"Stitch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... also, who had feared to doze at dawn lest she should oversleep herself and not be downstairs in time to scrub the floors and the furniture before the neighbours were stirring. Uncle Isam, whose knees were crippled with rheumatism, and Docia, who had a "stitch" in her side whenever she stooped, were the only servants that remained with her, and the nursing of these was usually added to the pitiless drudgery of her winter. But the bitter edge to all her suffering was the feeling which her husband spoke of in the pulpit as "false ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... can at your fine college, Prissie. It's the fashion of the day 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 wonderfully. Now go ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... Jewells.' Git me? 'Reduced to Poverty.' Where's my frock coat? Where's my silk hat? 'Wardrobe of a Celebrity Sold For A Song.' Where's them two pair of trousers? 'A Tragic Disappearance.' All up the spout. Everything gone. 'Not a Stitch to His Name.' Really, Richard, it wouldn't be proper to get well. A natural phenomenon of my standing couldn't—simply couldn't, Richard—go back to the profession with a wardrobe consistin' of two pink night-shirts, both the worse for wear. It wouldn't do! On the ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan
... find you weren't well enough to travel," she answered thoughtfully, with her face still bent over the work which she was spoiling with every clumsy, feverish stitch. ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... the direction of the other ships, and the craft herself merely thrown into the wind for a moment to lessen her way while the boat came up to her and the falls were hooked on. Then the helm was put up and the ship was away on her old course once more, cracking on and showing every stitch of canvas to the freshening breeze, in full and eager pursuit of her consorts and the pirate, the latter now being hull-down on the southern horizon with nothing below her topsail-yard showing. The flag-ship ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... of the old English homes were very industrious. They worked crewel bed hangings and cross-stitch and tent-stitch upholstery in the seventeenth century, and in still earlier times richly ornamented linens and other fabrics with flowers and scriptural subjects. Writing in reference to Queen Mary, the wife of William ...
— Chats on Household Curios • Fred W. Burgess
... allowed to stop Mrs. Anerley from seeing to the bedrooms. She kept them airing for about three hours at this time of the sun-stitch—as she called all the doings of the sun upon the sky—and then there was pushing, and probing, and tossing, and pulling, and thumping, and kneading of knuckles, till the rib of every feather was aching; and then (like dough before the fire) every well-belabored tick was ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... walking stick will do, or a coat rolled up. It pulls you along. You look like an idiot, of course, but that doesn't matter. No one who minds looking foolish will ever have a really good time. It is a good thing to prevent a stitch in your side to carry a little pebble in your mouth. Squeezing a ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... furrier's needle having three sharp edges, and heavy waxed thread, or better yet, with catgut, sew up the longer sides of the skin with a simple overcast stitch. Let the hair side be in while sewing. In the smaller end sew the circular bottom. Invert the quiver on a stick; turn back a cuff of hide one inch deep at the top. To do this nicely, the hair should be clipped away at this point. This ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... would? But I've been at that boy all these years to make him like other folks, an' I ain't goin' to stop now. He never shall say his own mother didn't know her duty towards him. Well, 'Melia, you air kind o' snug here, arter all! Here, you hand me my bag, an' I'll knit a stitch. I ain't ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... irresolutely at his chief mate, disclosed the gloomy and cynical conviction that more than half of them had been lost overboard, "if only the truth was known," and retired to the other end of the bridge. Jukes, exasperated by this unprovoked attack, broke the needle at the second stitch, and dropping his work got up and cursed the ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... accurate journal of all I saw. He used to lecture us on being independent, even in little matters, and not ask servants to do for us what we might easily do for ourselves. He carried in his pocket a small book containing needles, thread, and buttons, and on an emergency was always ready to put in a stitch. A curious habit he had of mending his stockings, which I suppose he acquired when a working mason. He would not permit his housekeeper to touch them, but after his work at night, about nine or half past, he would go up stairs, and take down a lot, and sit mending them with great apparent ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... and a panic impossible to describe, spread through the brig. The Spanish captain's orders put energy into the crew for a while; and in his resolute determination to make land at all costs, he set all the studding sails, and crowded on every stitch of canvas on board. But all this was not the work of a moment; and naturally the men did not work together with that wonderful unanimity so fascinating to watch on board a man-of-war. The Othello meanwhile, thanks to the trimming of her sails, flew over the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... their packs and set out wearily. Carroll, limping and stumbling along, was soon troubled by a distressful stitch in his side. He managed to keep pace with Vane, however, and some time after noon a twinkling gleam among the trees caught their eye. Then the shuffling pace grew faster, and they were breathless when at last they stopped ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... We can go to-night. I've never been there, and I'd like to know what these chaps, Marsh and Galway, are up to. That whatdoyoucallit movement you were telling me about?... you know, the thing that means 'a stitch in time saves nine' ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... purple. Each bead, each shell, each bangle of wire had been passed through many, many hands before it reached this remote fastness of barbarity; and in each hand, you may be sure, profits had remained. But the men were more impressive still. Stark naked of every stitch of cloth or of tanned skins, oiled with an unguent carrying a dull red stain, their heads shaved bare save for a small crown patch from which single feathers floated, they symbolized well the warrior ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al
