Silk or cotton?

When I designed my first embroidery with the intention of mounting it in jewellery I used cotton thread. It was based on a photo I had taken after an Autumn walk at Caldicot Castle:

I used cotton thread as that was all I knew.

I was pleased with the result and went on to work on smaller and smaller designs using cotton thread. However, a rather amazing embroidery artist, Helen M Stevens, suggested I try silk thread to obtain a more detailed result for such small work. I was unsure at first, I had a lovely big box of cotton threads and it would cost a pretty penny to replace them all in silks. After searching the internet I discovered Pipers silks they sent me some samples of different types of silk thread and I bought a starter pack of floss silk thread.
Floss silk is tricky at first, discovering 'Thread heaven' helped but I still struggle in winter when my hands are dry. Keep the length of your thread reasonable short, I use a size 11 sharp needle as I find the thread holds in the eye better but use whatever you find easiest and be prepared for a piece to take twice as long as with cotton. But when you sit back and look as the finished result you can see the difference:

Oof, shiny!