tching up the centre
of each petal. The veins of the leaves in Illustration 88 are padded
with embroidery cotton and worked over with filo-floss. The leaves
themselves are not padded, though the sewing down of the veins upon
them, as well as the fact that they are applied on to the velvet ground,
gives some appearance of relief.

RAISED GOLD.

Our sampler of raised work is done in silk. Underlaying is more often
used to raise work in gold, to which in most respects it is best suited.
The methods shown in the sampler would answer almost equally well for
gold, except that working in gold one would not at H (66) use
bullion-stitch, but bullion, first covering the underlay of stitching
with smoothly-laid yellow floss.

BULLION consists of closely coiled wire. It is made by winding fine wire
tightly and closely round a core of stouter wire. When this central core
of wire is withdrawn, you have a long hollow tube of spirally twisted
wire. This the embroidress cuts into short lengths as required, and sews
on to the silk--as she would a long bead or bugle. Its use is
illustrated at A in Illustration 51, where the stems of triple gold cord
are tied down at intervals by clasps of bullion, and the leaves, again,
are filled in with the same.

It was the mediaeval fashion to encrust the robes of kings and pontiffs
with pearls and precious stones mounted in gold: the early Byzantine
form of crown was practically a velvet cap, on to which were sewn
plaques of gorgeous enamel and mounted stones. When to such work
embroidery was added, it was not unnatural that it should vie with the
gold setting. As a matter of fact, its design was often only a
translation into needlework of the forms proper to the goldsmith.

Yet more openly in rivalry with goldsmiths' work was some of the
embroidery of the Renaissance, in which the idea--a most mistaken one,
of course--seems to have been to imitate beaten metal. This led
inevitably to excessively high relief in gold embroidery. You may see in
17th century church work the height to which relief can be carried, and
the depth to which ecclesiastical taste can sink.

The Spaniards were, perhaps, the greatest sinners in this respect,
seeking, as they did, richness at all cost; but it must be confessed
that, in the 16th century at least, they produced most gorgeous results:
there is in the treasury of the cathedral at Toledo an altar frontal in
gold, silver, and coral, and a yet more beautif