... minute more all anxiety Coote may have felt as to crowding any one was at an end. He was a yard or two in the rear of the last man, with a stitch in his side, beginning in his inmost soul to wonder whether the new "Sociables" Club was such a very good ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... long chain upon the sea, and though to be sure there was no doubt a wide channel between each, through which it might have been easy to carry a ship under control, yet there was every probability of a vessel in the defenceless condition of the schooner, without a stitch of sail on her and under no other government of helm than a fixed rudder, being swept against one of those frozen floating hills when indeed it would be good-night to her and to me too, for after such a catastrophe the sun would never rise for ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... cases, but rarely appears as an early warning. The pupils of the eyes may be constantly large at the onset of the disease, but this is a sign of general weakness. Pain is also a frequent but not constant early symptom in the form of "stitch in the side," or pain between or beneath the shoulder blades, or in the region of the breastbone. This pain is due to pleurisy accompanying the tuberculosis. Shortness of breath on exertion is present when consumption is well established, but is not so common as an early symptom. The voice is often ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... stitch I own. Black hair and pale cheeks—they'd go with a Spanish dancer's costume—rose behind my ear, scarlet mantilla over one shoulder, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... I ain't been deaf and dumb and blind round here for three years. I can pick 'em every time. You're taking your stitch in time, little missy. You ain't even got a wheeze in you. Why, I bet you ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 on, somebody's sure to come along and lend a helping ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Mrs. Warden agreed, with her charming smile, "that we can quite understand. I'm sure I should always wish my girls to feel so. Madeline—just show Mrs. Bell that necktie you're making—she was asking about the stitch, you remember." ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... our own argument that Sir Richard states. "Short separate poems on cognate subjects" can certainly co-exist for long anywhere, but they cannot automatically and they cannot by aid of an editor become a long epic. Nobody can stitch and vamp them into a poem like the ILIAD or Odyssey. To produce a poem like either of these a great poetic genius must arise, and fuse the ancient materials, as Hephaestus fused copper and tin, and then cast ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... stepped into a dory that had come alongside and was rowed towards his own schooner. He had hardly gained her deck before she set main and jib topsails and a big main staysail. Our lads also sprang to their own sails, and spread to the freshening breeze every stitch of canvas that the "Sea Bee" possessed. When they next found time to look at the "Ruth," White uttered an exclamation of astonishment, for she had already gained a good half mile on them and was moving with the speed of a ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... reunion; assemblage &c 72. coition, copulation; sex, sexual congress, sexual conjunction, sexual intercourse, love-making. joint, joining, juncture, pivot, hinge, articulation, commissure^, seam, gore, gusset, suture, stitch; link &c 45; miter mortise. closeness, tightness, &c adj.; coherence &c 46; combination &c 48. annexationist. V. join, unite; conjoin, connect; associate; put together, lay together, clap together, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Since your Appearance only is our Act of Grace. Court Ladies will to Country Seats be gone, My Lord can't all the Year live Great in Town, Where wanting Opera's, Basset, and a Play, They'll Sigh and stitch a Gown, to pass the time away. Gay City-Wives at Tunbridge will appear, Whose Husbands long have laboured for an Heir; Where many a Courtier may their Wants relieve, But by the Waters only they Conceive. The Fleet-street Sempstress—Toast of Temple Sparks, That runs Spruce Neckcloths ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... head to look at a donkey, who had brayed for the first time in his Paradise, while he was manufacturing Eve, the devil seized this moment to put his finger into this divine creature, and made a warm wound, which the Lord took care to close with a stitch, from which comes the maid. By means of this frenum, the woman should remain closed, and children be made in the same manner in which God made the angels, by a pleasure far above carnal pleasure as the heaven is above the earth. Observing this closing, the devil, wild at being done, pinched the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... had seen her coming in Deansgate, he had crossed to the other side of the street!