Hi! As requested, I have finally gotten around to pics of my waste canvas on silk experiment. I purposely made the frame as big as the Chateliene (sp?) piece I actually want to do on the silk fabric in order to determine if I can get to the center.
I set up the frame this way - first I stitched the silk to the unbleached muslin backing, and then stretched the pair onto the frame. After that, I stitched the waste canvas to the silk. I did not iron the waste canvas first, and do think I should have. Even after 3 months, it still holds the folds and slight warping it had when it came out of the package.
The silk is an Italian silk of an off-white color with a weave that resembles rain coming on a slant. You can see a little of that on the second photo. The threads used are Soie D'Alger from Access Commodities, DMC, and Kreinik's #4 braid.
What I have found so far is that it is hard to see the over-one stitches in the center, and so I did tent stitch instead of cross-stitch for them as I kept splitting the canvas threads. The regular size crosses are much easier to do. A soft-twist silk like Soie D'Alger fills in very thoroughly, and so you have to be careful on the second leg of the cross because it's harder to see where to put the needle. The stitches are not quite as perfectly regular as you would get on a evenweave, but are still very close.
However, I really like how the #4 gold braid by Kreinik works on the waste canvas - it looks smooth and doesn't form those nasty lumps. I guess the 3 layers of material keep it from kinking.
I will post more as I continue working.
Fran