Fig. 272.—Part of the Orphrey of the Syon Cope; in the South Kensington Museum.
In the well-known Syon Cope, an English embroidery of this period (Fig. 272), both the old feather-stitch and the chain-stitch are used as above described.
Fig. 273.—Carpet from Persia, embroidered in Gold and Silver on Dark Blue Velvet; Early Eighteenth Century. (S.K.M.)
The Crewel stitch is a combination of the long and short feather-stitches, and is adapted for shading effects. In the stitches known as chain, knotted, and button-hole stitch the thread is looped; but lies flat in satin-stitch, crewel, darning, tent, and cross stitches. Satin and darning stitches can be worked so that the design appears the same on both sides of the cloth, but chain and crewel stitch only produces the design on one side of the material.
Fig. 274.—State Gloves, formerly belonging to Louis XIII. (S.K.M.)
Gold thread has been used very much in all ages in embroidery, and silver thread also, but unless the latter is varnished or lacquered it goes black by tarnishing. Gold “passing” is a silver-gilt thread wound around silk.
In old embroideries and woven tissues a gold thread was made of thin parchment gilded and twisted around silk: the Japanese used gilded paper in the same way, and sometimes the pure gold was used in thin, flat, beaten-out strips for both embroideries and woven fabrics.