—Were those sleeves of her evening dress quite right? They were not caught down, she thought, quite in the right place. No doubt there would be time before dinner to put in a stitch. And she did hope that pleat from the neck would look all right. It was peculiar, but Miss Helby had assured her it was much worn. Would there be many titled people, she wondered, and would all the ladies wear diamonds? She thought disconsolately of the little black enamelled locket ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... when a servant called Mary to breakfast. As she arose from her chair, she felt a sharp stitch in her left side; so sharp, that she caught her breath in half inspirations, two or three times, before venturing on a full inflation of the lungs. She was, at the same time, conscious of an uncomfortable tightness across the chest. The nausea, and ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... embroidered with gold; others of blue kid, delicately traced in crimson lines; foxes heads stared at us in startling perspective from a scarlet ground; or black jim-crow figures disported themselves on orange tent-stitch. Then these slippers were all more or less of an easy fit, and had a way of flying out on the lawn suddenly, startling my dear dog Nettle out of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... 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
... will-stand-wear-and-tear clothes. Not a stitch of Hyndshousey clothes among them. No happy, glad-I'm-alive-and-a woman clothes. Here's where you cease to look merely useful, respectable, and responsible, and begin to look the Lady of the Castle. There's quite as much philosophy and good morals in looking like a butterfly ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... quotha!" resumed that astonished lady. "And Margaret's winter's gown should, have been cut down ere now into a kirtle, and Lucrece lacketh both a hood and a napron, and thine own partlets have not yet so much as the first stitch set in them. No business! Prithee, stand out of my way, Madam Idlesse, for I have no time to spend in twirling of my thumbs. And when thou find thy partlets rags, burden not me withal. No ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... drugged, since he must not see too clear to-night. Well, I might brew it stronger so that within half an hour he would not know whether he were married or single, and then, perhaps, she might escape with me and come to join you. But it is very risky, and, of course, if we were discovered—the stitch would be out of the wineskin, and the cellar floor might ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... would refrain from useless needlework and empty laughter. They talked incessantly and called every mortal—and immortal—thing carina. Queen Margherita was carina, and so was the new cross-stitch, and so was this blue-eyed Olive. Yes, they admitted her alien charm. She was strana, too, but they did not use that word when she was there or she would have rejoiced over such an ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... her lamp; Amante had asked her for it five minutes before. How thankful we were that she had not more speedily complied with our request! As it was, we sat in dusk shadow, pretending to stitch away, but scarcely able to see. The lamp was placed on the stove, near which my husband, for it was he, stood and warmed himself. By-and-by he turned round, and looked all over the room, taking us in with about the same degree of interest as the inanimate ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... that they had seen a sewing-machine. I was often struck with the shallow, unmeaning questions which these butterflies of fashion propounded to us. Some of them made the supercilious, but disreputable boast, that they had never taken a stitch in the whole course of their lives. But the great throng of inquirers consisted of women who had families dependent on their needles, and of young girls like myself, obliged also to depend upon the labor of their fingers. All such were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... your storms here, Captain; but if it were in the Levant I should get every stitch of canvas off her excepting closely- reefed topsails, a storm jib, and fore stay-sail. The first burst over, one can always shake out more canvas. However, you know these ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... sunk astern, and thinking of the kindly-hearted old trader who had so cheered her by his simple piety and unobtrusive goodness. Then her thoughts turned joyfully to home—for the Raymonds' house was home to her—and she sighed contentedly as the gallant Esmeralda, with every stitch of canvas that could be set, slipped gracefully over the blue Pacific on an east-south-east course, for it was the month of November, and light ...
— John Frewen, South Sea Whaler - 1904 • Louis Becke
... I saved in the relentless strife, I knew lamenting was in vain, So patient went to work again. By constant work, a day or more, My little mansion did restore: And if each tear which you have shed Had been a needle-full of thread, If every sigh of sad despair Had been a stitch of proper care, Closed would have been the luckless rent, Nor thus ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... Every stitch of canvas had gone out of her now, and nothing but the bare yards were left aloft. How they ever stood the frightful strain was a miracle and spoke volumes for the Yankee riggers who fitted her out. The wind bore more and more abeam, and under ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains
... shot through the middle of the mass, and missed him by half an inch. Once more he felt his surroundings flying upwards, but this time they fell more lightly. They formed the outside of a stitch of ten. As the fork was withdrawn the binding of the sheaf was loosened. He could breathe with comfort, and he could also see. He peered out, and found the whole face of Nature changed. The waving cornfield had gone. In its place was a razed ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... muddy-shaded greens grew but slowly under her fingers, and, truth to say, the occupation bored her. It was artistic, certainly, and it was fashionable; but Lady Kynaston would have been happier over a pair of cross-stitch slippers for her son, or a knitted woollen petticoat for the old woman at her lodge gate. All the same, she took out her crewels and put in a few stitches; but the afternoon was warm, there was a humming of insects in the summer air, a