It is used in old needlework accounts to denote that the embroidery was raised up from the background cloth, either by padding or by the number of stitches worked over each other.
Sources: CAULFEILD, Sophia Frances Anne and Blanche C. SAWARD (1882), The Dictionary of Needlework: An Encyclopaedia of Artistic, Plain and Fancy Needlework, London: L. Upcott Gill, p. 427.
GVE