Silk Threads...

One of My Favorites!

One of my favorite silk threads is Soie Trame. These colours shown above are included in this year's ornament kit. Aren't they beautiful? I love gazing upon spools of gorgeous thread just as much as what I make with them.  Will you use the entire spool for the kit? Heck no! A spool of Trame silk lasts for eons.

Trame is a very fine straight filament silk~ it has no twist in it. In the picture above it is the fine gold silk on the left. The purple on the right is one stand of Soie Ovale, which is also a flat filament silk. They both are beautiful when worked in satin stitch, but as you can see, the Trame is just sooo much finer than the Ovale. When trying to embroider weensie designs, scale is everything. The Ovale is just too thick, and while it can be divided....why would I want to do that when I can just use the much finer Trame?

The corn and gilliflowers on the ornament are stunning worked in long and short stitch with Trame.

But my favorite use for Trame is as a couching thread. It's just so fine! Instead of distracting from what it is being used to couch down, it simply fades into the background. All the metal threads on the ornament shown above are couched on with Trame!

I like to double it up in my needle as shown above. I use one long piece, pass it through the needle, and knot it on the end. This way my needle is captive and won't keep coming out of the eye. 

A tiny 2mm f4 size gilt spangle attached with Trame....

A double strand is used to couch crenelated gilt plate. Once finished you won't even be able to see it! I love this thread and if you have some in your stash, I hope you will pull it out and use it!