click-clicking ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... regard to his Bible have never been printed. At the time of the printing of the Mormon Bible by Egbert B. Grandin of the Sentinel I was an apprentice in the bookbindery connected with the Sentinel office. I helped to collate and stitch the Gold Bible, and soon after this was completed, I changed from book-binding to printing. I learned my trade in the ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... boat, to bring them within the picture, which would otherwise be a less complete representation of the actual fact. The careful finish, the minute detail, the elaboration of every hair in a beard, and every stitch in the embroidery of a dress, reminds us of the Dutch school of painting, and illustrates strongly the spirit of faithfulness and honesty which pervades the sculptures, and gives them so great a portion of their value. In ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... the preparation for the evening meal of the aunt and niece. Emilie went up to her aunt, gaily, with her bunch of primroses in her hand, and addressing her in the German language, begged her pardon for keeping supper waiting. The old lady knitted faster than ever, dropped a stitch, picked it up, looked out of the window, and cleared up, not her temper, but her throat; click, click went the ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... that stared me in the face, with having raised a May-pole for another to hang a garland on: for, by this time, easily reading Louisa's desires in her wishful eyes, I acted the commodious part, and made her, who sought no better sport, significant terms of encouragement to go through stitch with her adventure; intimating too that I would stay and see fair play: in which, indeed, I had in view to humour a new born curiosity, to observe what appearances active nature would put on in a natural, in the course of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... needle and a length of thread," said I. She scuttled off to do my bidding, like nothing so much as one of the rats that tenanted her unclean sty. She was back in a moment, all servility, and wondering whether there was a rent about me she might make bold to stitch. What a key to courtesy is gold, my masters! I drove her out, and eager to conciliate me, she went ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... mend your knicks, as you call them? Don't let's degenerate into scarecrows because we are obliged to live this Robinson Crusoe-like life. It's many years since I read that book, Chris, but if I recollect right he used not only to mend his own clothes, but make new ones out of goat-skins. 'A stitch in time saves nine,' boys, so mend your ways—I mean the open ways where the wind and rain get in. See anything ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... Drake set every stitch of canvas the Golden Hind could carry, taking four more prizes by the way and learning that he was gaining on the treasure ship. After clearing the prizes he sent them back with no one on board hurt, plenty to eat and drink, and presents for all ranks and ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... D'Artagnan, showing himself, 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 ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been set. The squaresail and studding-sails were got up ready to hoist at an instant's notice. Still the lugger lay motionless, and the corvette, for such she was pronounced to be, came rapidly on, under every stitch of canvas she could carry. She was soon within a mile of the lugger, when some cat's paws were seen playing over the water; the dog-vanes blew out and then dropped, the canvas flapped lightly against the masts. The skipper swore, and the crew swore, until once more they saw the sails ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston
... his neck by falling into a quarry, as he went home one night from a carousal. Hans was left the sole staff for the old man to lean upon; and truly a worthy son he proved himself. He was as gentle as a dove, and as tender as a lamb. A cross word from his father, when he had made a cross stitch, would almost break his heart; but half a word of kindness revived him again—and he seldom went long without it; for the old man, though rendered rather testy and crabbed in his temper, by his many troubles and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... entirely owing to Mrs. Katy Scudder. That his best broadcloth coat was not illustrated with shreds and patches, fluff and dust, and hanging in ungainly folds, was owing to the same. That his long silk stockings never had a treacherous stitch allowed to break out into a long running ladder was due to her watchfulness; and that he wore spotless ruffles on his wrists or at his bosom was her doing also. The Doctor little thought, while he, in common with good ministers generally, gently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... just where he had been before. He put his feather cap upon his head, and stepped in through the window, and there he found the princess with her father, the king, and her mother, the queen, and all the great lords and nobles waiting for his coming; but never a stitch nor a hair did they see of him until he stood in the very midst of them all. Then he whipped the feather cap off of his head, and there he was, shining with silver and gold and glistening with jewels—such a sight as man's ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... was the first to recover herself. She stood up and brushed herself, remarking: "By jove, that parachute cloak of yours is a great dodge. I wish I'd thought of it. I always keep my full-dress togs put away, like the ass that I am. A stitch or two, and a few lengths of whalebone would have done ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... afternoon," supplemented Bond. "She made every stitch of them with her own hands. She told me so herself, when I stayed afterward, to help ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Crochet—Put the needle into a stitch or pearl loop, and, leaving an end, bring the wool through in ...
