislature • Kamehameha IV
... hastily arranged after a meal, that one might have doubted whether it was made tidy for visitors, or cleared for blindman's buff, Mr and Mrs Boffin became aware of the entrance of Mrs Wilfer, majestically faint, and with a condescending stitch in her side: which ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... job, she had, apparently, years before, given up putting a stitch in the ends of the fingers, when a stitch gave way; and the consequence was that we were perfectly familiar with Miss Blake's nails—and those nails looked as if, at an early period of her life, a hammer had been brought heavily down upon them. Mrs. Elmsdale might well be a ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... to dance. Every one wandered about through the rooms or lolled in the grottoes, which were lighted with different-colored lamps. In every corner were fountains of cologne, around which the gentler sex stood in crowds saturating their handkerchiefs—some of which had cross-stitch initials in red thread. Mirrors were placed at the end of each room to prolong the vista. "Mexico," in enormous letters formed by gas-jets, stood over the entrances. And as for the supper, it was in a room out of ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... arranging and combining the small lever, with the sliding box in combination with the spring piece, for the purpose of tightening the stitch ...
— Scientific American magazine, Vol. 2 Issue 1 • Various
... house. When I am working, it falls on my wife alone, but to-day we had it between us; she did the bedroom, I the sitting-room, in fifty-seven minutes of really most unpalatable labour. Then I changed every stitch, for I was wet through, and sat down and played on my pipe till dinner was ready, mighty pleased to be in a mildly habitable spot once more. The house had been neglected for near a week, and was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... common cash-bag, and on the table is a heap of such bags. Witch Two laughs at us. Witch Three scowls at us. Witch sisterhood all, stitch, stitch. First Witch has a circle round each eye. I fancy it like the beginning of the development of a perverted diabolical halo, and that when it spreads all round her head, she will die ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... time for sailing; the swallow has come chattering and the mellow west wind; the meadows are already in bloom; the sea is silent and the waves the rough winds pummeled. Up anchors and loose the hawsers, sailor, set every stitch of canvas. This I, Priapos the harbor god, command you, man, that you may sail for all manner of ladings. (Leonidas in the ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... stitch in your boots for you while you sleep," said the host casually. "The thread is rotten, I can ...
— Barlasch of the Guard • H. S. Merriman
... it is to 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 ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... heavy squalls without starting a stitch. It demands not only courage, but seamanlike judgment. Also applied to the cable, or any purchase where, by reason of its slipperiness, the purchase does not nip; she is then said to be "heaving through ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... forgetfulness of Religion, at a minute when he is desiring Letitia to give him leave to swear by her Lips and Eyes, when he is kissing and telling her, Eternity was in that moment. [Footnote: Collier, p. 63.] In short, when he has got her fast in his Arms, and intends to go through stitch with the matter; for which he calls the Lady Strumpet, and raves at the smuttiness of the Action; and yet, a little while after, in another page, rallies, jokes upon, and banters young Worthy in the Relapse, ...
