I've tried rayon for embroidery - EVIL thread! Wound up chucking the
project. Rayon is a silk substitute, very slippery. I suppose if
you've
used silk thread, maybe rayon would work in BL, but it won't have much
body.
Frankly if it was me, maybe I'd try a small sample piece, but probably
not.
If you look at rayon and at silk under a microscope, you can clearly
see that the silk has irregularities and scale-like formations (that's
what makes it catch on itself) while the man-made rayon is a long
straight regular fibre with no scales. That's what makes it so slippery.
I've embroidered with rayon, too, and you have to keep it under
constant tension because it wants to slip out of position all the time.
Some people dampen it to embroider with, but dampening changes the way
the rayon fibre looks, and if you dampen it at all you will need to
dampen all of it so that it all looks the same.
This problem may be worse in embroidery, where so much of the effect
has to do with the regularity of threads lying beside one another. But
I would be interested to know if anyone who has made rayon lace has a
piece that has not been dampened and one that has, and can tell us
whether dampening or washing has changed the way lace looks at all.
Possibly it won't make a difference because the thread is only seen 1
or 2 strands at a time, and is twisted anyway.
By the way - rayon was originally known as "artificial silk" which was
shortened to "art silk" and a lot of people don't even know that the
"art" stands for "artificial", so they will sell you rayon, call it
silk and honestly not know the difference. They think it's some kind of
special silk for artwork.
Adele
North Vancouver, BC
(west coast of Canada)
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