— Golden Stars in Tatting and Crochet • Eleonore Riego de la Branchardiere
... betrayed." One of the thieves started up and offered to do this, and after the rest had highly commended him for his bravery he disguised himself, and happened to enter the town at daybreak, just by Baba Mustapha's stall. The thief bade him good-day, saying: "Honest man, how can you possibly see to stitch at your age?" "Old as I am," replied the cobbler, "I have very good eyes, and will you believe me when I tell you that I sewed a dead body together in a place where I had less light than I have now." The robber ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... 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
... thim scissors? Dick, be holdin' the end of this bit of string till I get the stitches in behint. Does that hang comfortable? well, an' you're the trouble an' all. How's THAT? That's aisier, is it? Lift your fut till I see if it comes to your knees. Now off with it, and lave me alone till I stitch the tags ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... has them flat, I'll stitch on my weepers, Put crape around my bat, And a napkin to my peepers! Fal de ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 470 - Volume XVII, No. 470, Saturday, January 8, 1831 • Various
... have been going on thus, however, Titmouse was hurrying down Holborn at a rattling rate. When at length he had reached Saffron Hill, he was in a bath of perspiration. His face was quite red; he breathed hard; his heart beat violently; he had got a stitch in his side; and he could not get his gloves on his hot and swollen hands. He stood for a moment with his hat off, wiping his reeking forehead, and endeavoring to recover himself a little, before entering the dreaded presence to which he ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... oath of implacable vengeance he had made in his dungeon. This oath was no longer a vain menace; for the fastest sailer in the Mediterranean would have been unable to overtake the little tartan, that with every stitch of canvas set was flying before ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were fortunate enough to catch the southeast trade, but it was so languid at first that the ship barely moved through the water, though they set every stitch, and studding sails alow and aloft, till really ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... I shall do some work this evening. As I stitch, I shall fancy myself gone back to those early days when you used to pass by me without a word, but not without a glance; the days when the remembrance of your look kept me awake all night. Oh my dear old frame—the best piece of furniture in my room, though you did not give it me!—You cannot ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... prow. Green shores slipped to haze of distance. With her larboard lipping low and that long break of swishing waters against her ports which is as a croon to the seaman's ear, the St. Pierre dipped and rose and sank again to the swell of the billowing sea. Behind, crowding every stitch of canvas and staggering not a little as she got under weigh, ploughed the Ste. Anne. And all about, heaving and falling like the deep breathings of a slumbering monster, were the wide ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... was thus losing himself in his meditations, Nanna moved in her seat uneasily, and dropped stitch after stitch of her knitting-work. The former topic of conversation was endurable, ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... later, the anchor was on the rail and the Osprey started on her voyage. The tide being in her favour, she passed the Needles just as it was getting dark. The breeze fell very light, and, although every stitch of canvas was put on, she was still some miles east of Portland when morning broke. As the sun rose the wind freshened a bit, and she moved faster through the water. The hands were mustered and divided into two watches, ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... spot along with others, and found that every stitch of clothes had been burnt off, and they were black as ink all over. They were still alive, and told us their names, otherwise we could not have recognized them; and, singular enough, they were able to walk off the ground with a little ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... still however, he bravely swam and kicked, his mind was made up for the worst, and he had little hope of success. In the meantime the breeze had gradually freshened, and the brig passed with greater velocity through the water; every stitch of canvas was spread. To the poor swimmer the sails seemed bursting with the breeze, and as he used his utmost endeavor to propel himself so as to cut off the vessel, the spray appeared to dash from the bow and the brig to fly through the sea. He was now close enough to hope his voice might be ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... against a background of French grey! I found them very restful, but of course opinions differ on these subjects. Curtains and cushions were of bright Reckitt's blue material, bought in the market, relieved by scrolls of dull pink wool embroidered (almost a stitch at a time) in between jobs. The dark stained "genuine antiques" or veritables imitations (as I once saw them described in a French shop) looked rather well against this background; and a tremendous house-warming took place ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... supreme moment of meeting very differently, but she might well have chosen worse. She unpinned her skirt and brushed the threads off, smoothed the pew cushions carefully, and took a last stitch in the ragged hassock. She then lifted the Bible and the hymn-book from the rack, and putting down a bit of flannel on the pulpit steps, took a flatiron from an oil-stove, and opening the ancient books, pressed out the well-thumbed leaves one by one with infinite care. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... rejoin his prize, he was vastly astounded at the evolutions of the "Drake." The vessel which he had left in charge of one of his trusted officers seemed to be trying to elude him. She was already hull down on the horizon, and was carrying every stitch of sail. The "Ranger" signalled to her colleague to return, but in vain. Several large ships were in sight; but Jones, perplexed by the strange antics of his consort, abandoned all thoughts of making captures, and made after ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... clothes—was the worst. Patty was so proud that she would not ask help from anybody—no, not if she ruined her eyes, and worked her fingers to the bone. Garments were picked to pieces, stitch by stitch, to learn how they were made. Dresses were puzzled over, and pulled this way and that; a little cut off here and a piece sewed on ...