— Essays on the Stage • Thomas D'Urfey and Bossuet
... mend, On the waist that's weary and worn. Stitch, stitch, stitch, Each tatter so jagged and torn. Collar and cuffs and sleeves, Cobble and darn and baste, Before they gape in a ghastly row, And shriek ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... We'll find a way to moisten it, I'll warrant you, if there be any wine in town. Mr Alderman Stitch, your bill is too reasonable; you certainly must lose by it: send me in half a dozen more greatcoats, pray; my servants are the dirtiest dogs! Mr Damask, I believe you are afraid to trust me, by those few yards of silk you sent my wife; she likes the pattern so extremely she is resolved ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... her life Aunt William had done many, many miles of wool-work. It was neither embroidery nor tapestry; it was made on canvas with what is known for some mysterious reason as Berlin wool; and was so simple that it used to be called the Idiot Stitch; but the curious elaboration of the design and sort of dignified middle-Victorian futility about it cast a glamour over the whole, and dispelled any association of idiocy from the complete work. A banner screen was now in front of the fire, which Aunt William had worked during ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... this, and another, that: he has said one thing in one place, and the reverse of it in another place. He is charged with having failed to make the transition from ideas to matter. Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... started out with every prospect of success. Benzine is an economical thing to use, but socially it is not up to the standard. Another idea has occurred to me, however. Why not riprap the skirt, calk the solvages, readjust the box plaits, cat stitch the crown sheet, file down the gores, sandpaper the gaiters and discharge the dolman. You could then wear the garment anywhere in the evening, and half the people wouldn't know anything ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... done in much the same way as mending paper, excepting that a little greater overlap must be left. It is well to put a stitch of silk at each end of a vellum patch, as you cannot depend on paste alone holding vellum securely. The overlapping edges must be well roughed up with a knife to make sure that the paste will stick. A cut in a vellum page is best ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... "train up a child in the way he should go," and this applies with equal force to the dog. Treat them with the utmost kindness, but with a firm hand. Be sure they are taught to mind when spoken to, and never fail to correct at once when necessary. A stitch in time saves many times nine. A habit once formed is hard to break. Never be harsh with them; never whip; remember that judicious kindness with firmness is far more effective with dogs, as with children. Be sure to accustom them to mingle ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... all mun dea a stitch, Stitchin', faane stitchin', An' they mun binnd it roond her ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... I dinna ken how it was, but there was something; pitiful in seeing her take up the mittens and begin working cheerily at one, and me kenning all the time that they would never be finished. I watched her fingers, and I said to mysel', 'Another stitch, and that maun be your last.' I said that to mysel' till I thocht it was the needle that said it, and I ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... morning,—how Sin Saxon grew social and saucy with the quiet Miss Josselyns; how she fell upon the mending-basket and their notability, and declared that the most foolish and pernicious proverb in the world was that old thing about a stitch in time saving nine; it might save certain special stitches; but how about the time itself, and other stitches? She didn't believe in it,—running round after a darning-needle and forty other ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 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 ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... torch and examined the wooden base. And then his interest grew, for he found it was strongly stitch-nailed ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... I didn't want your eagle eyes seeing all the bobbly stitches on the first one. I hope you like it, Ward. Every stitch stands for a thought of the hills and our good times. I've brought Minervy back to life, and I try to play my old pretends sometimes. But they always break up into pieces. I'm not a kid now, you see. And life is a lot different when you get out into ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... it," said the Doctor. "I can't play Blind-Man's Buff and stitch up wounds without a lamp. ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... utensils can be well cared for without good, clean dishcloths and towels, and plenty of them. An excellent dishcloth may be either knit or crocheted in some solid stitch of coarse cotton yarn. Ten or twelve inches square is a good size. Several thicknesses of cheese-cloth basted together make good dishcloths, as do also pieces of old knitted garments and Turkish toweling. If a dish mop is preferred, it may be made as follows: Cut a groove an ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... 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 in ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... problem—that we are anxious to do justice to the "black," and at the same time we are naturally anxious to see the European population flourish. I believe the gold fields will attract a large European population. The wages are enormous. There are 20,000 black men, without a stitch upon them, earning as much as eighteen shillings a week a-piece, and getting as much food as they can eat, in the mines of Johannesburg. People talk about the treatment of the blacks. Nobody dares to treat them badly, because they would run away. There is a competition for ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... enough cloth to hold firmly in the weaving, but I have known one industrious soul who raveled the strips until only a narrow third was left down the middle of the strip, and this she found it necessary to stitch with the sewing machine to prevent further raveling. I have also known of the experiment of cutting the strips on the bias, stitching along the centre and pulling the two edges until they were completely ruffled. Although this is a painstaking process, it has very ...
