Aemilia Ars Flower Freebie

As a New Year's gift, the Association "I Merletti di Antonilla Cantelli" of Bologna has made an Aemilia Ars needle lace instruction booklet available for free download on their website.

This is such a treat! Both beginners and those of you with previous needle lace experience will be delighted to find that the location of support stitches and the order of working are clearly indicated. While the text is in Italian only, the diagrams and photos are clear - you can always use Google Translator if you need to.

The freebie is an exquisite flower proposed in DMC tatting thread no. 80 which opens up your options for coloured thread. You will no doubt become very skilled at executing the picots by the time you're done, there are definitely a lot of them!

On the last page of the freebie Aemilia Ars instruction booklet you will find a photo of the finished project which is followed by another photo which serves as inspiration for doing different flowers. That last photo was taken by myself and is used with my permission.

Some of you might recognize it from the post I wrote about the Association's book on Aemilia Ars borders (available for purchase from Lacis in the US). That particular flower (photo above) was given to me as a gift by the Association "I Merletti di Antonilla Cantelli" when I was in Italy in 2011. I am delighted that they could use my photo so others could appreciate their work and perhaps use it as a source of inspiration for their own creations of Aemilia Ars needle lace.

If you're interested, the Association "I Merletti di Antonilla Cantelli" also published a book on Aemilia Ars flowers, the book is called Fiori and is available in the US from Lacis.