— Harper's Young People, May 18, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... her housewife, and put on her thimble, and threaded her needle, and got out the button, and made Martin stand in a patch of moonlight, and stood herself in front of him, and took the neck of his shirt deftly between her left finger and thumb, and began to stitch. And Martin looking down on the top of her smooth little head, which was all he could see of her, said anxiously, "You won't prick me, will you?" and Jane answered, "I'll try not to, but it is very awkward." Because to get behind the button she had to lean her right elbow on his ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... pair of precious old rascals," he cried, "knocking each other about without a stitch on you, like a couple of old he-goats! Into bed with you—and if I hear another sound, you'll get something ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... fingers weary and worn, with eyelids heavy and red, A woman sat, in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread: Stitch! stitch! stitch! in poverty, hunger, and dirt; And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, she sang the 'Song ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... things. Ought to a give the folks here more of a show, b'gosh, same as we did out to hum. Why, they wasn't none of this statoo stuff thar, I tell you. Wasn't no picters and the like of that. What good is them picters over there, I'd like to know? Why, some on 'em, the folks ain't got a stitch of clothes on 'em, and you couldn't hang them air picters in a barn. Ought to have more of these things here—oats and wheat and seedin' machines. Them's what people want to see. And say, I was daown ...
— The Adventures of Uncle Jeremiah and Family at the Great Fair - Their Observations and Triumphs • Charles McCellan Stevens (AKA 'Quondam')
... deserves mention. Whenever an imported needle of European or American make is not to be had, a piece of brass wire is filed down and an eye made in it. With the simple utensil and with a thread of abak fiber, the garment is sewn with a kind of a transverse cross-stitch. When imported cotton is on hand, nearly all seams are covered with either a continuous fringe of cotton in alternate colors or with neat wavy stitches, all of which serve both to conceal the seams and to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... the promised wind came up in right good earnest, and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas set, slashing through the water nobly. There was a grandeur in the motion of the splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass of sails, she rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an indescribable ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... 'Yes, and a stitch in time saves nine—though it doesn't rhyme. And it's no good crying over spilt milk, and two heads are better than one. But, really, Bruce, I didn't ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... which made her sampler. Patience was working a very fine sampler indeed. Her mother had given her some bright crewels that she had brought from England, and Patience was using them to embroider a basket of flowers in cross-stitch in one corner of her sampler. Patience bent low over her sewing, until her long flaxen braids almost touched the floor. At last, though, she ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... 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
... and he recalls the ease with which he segregated from Pekin's rule a goodly piece of old China, he may be irreverently moved to the extent of again snapping his fingers at the Monroe Doctrine, and at millions of simple Africans who refuse to eat German foods and wear not a stitch of German fabrics. Kiau-chau represents the cleverest feat of colony-building the world has seen since the great powers declared a closure ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... 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. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... when they are so inclined. They are inured to cold by early habit; the children are carried about in the hoods of their mothers' jackets until three years of age; during this period they remain without a stitch of clothing, and the little things may be sometimes seen standing up in their nests, exposing themselves in the coldest weather, without appearing to suffer any inconvenience from it. The Esquimaux never sleep with their clothes on, ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean
... mask and hood from Cora and flitted away with them beyond the silk curtains. There was to be a stitch taken here, and a little, tacking up was needed there. The veil was to be a bit closer, the ...
— The Motor Girls • Margaret Penrose
... kind mamma showed her very carefully how to pull a stitch through with the other needle, before it had time to be off on its travels; and the dear little child, with a bright smile, kissed her mother, and said, "It is all tight now; oh, how glad I am!" And she put out her chubby little leg to try how much larger ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... at the mere memory of her training involuntarily protesting against her artistic education. "For hours at a time, while he sat in a chair comfortably smoking his meerschaum, I had to dance for him without a stitch of clothing on and perform all sorts of contortions and acrobatic feats on a rug. In the afternoon he would play the piano and I would have to go through the same ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... graces of life by some impecunious naturalist, who thus repaid a gift of charity with a perennial treasure. Some local artist whose heart had misguided his brush had painted portraits of M. and Madame Popinot. Even in the bedroom there were embroidered pin-cushions, landscapes in cross-stitch, and crosses in folded paper, so elaborately cockled as to show the senseless ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... traveller should be thoroughly grounded by a tailor in the rudiments of sewing and the most useful stitches. They are as follows:—To make a knot at the end of the thread; to run; to stitch; to "sew';" to fell, or otherwise to make a double seam; to herring-bone (essential for flannels); to hem; to sew over; to bind; to sew on a button; to make a button-hole; to darn; and to fine-draw. He should also practise taking patterns of some articles of clothing ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... for a moment: they were kept by their housework: Frau Vogel took a pride in showing that she had no time for dawdling: and she used to say, loudly enough to be