— How to make rugs • Candace Wheeler
... balance it; so that a man rich in such lore, like Sancho Panza, can always find a venerable maxim to fortify the view he happens to be taking. In respect to foresight, for instance, we are told, Make hay while the sun shines, A stitch in time saves nine, Honesty is the best policy, Murder will out, Woe unto you, ye hypocrites, Watch and pray, Seek salvation with fear and trembling, and Respice finem. But on the same authorities exactly we ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... never heard men laugh like it in my born days. Sort of recoil, I s'pose it must ha' been, after the shock. Laugh? There was men staggerin' drunk with it and there was men rollin' on the turf with it; an' there was men cryin' with it, holdin' on to a stitch in their sides an' beseechin' everyone also to hold hard. The blind men took a bit longer to get going; but by gosh, sir! once started they laughed to do your heart good. O Lord, O Lord! I wish you could ha' see that mild-mannered spokesman. Somebody had fished out his spectacles for en, and that ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... stripping a large white birch of its bark with a sharp knife; she scraped away the internal coating as a tanner would scrape leather, and laid the pieces before the other squaw, whose business was to stitch them together with bast. The men meanwhile prepared a sausage-shaped framework of very thin cedar ribs, tying every point of junction with firm knots; for the aforesaid bast is to the Indian what glue and nails are ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... these over in the morn-in', wife. They're jest a few new cross-stitch Bible texts, an' I knowed you liked Scripture motters. Where'll I lay 'em, wife, while I go out an' tend to lightin' that lantern? I told Isrul I'd set it in the stable door so's he could git that steer out ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... Rose: Thank you very much for the tidy, dear, but whatever in the world caused you to make it in that stitch? I like shell-stitch ever so much better, so would you mind doing it over for me? I am returning this one, for maybe you will decide to ravel it out; if you don't, you can just make me a new one. Mother has crocheted several things for me, but most of them are in shell-stitch, ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... Desire, suddenly,—(she did her thinking deeply and slowly, but she had never got over her old suddenness in speech; it was like the way a good old seamstress I knew used to advise with the needle,—"Take your stitch deliberate, but pull out your thread as quick as you can,")—"Hazel! I think I may go to ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 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 ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... by the deluge of water pouring down the cabin. I dressed myself in great haste and hurried upon deck to learn the cause of this disaster, which I found originated in the coming on of a terrible hurricane, which would not permit us to show a stitch of canvas, and found us continual employment at the pumps; my chest in the cabin shipped a sea which did not improve the appearance of my wardrobe. The following day we had calmer weather, and pursued our course steadily, ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... the other room. Beaton knew she wanted to talk with him about something else; but he waited patiently to let her play her comedy out. She spread the cover on the table, and he advised her, as he saw she wished, against putting anything in the corners; just run a line of her stitch ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Laeken. But the sun was already down; the air was chill; and we had scarcely a dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now we found ourselves near the end of the Allee Verte, and on the very threshold of Brussels, we were confronted by a serious difficulty. The shores were closely lined by canal boats waiting their turn at the lock. Nowhere ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... getting the Academy of Music ready, there were many things to be considered apart from the mere putting up of the structure itself. And these were as necessary as the house proper. In the first place, there was not a stitch of canvas prepared for the scenery; the lighting of the house had to be considered, and the arrangements for the seating had not been mentioned. These were some of the ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... for the young folk to learn a lot, and there's no going against the times. In my young life sewing was the great thing. Now it's Latin and Greek. Don't you forget that I taught you to sew, Prissie, and always put a back stitch when you're running a seam; it keeps the stuff together ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... notwithstanding he began to entertain a suspicion as to the true cause of the disturbance. The doctor happened to be in. "I think I'd better have a little medicine, doctor," said he, on seeing his medical adviser. A stitch in time, ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... Mythology, pp. 287 to 295. Nothing is said about their dancing, but they are described as "merry, cheerful, and always singing like a cricket" (ib. p. 295), and from one of their fishing-nets left on the sea shore, when its fairy owners were surprised by the rising of the sun, the Maoris learnt the stitch for netting a net. Like the Indian fairies they appear to be as big as ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... room, descended the stairs, and "beat up" through the living-room and store, as Betty Gallup said "with ev'ry stitch of canvas drawin' and a bone in her teeth." Louise agreed about the "bone"—she had given her Aunt Euphemia a hard one to ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... will be surprised to find it looks as good as new. If you are ever consulted beforehand as to what would be nice for the baby, use all your eloquence against any color being put into these knitted shawls. Germantown wool is the best to use, and plain knitting or brioche stitch is the best to wear and wash, and these things must be washed with the most careful handling. On the nicest baby they will become dirty, and the delicate blues and pinks become the dismalest wrecks when washed. Therefore, tell your patient not to ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery
... Mary. She had missed a stitch somewhere, and it irritated her greatly. That was evident by the way she picked at it. She remedied the trouble somehow, recovered her ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... gossip, if thee doesn't get on faster wi' thy tale, Peggy's ghost will have a chronicle of another make. I can see Nic's tongue is yammering to take up a stitch i' thy narrative," interrupted ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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.
