"Embroidery silk," she said, in answer to his questioning look.

I suppose your embroidery silks were ruined by the rain along with everything else."

Mrs Redmond began to pull about some embroidery silks that lay in her lap and had got into a fearful knot.

"What's wrong with embroidery silk?"

I plucked a shorn lock from the table and held it, feeling the fine, soft hairs separate between my fingers like the threads of embroidery silk.

"Embroidery silks?"

This was where Aunt Margherita got her special tapestry wool as well as her embroidery silks.

In the morning after breakfast she took a tram to the shops to get some embroidery silks for Eileen, and then she went to be with her in the hospital.

For further comfort she recalled the unsuitable demands she had made of her faithful guardsmen as a baby and teased Gerrit that she needed help in winding embroidery silks.

Gifts from Mama and Papa tended to be hopeful and slightly reproachful: embroidery silks, books on comportment, gifts that told all about who they wanted her to be.

Black embroidery silk from outside England, such as Spain, contained less iron in the black dye and so blackwork worked using non-English silk tends to survive in better condition.

Bliss, on the other hand . . . Julia snipped a length of pale gold embroidery silk from the skein she held, heaving an inward sigh as she stole a glance at Bliss.