Deruta Drawn Thread Work Sample

I seem to have less and less time for my blog as I do more and more translations but I cannot give it up just yet. Quickly I want to tell you a fun story.

Some years ago I corresponded with Maria Elide Melani of the Associazione Ago Aga e Fantasia while she was researching Deruta Sfilato or Deruta Drawn Thread Work Embroidery. We have since met (at Italia Invita 2011) and correspond once in awhile. She wrote a lovely book on the technique, which I told you about here.

I have been very lucky with my internet friendships and I have been able to meet lots of great people who share my interests. I have been very enthusiastic in my reporting of Maria Elide and her endeavours because I find her to be a delightful person as well as a talented embroiderer.

Some time ago, a reader of my blog from the Netherlands wrote to me that she was going to Tuscany and wanted to learn about Deruta Drawn Thread Work. I put her in touch with Maria Elide and they enjoyed a lovely visit together. Then a couple of readers from other countries did the same and I was excited to assist in the discovery by stitchers outside of Italy of this wonderful Italian needlework.

But the best has got to be when you assist without knowing it. Maria Elide was contacted directly by a whole group of Japanese stitchers who were going to Italy and wanted to learn Deruta Drawn Thread Work while they were there. Maria Elide didn't understand how they had found her or why they would choose her over the many embroidery schools in Italy but when the group arrived they showed her a printout of my blog post about her! When she wrote and told me after they were gone, she assumed that I had known - but I was completely ignorant! 

I can't tell you how happy this kind of thing makes me. It is the whole point of this blog. This past week I received a thank-you gift from Maria Elide which, while unnecessary, is much appreciated. Lovely Deruta Drawn Thread Work done by her own hand. It barely fit into my scanner:

I'm very happy to have helped these people and hope that my readers find things of interest in the posts that I write, however infrequently they seem to be written these days.