[Steppes] Silk embroidery threads

[Ciard49 at aol.com]

Greetings Good Gentles,

Only recently did I become aware of a shop in downtown Garland that 
specializes in silk embroidery threads.
The ladies there told me the shop had been open about a year.  

Yea! No more driving from Mesquite to North Dallas for fancy needlework 
supplies. They also plan to add to their inventory of DMC Medici yarns like I used 
in making the Comet scene from the Bayeux tapestry.

The Stitchery Shop        627 W. Main    Garland, TX  75040

I bought some of their lowest priced line called Splendor imported from 
France. It looks like there were maybe 75-100 colors in that set.  Each color cost 
about 3 dollars BUT it was twelve strands 8 yards long.

I LOVE working in silk. I had never used it before and now will never again 
use DMC cotton floss for SCA projects. The Lady assured me the silk embroidery 
thread could go in the washer and dryer.

Some of you may have seen the new Celtic motifs I am working on for my linen 
dress.  Using 2 strands in outline stitch and chain stitch I made a 10" by 2" 
neck motif and two sleeve decorations about 10" long and 1- 5" wide in a long 
triangle.
  
To cover this much space I used 6 colors and have most colors left over -but 
did need 2 black skeins for the background and outlining.

To make the neck and sleeve pieces cost about 20 dollars with lots of thread 
left over for another project

A very fine linen base-fabric was use to lessen additional bulk. It is 
completely covered in silk embroidery, and has wide margins of fabric that were 
turned under and appliqued to the dress. Now when that dress wears out the motifs 
can be removed and applied to a new one.

In this case my fine linen matched the color of the linen dress, but the same 
could work to apply a different color if the borders were straight lines and 
the base-fabric completely folded under.  My motifs have things that stick out 
on the borders so the base fabric shows.

I encourage all embroiderers to give silk a try. I hope you love it as much 
as I do. The threads stay shiny. They do not go dull like cotton floss, and the 
feel of the silk is intoxicating.

Chain stitch covers a lot of space in a very short time. I worked at about 3 
stitches per quarter inch. That worked out to about 4 threads of my fine linen 
fabric. The trick to making it look really good is to keep the chains going 
in the same direction. The stitches didn't look so nice where I worked them 
back and forth to fill a space. The definition of each stitch was lost.

yours in service

Ciard O'Seachnasaigh, Iris