overheard, that all the people sitting there and yawning on their doorsteps, without doing a stitch of work, got on her nerves. As she could not—(to her sorrow)—compel them to work, she would pretend not to see them, and would go in and work furiously. Rosa thought she must do likewise. Euler and Vogel would discover draughts everywhere, and fearful of catching cold, would go up to their rooms: ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... there beside us two and Dr Crofts. The doctor will forgive you when he hears the story; and as for me, I didn't care if you hadn't a stitch to your back. You'll have company back to Guestwick, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... complaints and his medical dissertations; but my thoughts were all with Henriette, and I wanted to observe her. We found her in the salon, where she was listening to a lesson in mathematics which the Abbe Dominis was giving Jacques, and at the same time showing Madeleine a stitch of embroidery. Formerly she would have laid aside every occupation the day of my arrival to be with me. But my love was so deeply real that I drove back into my heart the grief I felt at this contrast between the past and ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... replied Dorothea, somewhat inconsequently. "Ah! more than once, we had. And I'd ha' been as true to him, and was, as ever a needle to a stitch. Well, sir, when he slights of me, and leaves of me, why it's natural as I should run up and down the streets a-lookin' for him like wild. So one day, after I'd done my work, and put things straight, for I never was one of your sluttish ones, Master Tom—and your ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... dead lion. A man of words, and not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds. A man's house is his castle. A miss is as good as a mile. A penny for your thought. A penny saved is a penny got. A rolling stone will gather no moss. A small spark makes a great fire. A stitch in time saves nine. A tree is known by ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... grease, being taken from an animal thickly covered with hair, was recommended for the prevention of baldness. Nettle-tea is still a country remedy for nettle rash; prickly plants like thistles and holly were prescribed for pleurisy and stitch in the side, and the scales of the pine were used in toothache, because they resemble front teeth. "Kidney-beans," says Berdoe, "ought to have been useful for kidney diseases, but seem to have been overlooked except as articles of diet." ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... Aurora, bristling and tingling to its farthest electric point. She did not toss or flaunt, either; she had learned better of Signor Pirotti how to carry herself; but she was in conscious rapport with every thing and stitch she had about her. Some persons only put clothes on to their bodies; others really seem to contrive to put them ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... men are not equally apt for all work, and no one would be capable of preparing all that he individually stood in need of. (34) Strength and time, I repeat, would fail, if every one had in person to plough, 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. (35) We see that peoples living, in uncivilized ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... were as fine a looking gang as any in the county, starting off that morning in our red uniform,—Nancy took a sight of pains with my shirt, sewing it up stout, for fear it should bother me ripping, and I with nobody to take a stitch for me all winter. The boys went off in good spirits, singing till they were out of sight of town, and waving their caps at their wives and babies standing in the window along on the way. I didn't sing. I thought the wind blew too hard,—seems to me that ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... 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 composure, and ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... take," answered he, "but that of making shoes." "Lord," said she, "such a craft becomes not a man so nobly born as thou." "By that however will I abide," said he. "I know nothing thereof," said Kicva. "But I know," answered Manawyddan, "and I will teach thee to stitch. We will not attempt to dress the leather, but we will buy it ready dressed, and will make ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... not a very good judge of sewing, my dear little girl," said Mr. Gresham, examining the work with a close and scrupulous eye; "but in my opinion, here is one stitch that is rather too long; the white teeth ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... course of 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 ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... will furnish him at the low price of one dollar a sentence. My stock is entirely fresh and original, and embraces such gems as—"Don't give up the ship," "Such is Life," "How's this for high?" "I die happy," "A stitch in ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... her hull time a-traipsin' after them turkeys, and thar ain't nuthin' that's given to gaddin' like turkeys that I know on, less 't is Chubbses' hired gal. No, David, it's chance enough when you git a man you've knowed allers, but a stranger! Well! I want to know what I'm gittin'. Thar, the last stitch in M'ri's waist is took, and, David, you won't tell no one what I said about Mart Thorne and her, nor about ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... baskets, Willow-grouse sewed them with an over-and-over stitch. In this way she made the soft grasses into a firm basket. She began by taking a wisp of grass in the left hand and a flat splint in the other. She wound the splint around the wisp a few times then turned the wrapped portion upon itself. ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp
... plain colds nowadays," persisted Betty. "They always catch microbes at the same time, that are apt to turn into la grippe and pneumonia and all sorts of dreadful things. 'A stitch in time saves nine,' you know," she added, wisely, quoting from the motto embroidered on her darning-bag, which happened to be hanging on a chair-post in the corner. "'An ounce of prevention is worth a ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... 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 Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... of ladies were watching with great attention the Sewing-machine—sewing away with the greatest exactness, and much stronger than by the ordinary mode with a needle, as each stitch is a knot. The inventor was shewing it; and he said he had nearly completed a machine for the button-holes. The next was a machine called 'The Man'—and truly named, for a more marvellous production can scarcely be conceived—for making ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... bruised and lifeless lump of jelly, on the oak bitts at the fore-mast. Before, however, they were treated to another of these metallic doses, the pirates had got their craft in splendid trim; and with every stitch of her canvas spread, and tugging and straining, she rushed on with the heels of a race-horse, within three points of the wind. The "Scourge," too, was now close hauled, her yards braced as fine as needles, and crowded with every ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... his landlord's grandfather. 'Many a time would his worship send for me to go a-hunting or shooting with him; often would he take me with him on his visits and would introduce me as his friend. The country gentlewoman and the parson's wife, that used to stitch for themselves, are now so hurried with dressings and visits and other attractions that they hire an Abigail to ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... take advantage of a loose pack, was just the thing for steamers. Away we went! past berg, past floe, winding in and out quietly, yet steadily!—and the whalers were soon astern. Penny, indefatigable, was seen struggling along the shore, with his boats ahead, towing, and every stitch of sail set to catch the lightest cat's paw: him too, however, we soon passed. The water ahead increased as we advanced, and we found, as is well known to be the case, that the pack-edge is always the tightest ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... 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, because her ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... masculine hands. It would be interesting to speculate how many embarrassing or disastrous consequences might have been averted if at a critical point in a negotiation or controversy a needle had had to be threaded or a dropped stitch taken up before a reply was made, to say nothing of an excuse for averting features at ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... woman, that he thinks she can not even sew as well as he can; and he often goes to a tailor, and pays him double and even treble for making a suit, when it merely passes through his hands, after a woman has made every stitch of it so neatly that he discovers no difference. Who does not see gross injustice in this inequality of wages and violation of rights? To prove that woman is capable of prosecuting the mercantile business, we have a noble example in this ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... off near 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 was there any convenient landing-place; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... plain and ornamental. The plain stitches are the (1) basting, (2) running, (3) the running and back stitch, (4) half back stitch, (5) back stitch, (6) overhand or whipping stitch, (7) overcast, (8) hemming, and (9) blind or ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... 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 ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... "Every stitch of 'em, child," she said, "except the quiltin'. The neighbors used to come in and help some with that. I've heard folks say that piecin' quilts was nothin' but a waste o' time, but that ain't always so. They used to say that Sarah Jane Mitchell would set down right after breakfast and piece ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... country, and a few other articles, of a fashion so antique, and of ornaments so ingenious and rich, as to announce that they had been transported from beyond sea. Above the mantel were suspended the armorial bearings of the Heathcotes and the Hardings, elaborately emblazoned in tent-stitch. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... brother-in-law's not very consolatory conversation. He entirely ignored the two young English painters, turning a blind eyeglass to their salutations, and continuing his remarks as if he were alone in the bosom of his family; and with every second word he ripped another stitch out of the air balloon of Desprez's vanity. By the time coffee was over the poor Doctor was as ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unloaded in a sly deal. The Stock Exchange couldn't understand it; it was so against all experience that it was considered something outside of human nature. But the explanation was simple enough. The two kept a sharp eye on each other, and, as Uncle Jerry would say, never dropped a stitch; but the simple fact was that they were necessary to each other, and there had been no opportunity when the one could handsomely swallow the other. So it was beautiful to see their accord, and the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... taste of sweat? Many's the gallon I've drunk of it—ay, in the midwinter, toiling like a slave. All through, what has my life been? Bend, bend, bend my old creaking back till it would ache like breaking; wade about in the foul mire, never a dry stitch; empty belly, sore hands, hat off to my Lord Redface; kicks and ha'pence; and now, here, at the hind end, when I'm worn to my poor bones, a kick and done with it.' He walked a little while in silence, and then, extending his hand, 'Now you, Nance Holdaway,' says he, 'you come ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... borrer every stitch we want," said Lydia Vesey. "Borrer of the dead an' borrer of the livin'. I know every rag o' clo'es that's been made in this town, last thirty years. There's enough laid away in camphire, of them that's gone, to fit out three-four old ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... women and girls filled up spare moments with "gloving"; the large kid-glove manufacturers in Worcester supplied the material, cut into shape, and a stand, with a kind of vice divided into spaces the exact size of each stitch, which held the work firmly while the stitching was done by hand; they grew very quick at this work, and turned out the gloves with beautifully even stitches, but I don't think they could earn much at it in a day, and it ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... when his toes came through his shoes and the rents in his 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 carpets under their own feet. Well, ask the abate, then—he ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... he held was a bulky, substantial, woven "sweater." Across the front of it had been worked, in cross-stitch, the initials, "G.H.S." ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock |
