In the case of silk or other delicate material, peculiar care must be taken that the paste is not moist enough to penetrate the stuff; but an experienced worker has no fear of that.
A firm outline is a condition of appliqué, and couched cord fulfils it most perfectly. Much depends upon a tasteful and tactful choice of colour for it. You fatten your pattern by outlining it with a colour which goes with it (Illustration [62], B). You thin it by one which goes into the ground. Very subtle use may be made of a double outline or of a corded line upon couched floss. There is a double outline to the ornament in Illustration [92]: the inner one next to the yellow satin appliqué is of gold, the outer one next the crimson velvet ground is of white sewn with pale blue. This gives emphasis to the bold forms of the leafage. The mid-rib there is of silver couching; the minor veinings are stitched in silk, and are rather insignificant.
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61. APPLIQUÉ PANEL BY MISS KEIGHLEY.
The less there is of extra stitching on appliqué the better as a rule. It disturbs the breadth, which is so valuable a characteristic of onlay. In no case is much mixing of methods to be desired; but if appliqué is to be supplemented, it had best be with couching, which is not so much stitching as stitched down, itself another form of applied work.
Appliqué of itself is not, of course, adapted to pictorial work, but that in association with judicious stitching and couching it may be used to admirable decorative purpose in figure design is shown by Miss Mabel Keighley's panel, Illustration [61]. What an artist may do depends upon the artist. Miss Keighley's panel indicates the use that may be made of texture in the stuff onlaid.
Appliqué is especially appropriate to bold church work, fulfilling perfectly that condition of legibility so desirable in work necessarily seen oftenest from afar. Broadly designed, it may be as fine in its way as a piece of mediæval stained glass, and it gives to silk and velvet their true worth. The pattern may be readable as far off as you can distinguish colour.