... they came up, nearly every one stripped naked and got out where he could enjoy the full benefit of the falling water. Fancy, if possible, the spectacle of twenty-five thousand or thirty thousand men without a stitch of clothing upon them. The like has not been seen, I imagine, since the naked followers of Boadicea gathered in force to do battle to the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... finishing the infant dress she had been working on for over two weeks. "I'll never go back to infancy again, after the masquerade, believe me," she disgustedly declared. "Let me tell you, this sweet little baby gown is fearfully and wonderfully made. I know, for I took every stitch in it." ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... astronomy, in laundry-work, in cookery, in needle-work, ennobles literature, or music, or science, or housekeeping. What worthy pursuit can you not, by excellence, raise into honor and esteem? Matilda of Normandy embroidered, in the quiet of her castle, stitch by stitch, and day after day, the battle of Hastings, at which the Conqueror won. When that great mingling of Normans and Saxons proved to be the important and the last step in the making of England, men looked back to the battle which decided the Norman Conquest, and, lacking ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... room Madame de la 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 table close ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... she knelt up in the window-seat and pressed her nose against the glass. It was just as bad inside the room; there was Miss Unity's stiff upright figure, there was her needle going in and out of her canvas, there was the red rose gradually unfolding with every stitch. There was Pennie, bent nearly double over a fairy book, with her elbows on her knees and a frown of interest on her brow. There was nothing to see, nothing to do, no one to talk to. Ethelwyn ...
— The Hawthorns - A Story about Children • Amy Walton
... to the piano, sat down and played "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre." Miss Lucy took up her knitting, and knitted very rapidly, her eyes now upon her nephew, now upon her father's portrait. Judith, rising from the old cross-stitch tabouret where she had been sitting, laid a fresh log on the fire, then went and stood beside the long window, looking out upon ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... that of Scripture and Reason; which I shall pardon him if he can deny without shaking his own composition to pieces. The 'impudence,' therefore, since he weighed so little what a gross revile that was to give his equal, I send him back again for a phylactery to stitch upon his arrogance, that censures not only before conviction so bitterly without so much as one reason given, but censures the Congregation of his Governors to their faces, for not being so hasty as himself to censure." [Footnote: The discourse ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... saw, which I thought unkind of them, considering all the interest they showed in words; for, as I say of all the fine ladies who come here and fondle the infants, what's the use of all the fondling if they never put a sou out, or a stitch in?" ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... the seat of Cobbler Joe, [5] for whose death you and others are answerable? His "Orphan Daughter" (pathetic Pratt!) will, certes, turn out a shoemaking Sappho. Have you no remorse? I think that elegant address to Miss Dallas should be inscribed on the cenotaph which Miss Milbanke means to stitch to his memory. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... very rich. She goes abroad all day to scrub, And home at night to stitch. She wears her shabby hat awry, Perched on a silly comb; And people laugh at Polly Dibbs ...
