The silk parts are worked in split stitch, the gold is couched down with a red silk thread in the same thickness. As you can see, I was not very good at this kind of stitching when I made the sample - which was quite a few years ago! I did this bit mostly to show how the silk and gold would look together, and how split stitch can be used to cover an area. So it was stitched on a rough charcoal drawing as a template, and the gold patch also only outlined with coal, still faintly visible and not very rounded or symmetrical.
Like most of my sample bits, this has been dragged around and stuffed into baskets and boxes and taken out and fingered and then stuffed back in wherever it came from. I've also cleaned (gently washed) all my samples at least once by now. The gold has developed a little bit of a patina due to all this, but it's still pretty and shiny when light falls on it. So - it does hold up quite well!