Most of the patterns here given were suggested by sketches from the celebrated 15th century painted screen in Ranworth Church, Norfolk, which I made on the occasion of a visit there some time ago, and are excellent specimens of diapers suitable for embroidery. It is a class of design almost peculiar to the period and may be termed “conceits,” for although nature is suggested in these diapers, the arrangement is purely arbitrary, and the ornament is not necessarily developed out of a particular plant, but is imported into it, wilfully. Thus you get in A a sort of conventionalised leafage with flowers and berries, and in B an ornamentalised fruit with flowers. This latter pattern I have developed in C, the growth of the pine-apple having suggested the design. The thistle, globe artichoke and many other plants could be treated in this way. Always go to nature for your _motifs_, but remember that you only take suggestions from nature, as design is not transcribing nature, but the result of imagination, stimulated by reference to nature, playing around the subject. Ingenuity is called into play, and a good design may be likened to an interweaving of pleasantly contrasted lines nicely balanced. [Illustration: B.—_Sixteenth century sprig, suggestive of a fruit._] So many amateurs think that a representation of a particular plant or animal arranged symmetrically is designing, whereas designing is as much an effort of the imagination as poetry or music. It is a good exercise to start with some design as I did in B and do something original on the same lines. Even if you are not very original in your efforts, it is a good exercise of your skill. If you are content to merely reproduce what others have originated, your mental faculties are not brought into play at all, and you can never hope to make any advance in original work. The growth of stem in C, going as it does over and under the main stem, was suggested by the growth of the sprig in D, which is a characteristic example of a “conceit.” [Illustration: C.—_Sprig founded upon the pine-apple, in the style of sixteenth century German work shown in_ B.] Such diapers as A, B and C can be used to “powder” over a curtain. Portions of them might be _appliquéd_, the “fruit” in C for instance, while the leaves could be in outline. The diapers can be disposed over the curtain in some sort of order, and you might work diagonal lines, and put a sprig in each lozenge formed by the diagonal lines crossing each other at right angles, as in Fig. 1 in a former article on “Curtain Embroidery,” to which I must refer the reader. The running border E would be effective worked in two colours, a light and a dark, and could be used to border a curtain in which the other diapers are used. [Illustration: D.—_Sprig suggested by sixteenth century German work._]