Could you guestimate how much of the embroidery is done using plain silk vs. gilt twist?
Does there seem to be a pattern as to what made the original embroiderers use the gilt rather than the plain?- Phil

I am just loving this blog as it is allowing us all to interact with questions about the embroidery. One of the recent questions was about how much of the jacket is stitched in gilt sylke twist and does there seem to be any rhyme or reason to the choices.

Of the motifs, all the major flower motifs are stitched either 100% or mostly in gilt sylke twist. None of the leaves are stitched with it. The bird is in silk and the butterflies are stitched in silk with the detached wing in gilt sylke twist. The worms are either gilt sylke twist or a mix of the two. The peapods have a silk underlayer and a gilt sylke twist detached layer.

Overall, if something was in detached buttonhole it was done in gilt sylke twist, unless it was a leaf. This composite silk-metal thread wasn’t used for any of the knot (braid) stitch, which was found in the wings of the bird, or trellis stitch that is used in several motifs, including the body of the bird and butterfly.

If you think about the above, all the major elements except the bird are mostly in gilt sylke twist and would shimmer. The supporting elements, which are the leaves, are not and would be a good matte contrast. The only exception was the bird which is done in trellis stitch, a stitch that doesn’t lend itself well to GST. In the original jacket, it seems that the wire was actually silver and so there would have been a contrast between the shimmer of the major motifs and the plaited braid vines which were in silver-gilt.

Tricia