— A Book for Kids • C. J. (Clarence Michael James) Dennis
... some time later, she was at the rectory, whither she had gone, at Mrs. Whittridge's request, to explain a new and intricate embroidery stitch. They were upstairs in that lady's charming little sitting-room, Phebe on a low stool by her friend's side, and Halloway had just come in from a round of parochial visits ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... strap in our school days—being invited to swell the number, and to complete the welcome home. Supper ended, I was made the recipient of various gifts from my parents and sisters. Amongst other things which my mother gave me was a jersey which she had knitted— every stitch of it. It happened one day that my sister took the work in hand and did a little in the making of it, but when my mother discovered this transgression, she lovingly unravelled the stitches, for she said "she desired to make it all herself." Such is a mother's love! Every winter ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... the Distressed Daughters of the Clergy. It involved some rather warmish medieval dialogue, I recall, racy of the days when they called a spade a spade, and by the time the whistle blew, I'll bet no Daughter of the Clergy was half as distressed as I was. Not a dry stitch. ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... stitch, and moon, And sip her tea, and clink her spoon, This whole blue, breezy afternoon! For so do ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... the ferret-faced, was not the sort to go off without the impetus of a dowry. The man for Etta, the shrew, must be kindly, long-suffering, subdued—and in need of a start. He was. They managed a very decent trousseau and the miracle of five thousand dollars in cash. Every stitch in the trousseau and every penny in the dowry represented incredible sacrifice and self-denial on the part of mother and brother. Etta went off to her new home in Pittsburg with her husband. She had expressed thanks for nothing and had ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... water, are all pressed into the service. It has its painters, and poets, and literary staff, from the bard who tunes his harp to the praise of the pantaloons of the great public benefactor Noses, to the immortal professoress of crochet and cross-stitch, who contracts for L.120 a year to puff in 'The Family Fudge' the superexcellent knitting and boar's-head cotton of Messrs Steel and Goldseye. It may be that something more is yet within the reach of human ingenuity. It remains to be seen whether we shall at some ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... fond of work; but somehow or other no occupation, not even the perusal of a favorite poem or novel, had ever afforded her half the pleasure that she derived from the manufacture of this purse. Each stitch she netted, each bead she strung, was a new source of delight—for she was working for Philip. Love is the true magic of life, effecting more strange metamorphoses than ever did the spells of Archimago, or the arts of Armida—the moral alchemy which ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... honest honor hustle island itch judge judgment knack knead kneel knew knife knit knuckle knock knot know knowledge lamb latch laugh limb listen match might muscle naughty night notch numb often palm pitcher pitch pledge ridge right rough scene scratch should sigh sketch snatch soften stitch switch sword talk though through thought thumb tough twitch thigh walk watch whole witch would write written wrapper wring wrong wrung ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... forc't, two Chickens, two boned of each, and filled with some minced veal or mutton, with some interlarded Bacon, or Beef-suet, and season it with Cloves, Mace, Pepper, Salt, and some grated parmison or none, grated bread, sweet Herbs chopped small, yolks of Eggs, and Grapes, fill the skins, and stitch up the back of the skin, then put them in a deep dish, with some Sugar, strong broth, Artichocks, Marrow, Saffron, Sparrows, or Quails, and ...
— The accomplisht cook - or, The art & mystery of cookery • Robert May
... 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 a rustic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... himself, surely. Look on him there, and he with the shirt on him ripping from his back. You'd have a right to come round this night, I'm thinking, and put a stitch into his clothes, for it's long enough you are not speaking ...
— The Well of the Saints • J. M. Synge
... become so badly corroded that it is impossible to disconnect the cables front the battery. Stitch terminals should be drilled off and soaked ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... if he had been successful. She sighed, and took another stitch in the wrapper which she was making. That sigh almost drove ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... be, is always the sign of a generous heart. Moreover, I do not choose that the gitanas should lose, through my fault, the reputation they have had for long ages of being greedy of lucre. Would you have me lose a hundred crowns, Preciosa? A hundred crowns in gold that one may stitch up in the hem of a petticoat not worth two reals, and keep them there as one holds a rent-charge on the pastures of Estramadura! Suppose that any of our children, grandchildren, or relations should fall by any mischance into the hands of justice, is there any eloquence so sure to touch the ears ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the end of the bowsprit. No one was hurt, and yet for a moment every one looked as if destruction had suddenly lighted on the lugger. Then it was that Raoul came out in his true colors. He knew he could not spare a stitch of canvas just at that moment, but that on the next ten minutes depended everything. Nothing was taken in, therefore, to secure spars and sails, but all was left to stand, trusting to the lightness of the breeze, which ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... long have I, methought, with tearful eye Pored o'er this tangled work of mine, and mused Above each stitch awry and thread confused; Now will I think on what in years gone by I heard of them that weave rare tapestry At royal looms, and hew they constant use To work on the rough side, and still peruse The pictured pattern set above them high; So will I set my copy high above, And gaze ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and Platform Arrangements 7. Diagram Illustrating Positions of People during Performance at Big Feast 8. Mafulu Net Making (1st Line of Network) 9. Mafulu Net Making (2nd, 3rd, and 4th Lines of Network) 10. Mafulu Net Making (5th Line of Network, to which Rest of Net is similar in Stitch) ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... retorted, drawing her shoulders back almost as far as she had had them forward a moment before, "I've been drailed around the country, fifteen hundred miles here, and fifteen hundred miles there, with old Tom takin' mad fits every little whip-stitch, about as much as I'm ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... led to experiments. Of the many disappointments, the long months of patient labor, the intense thought, the repeated failures, there is not room to tell here; but at last he hit upon the solution of the problem—the use of two threads, making the stitch by means of a shuttle and a needle with the eye near the point. In October, 1844, he produced a rude machine which would actually sew. Another year was spent in perfecting it, while he kept his family from starvation by doing such odd jobs as he could ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... continued Pao-ch'ai, "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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... was so wise and knowing, The worth of his time he knew. He bristled his ends, and he kept them going; And felt to each moment a stitch was owing, Until he ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... were rich, perhaps 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 ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... sometimes, so that I sat at the window thinking what should happen next. No dolls, no books, no games, and at times no companions. My grandmother taught me knitting, but I never got to the heel of my stocking, because if I discovered a dropped stitch I insisted on unravelling all my work till I picked it up; and grandmother, instead of encouraging me in my love for perfection, lost patience and took away my knitting needles. I still maintain that she was in the wrong, but I have forgiven her, since I have ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... moment the clock uttered its usual hissing sound, and struck ten, while a woman's face peered in at the door, but at once withdrew, for the reason that, with the object of sleeping as well as possible, Chichikov had removed every stitch of his clothing. Somehow the face seemed to him familiar, and he set himself to recall whose it could be. At length he recollected that it was the face of his hostess. His clothes he found lying, clean and dry, beside ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... a round head whittled From a bit of soft pine wood; And Polly's was only a corn-cob, With a calico slip and hood. My doll was a lovely rag-baby, With badly-inked eyes and nose; Her cheeks were painted with cherry-juice; And I made every stitch ...
— The Nursery, Number 164 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... jacket-sleeves had spread beyond darning. "These you are wearing are my Giannozzo's, as you well know, and every rag on your back is mine, if there were any law for poor folk, for not a copper of pay for your keep or a stitch of clothing for your body have we had these two years come Assumption—. What's that? You can't ask your mother, you say, because she never comes here? True enough—fine ladies let their brats live in cow-dung, but they must have Indian ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... modest fingers at her scanty dressing-gown and 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
... then another, And the longest walk is ended; One stitch and then another, And the largest ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... writings remain untouched. We sit together of a night—this woman I call 'wife' and I—she holding in her hands some knitted thing that never grows longer by a single stitch, and I with a volume before me that is ever open at the same page. And day and night we watch each other stealthily, moving to and fro about the silent house; and at times, looking round swiftly, I catch the smile upon her lips before she has time ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... quarters I flung myself on the rude bed that had been provided for me, and all the troubles and tangles in this world dissolved and disappeared in dreamless slumber. When morning broke I felt better. My head was sore, but the surgeon removed the bandage, clipped the hair about the wound, took a stitch or two that hurt worse than the original blow, and in an hour I ...
— A Little Union Scout • Joel Chandler Harris
... in a little Shropshire town, There lived a widow with her only son: She had no wealth nor title to renown, Nor any joyous hours, never one. She rose from ragged mattress before sun And stitched all day until her eyes were red, And had to stitch, ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... always—and that is, 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, ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... lay on an expanse of slightly broken ground where purple and crimson heather were relieved by the golden blossoms of the dwarf gorse, interspersed with white stars of stitch-wort. Here and there, on the slopes, grew stunted oaks and hollies, whose polished leaves gleamed white with the reflection of the light; but there was not a trace of human habitation save a track, as if trodden by horses' feet, clear of the furze and heath, and bordered ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge |
