Tassel books!

Maria Rita Faleri has been hard at work creating a series of books on handmade knotted tassels. In this post I told you a little bit about Maria Rita and since then we have been chatting back and forth during the development of this great series that she has started. As I also wanted to let you know how to get your hands on these books, I have been holding off telling you about them while Maria Rita worked out how people outside of Italy could purchase them easily. She has settled on ebay which seems to work quite nicely. Those of you who are in Italy can contact her through the Esemplario website, set up specifically for this series.

Maria Rita wanted to start this series with the aim of creating step-by-step manuals for these tassels and the knots used to create them in Italian. She felt that there wasn't a lot in the way of instructions for Italians which meant that they had to refer to books in other languages, so the text of these books is in Italian. However, the step-by-step photos mean that those who don't speak Italian can easily understand. I did translate the instructions for the Turk's Head knot and Maria Rita plans to put it on the Esemplario website just as soon as she can.

The first book in the series is about making tassels with the Turk's Head knot (and many variations of it including an elongated one which is quite nice to use as the tassel head):

Sample page of step-by-step photos.

To make the Turk's Head knot, Maria Rita uses the aid of bamboo sticks and I managed to find some double-pointed carbonized bamboo knitting needles on amazon which work very nicely though they are not exactly the same as what Maria Rita uses, they work just fine. Before I found these though, I just used kebab sticks and they worked too, though I got a few splinters.

Included in this book are instructions for the basic Turk's Head knot, the elongated Turk's Head knot, the wrapped knot and instructions for the assembly of a half a dozen different tassels using what you've learned.

The second book in the series is about making tassels with the Franciscan Knot and the Simple Knot:

Some of the tassels included in the second book.

This book also has instructions for the basic Turk's Head knot, much more detailed instructions for the wrapped knot, different tassel head ideas and assembly instructions for a dozen different tassels and some bomboniere too! Many more applications spring to mind just leafing through the pages.

Maria Rita has other plans for this series, not just tassels but embroidery techniques as well. Different projects will be released separately as leaflets or kits using the techniques from the books. I personally can't wait to see them and will let you know when they are available. You can purchase these books from ebay.it searching for object number 131794775737 for the Turk's Head book and object number 131794778449 for the Franciscan Knot book. If you are in Italy, you can contact her via email.

Knots and Tassels and Maria Rita Faleri

The other day a beautiful photo meant for someone else came across my newsfeed which sparked a revisit for me to the Turk's Head Knot and tassels. For me its not the bright and shiny things that distract me, its the textile textural things... and Deruta beads...

Exceptional isn't it? It's creator is Maria Rita Faleri and she lives in Fermo in the Marche region of Italy which is located near the eastern coastline, pretty much in the middle of Italy: a little north of Rome, a little south of Florence.

Now, I knew a little bit about her and we've corresponded a couple of times about other things over the years and I told you about her wonderful Tassel book here. We started chatting about the tassel above and then another...

and another...

I mentioned that I had abandoned the Turk's Head knot which is what those little knots are and she helped me discover where I had gone wrong. I love the internet. She was nearly 9000 kilometres away and 9 hours ahead in time difference but within a few quick comments of a chat, she had made the lightbulb go on in my head.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the instructions in her book, it was me that missed an important step. Looking at them now, they make perfect sense.

We started to chat about other things. Maria Rita is part of a cultural association in Fermo called Il Filo Che Conta (a little play on words: the thread that counts) where she teaches (among other techniques) Catherine de' Medici embroidery and knotted tassels. She edited the book on Catherine de' Medici embroidery that you'll find when you follow this link. She also wrote a book on marking stitches called Punti di Marca a few years ago.

Maria Rita told me that she will have a booth at the Abilmente trade show in Vicenza, Italy this October. It's one of the fairs that I'd love to go to one day, I really need to plan to be in Italy one autumn. Her booth is under her association's name: Il Filo Che Conta and you can find it in the Embroidery Salon area. She will have her books and materials for Catherine de' Medici embroidery, Bobbin Lacemaking and of course Tassels! Maria Rita will be there for demonstrations and she has made new kits for the three tassels you see above plus this one:

And also this adorable little bunch of grapes:

Inside the kits are the instructions, needle and threads plus two sizes of tiny wooden sticks which help in the execution of the knots. I want them all! Maria Rita tells me that this fair Abilmente is the only one she exhibits at and what she earns during the show helps keep her cultural association afloat.

Here is a report from a previous Abilmente show in 2012 where you can see some of Maria Rita's beautiful tassels displayed absolutely marvellously:

Photo copyright Gabriela Trionfi of Hobbydonna.it

If you are in Italy and go to Abilmente, please leave a comment below and tell us how it was. Drop by the Il Filo Che Conta booth and say hello to Maria Rita for me...

DMC Natura Just Cotton for tassel making

The last time I went to Italy in October of 2013, a friend from home asked me to get her some Lampo Cotone Povero yarn to make tassels. It proved to be a difficult task and I was unable to get her any.

We've talked about Cotone Povero before here on the blog. It is a 100% pure soft cotton yarn with a matte finish used in Italy to make tassels and for stitching Caterina de'Medici embroidery among other things. At one time in history it came in many colours but now I believe you can only get natural or white though ebay searches still turn up other colours from time to time. The balls are 50 grams at about $3.00 USD each and you can make a lot with one ball. The yarn is made up of 6 threads twisted together. It is available from various places online like Tombolo Disegni, Ricamiamo-Insieme, Bergamasco, etc. but I was unable to find it in any store I walked into in Rome, Florence or anywhere I was in Puglia. This is not to say it's not there, I just couldn't find it.

Upon returning home I was told by an Italian friend that DMC makes a soft cotton yarn which is a nice substitute called Natura Just Cotton. It comes in many colours and is available outside of Italy though not in North America that I could find at the time. I ordered mine from Sew and So in the UK.

The balls are 50 grams and the yarn is made up of 8 twisted threads. I see it is now listed on the DMC US website but internet searches for resellers still result in mostly UK sources. Price is about $4.00 USD.

Lampo Cotone Povero on the top, DMC Natura Just Cotton on the bottom.

Comparing the two yarns, they are not identical but I decided to go all the way through an experiment to see if I liked the Natura anyway. I'm not sure that you can see, but the Cotone Povero is ever-so-slightly thicker and it's hard to tell from the photo but the Natura is slightly less "matte" than the Cotone Povero.

While in Phoenix last October at the EGA National Seminar, I bought a Deruta ceramic fuserola bead that my daughter picked out for herself, she wanted a tassel to match her camera strap. I got DMC Natura in black and Sable to match the bead.

Battery operated cord twister we dubbed the "zip-zip".

Using my fantastic new favorite tool, a battery-operated cord twister developed by a lady in Assisi which we lovingly dubbed the "zip-zip" as it makes cording in a zip - I made many many twisted cords. I think the real secret to tassel-making is that when you think you have enough, make more. Tassels should be full and not skimpy.

Then the knotting process began and I knotted my cording until my fingers were beyond sore. Next step is to string the cut pieces onto yarn as you would when stringing beads, see this tutorial here. Odd numbers are best, so groups of 3, 5, 7 or 9.

7 "legs" are made up of 5 groups of 9 pieces.
There is a cluster at the top of solid Sable and I used Black to string everything together.

I'm pretty happy with the result and I like the fact that DMC Natura comes in so many colours. For tassel-making I think it is a fine substitute for Cotone Povero. Next task will be to do some experiments in using it for Caterina de'Medici embroidery. I'm a little concerned that it may be too thin for the Buratto fabric and that the coverage won't be as good, but that's for another time.

Do you know of a soft, matte finish cotton yarn available in North America that I could investigate as a substitute for Cotone Povero? If so, please leave a comment below!

Triple Knotted Tassel

As mentioned in this post, I decided to try to make a tassel from Rosalba Pepi's latest book on Catherine de'Medici Embroidery. Now I'm not going to give away her instructions but I just want to show you another way to achieve knotted tassels which we've discussed before.

So, I've cut a 4m length of 100% cotton Cotone Povero yarn to make the second leg of this tassel. I tied a knot at each end because after all the knotting, the ends tend to become quite unravelled and messy and you lose a lot of your length. Sometimes all you need is just another inch and if it's unravelled and destroyed it can be frustrating. Let's call this long thread the main body thread just because it may become confusing later as to what I'm referring to.

First leg of the tassel completed.

The reason that the main body thread has to be so long is that all those knots upon knots consume a lot of yarn. By the way, kitchen string works nicely if you want to try this method out before investing in some yarn.

Since this tassel requires two legs be made out of the main body thread, I measure out to the half way point (marking it for now with a paper clip) and start a little to the right of it. The centre of the main body thread will, after being folded in half, be where we'll need to attach the "handle" of the tassel so I need to leave a little space for that.

Let me note here that there are no detailed step-by-step instructions in Rosalba's book, so I'm stumbling along on my own. I'm sure there is probably a better way to do this, and it could also be that I'm doing it totally wrong. In other words this is not the authoritative guide to this technique!

The first thing we need to do is make a series of big knots for what will form the head of the tassel.

I made four knots side-by-side

and then made them all into one knot (let's call it a doubled knot).

The end result didn't seem big enough to me so I then made another three more doubled knots

and tied all four into one tripled knot.

Of course you can go on and on and achieve even bigger knots this way but I stopped here. The resulting tripled knot is an interesting little uneven blob.

On I merrily went attaching other lengths of thread with tripled knots by piercing through the main body thread, making doubled knots on either side of groupings of small knotted lengths like I made here which are attached by threading them on to the main body thread like beads.

The only thing to note was that I ended off the completed side of the main body thread with a tripled knot and didn't tie another knot on the main body thread to secure it so in no time at all while I was working on the other side, it came undone!

Of course I had already trimmed the main body thread and therefore I didn't have enough length to re-tie the ending triple knot again, nor to secure it with another single knot.

Argh!

Long about this time the tripled knots that I'd made on short lengths of thread and attached by piercing the main body thread also came undone as they didn't have a knot at the end of their lengths to secure them either.

Double argh!!

I went back and checked out the first leg that I had completed previously (first photo above) and sure enough all the triple knots at the end of all their lengths came undone easily.

Triple argh!!!

At this point I must confess I threw the whole thing in the stitching garbage can which contains thread and fabric and paper only. Muttering to myself I went off in frustration to do something else.

Later, with a cooler head, I dug it out and cut off the parts that had undone. I attached new lengths of thread with a weaver's knot to the main body thread and remade the missing parts. As this is all constructed of knots over knots, no one will ever see where I attached new lengths of yarn!

Here it is, I could have left more space between the head and the first part of the skirt and the head itself is quite irregular (Rosalba's is so much better!). All in all, I like it, I would make another one. What do you think?

Catherine de'Medici Embroidery - New book and some experiments

A couple of months ago this new book by Rosalba Pepi came out on Catherine de'Medici Embroidery. I have just recently gotten my hands on a copy of this over 120 page volume. I've told you a bit about Catherine de'Medici Embroidery in a few previous posts so you already know that it's a technique that I admire. I've written a bit about Rosalba Pepi of the Laboratorio Tessile di Alice in Castiglion Fiorentino, in the province of Arezzo in previous posts as well. She is also someone that I admire.

Rosalba has a very creative mind when it comes to textiles and has taken ancient traditional techniques like Trapunto and Catherine de' Medici Embroidery and made them delightfully contemporary: see one of her kits here and one of her books here. She was a part of the publication of this essential book on Tassels too.

Rosalba loves to work in breathtaking silk threads dyed with natural materials. Make yourself a cuppa and explore the website of the Laboratorio Tessile di Alice which has Italian and English language versions - you will be delighted by Rosalba's works.

Back to this book: The first section is a few pages on the history of the running stitch with photos of contemporary and early 20th century Catherine de'Medici Embroidery works among other things and a bit about the history of traditional materials used, colours and ideas for application of this technique. (Text in Italian) There follows an instructional section with clear diagrams for executing different pattern lines and starting and finishing working threads. There are some ideas and instructions for edge finishings and tassels too - as well as the care and maintenance of stitched pieces and the tools required for executing the work. The remaining 3/4 of the book is choc-full of over 75 charted patterns and motifs and colour photos of finished works.

There are no precise project instructions but that didn't stop me from deciding on a table runner project anyway. Inspired by Rosalba's use of indigo-dyed silk yarn, I ran off yesterday to my local knitting shop with a ball of Cotone Povero - the traditional cotton yarn used in Catherine de'Medici Embroidery and a piece of undyed modern Buratto linen fabric from Sotema. I found a 17%silk/83%cotton blend of yarn called Night Sea from Misti Alpaca which is slightly thicker than the Cotone Povero yarn but will work nicely all the same. Last night I stitched a bit of a sample border on a scrap of undyed Buratto.

Can you find my stitching error?

Worried about the colour running, I soaked the embroidery in cold water (the label says it's to be washed at 30 degrees) and Marsiglia (Marseille) soap for about an hour. The water was a bit blue but I can't detect any bleed marks on the fabric, at least it doesn't show up so much that it catches the eye. However when I ironed it dry face-down on a white towel, it left some blue on the towel. The hank of yarn is now soaking in a tub of soap and water and I'll be rinsing it until no more blue comes out.

In the meantime, I decided to try one of the tassels from the book using the traditional Cotone Povero yarn.

This is the first of two legs that will be tied together to make the tassel:

This tassel is made of knots on top of knots. I'm going to photograph the process of the second leg so I'll save that for a future post.

In Europe you can purchase this book directly from NuovaS1 the publisher via bank transfer. To pay with PayPal, check out Tombolo Disegni, click on "Libri/Books", then "Libri Ricamo", then "Assisi, Caterina de Medici, Ricamo a Treccia e Nappine" - its about halfway down the page. Send an email to order.

Ars Aesis and Buratto Sfilato - New Book!

Giuseppa Federici's latest book is out and this time she's got a variety of things to show us! She has created some beautiful embroidery designs using a variety of stitches, some specifically from other Italian needlework techniques and others form traditional embroidery including some fascinating research which has lead her to the embroideries of Portugal.

Ars Aesis embroidery takes the Latin name for Jesi which is the town where Giuseppa Federici calls home in the Marche region of Italy. She wanted to dedicate an embroidery style to her local area and Ars Aesis features motifs of local flowers, crops and trees. Inspiration also comes from the beautiful frescos and interior decorations of the local early 19th century Villa Salvati.

Ideal fabric is listed as homespun, but if you don't have any of that handy, compact linens will work just fine. Threads used for Ars Aesis are crochet threads like DMC Babylo or Anchor Freccia. Using these threads results in lovely textured work.

Step-by-step colour photo sequences show the execution of both the embroidery stitches used and the insertion stitches used to join pieces of fabric together. There are also needle lace stitches for open areas and withdrawn thread stitches for borders, hems and framing. The how-to section is quite extensive and is an impressive 23 pages long including a section on tassels. There are over 30 motif designs.

There is a short section of the book dedicated to Buratto Sfilato (Drawn Thread Work done on contemporary Buratto fabric). A lovely Caterina de' Medici border motif is stitched around an area that is withdrawn with a pattern of a rose executed in linen stitch. While neither the Catherine de'Medici embroidery nor the linen stitch is explained, this is still a very important section. The entire withdrawn area is explained in step-by-step detailed photos showing closeups of both the back and the front of the work. There is also an edge treatment explained and if you want to learn more about Catherine de'Medici embroidery, Giuseppa Federici has written three books on it.

This book ends with a photo gallery of embroideries and a valuable bibliography to help you in further study. It is 80 pages long and the text is in Italian.

In Europe you can purchase by bank transfer directly from the author herself. Right now I'm sure she is madly getting ready for the Italia Invita Forum in Parma, so give her a few days to answer you. If you're overseas, Tombolo Disegni will be carrying it. She too is getting ready to go to the show in Parma so you may not get a reply to your email right away.

Passementarie - The Milan Stitch

The history of Passementarie is hard to follow. The term itself can mean so many different things: braids, cording, ribbons, tassels, gimp, fringe and more. There is evidence of Passementarie in ancient Egyptian tomb paintings and in ancient Chinese, Japanese and Roman legends as well.

Some historians think that elaborate braided Passementarie were the beginnings of Bobbin Lace. Most European countries have history of a different era where both clothing and interior decorating were embellished with Passementarie according to the fashion of the time and place.

In old texts, you'll find it under different names: Passaments (English), Passamani (Italian) stemming from the French term Passementarie which is widely used today.

During the Middle Ages and beyond in Europe, there were guilds for Passementarie shops and it was considered an art form (as is the handmade Passementarie of today) requiring years of apprenticeship. Long trims were executed on pillows (like lacemaking) or with complex hand-operated machinery. To see many technical illustrations from Diderot & d'Alembert's Encyclopedia (18th century) regarding Passementarie, click here.

In a previous post I told you about a Passementarie shop that I went into in Florence, where they make a lot of what they sell by hand. Here are only a couple of tassels that I got there.

I use this one as a scissor fob:


And this one for my clothes dresser handle:


Not the best photos, I seem to be very shaky today, but you get the idea of the intricacy of the work.

There are still many Passementarie shops in Italy and it's fun to check them out as they are full of all manner of trimmings which, if you are fortunate, are handmade and therefore so much more interesting than the coldness of the machine-made stuff. It takes a certain talent with colour and design to make beautiful Passementarie.

While searching for something else, I happened upon a Facebook page which is open for non-Facebook members (I know because I don't belong to Facebook) called Il punto Milano: sapresti farlo? [The Milan Stitch: would you know how to do it?]

For those who don't speak Italian, it says:
"The Milan stitch is a type of needle made braid generally used in passementarie to cover (in silk or cotton) the head of tassels (see photo) but also buttons, accessories and weapons, the name probably comes from here (as the production of competition weapons was one of the principle industries of Milan).
Widely used in the 18th century, counting the numerous [extant] examples from the first half of the following century, it then slowly fell into disuse and we completely lose the technique.
This group is formed with the precise intent of recovering that technique. Anyone who has news or knows enthusiasts and experts in the field of passementarie is asked to put them in contact with this group or me via email.
In the photos are also a few pages of a French book on passementarie in which a similar stitch is shown and explained.
Anyone - an enthusiast of braiding - who would like to try to figure out the technique of the 'Milan Stitch' from those instructions and is successful will have eternal gratitude and a substantial reward.

p.s.
Unidentified sources claim that certain Berber tribes from Morocco cover buttons with a braiding that is similar to the 'Milan Stitch'. Research of this lead is made all the more difficult as these are nomadic tribes. Therefore, on one hand it is difficult to trace them and on the other hand, if you did have such luck [as to find them] you would have to follow them across the desert in order to have them teach you the technique, with all the linguistic and logistic difficulties involved."

Since this post was left on April 16, 2009, no one seems to have helped this group achieve their goal. What do you think? Can anyone help?

Macramé Tassel Handle

All this talk of tassels made me remember that I had started a tutorial on a Macramé tassel handle back in September and didn't finish it. Anna Maria from the Accademia Punto Assisi showed me a neat way to do a handle for a tassel using an Alternating Half Hitch Knot when we were at the EGA Seminar in San Francisco.

This is the tassel with the Macrame handle Anna Maria made for my daughter out of varigated Egyptian cotton:


I had to try it out right away and used the pieces of yarn hanging from my suitcase handle to reproduce the knot so I wouldn't forget. Later at home I did a little tassel using single knots for the fluffy parts and did the Macramé handle. I was going to add more legs and then I got distracted by something else and it has sat on my side table for a couple of months now.


To incorporate the Macramé handle directly into your tassel, you start out in the usual way by threading your pieces on to a double length of yarn as described previously. This time though, I cut between each knot for pieces that only had one knot instead of two:


When I had a leg of the desired length I did a couple of knots to give it some space between the pieces and the handle:


... and pinned it to my Macramé pillow (you can use anything, even a clipboard):


Then I did a length of Alternating Half Hitch Knots. First starting on the left (click on the image for a closer look):


... and then on the right:


The hardest part was remembering to alternate!


Once the Macramé was long enough, I knotted it into a loop for the handle and continued on attaching my pieces on to the second leg.


Then I added a third leg by knotting it on just under the handle. I want to add at least two more legs to this tassel but you get the idea.

New Book on Italian Tassels

Rosalba Pepi and Maria Rita Faleri with Thessy Schoenholzer Nichols have just released their latest publication on Italian Tassels! It is a book called Nappe, forme di ornamento tessile [Tassels, forms of textile ornament].
(I've already sent my letter to Santa!)


The text is in both Italian and English.

You can go here to look at a few of the pages and see how the book is laid out (click on the picture of the cover to get started, then click the bottom right-hand corner to flip the pages).

There is a history section with photos of ancient tassels, you can zoom in and read some of it by clicking on the pages.

Then there are instructions and diagrams for making 30 different tassels.

For those in Italy, you can order the book directly from the website here, payment is by money transfer.

For those of us outside of Italy, Elena is carrying it on her website Italian Needlecrafts and she accepts PayPal (there are also a couple of different pages to look at there).

Italian Openwork Embroidery - New website

Anna Castagnetti of Ricami a Fili Tesi in Verona has opened up her own website!

Click on the British Flag for the English version and have a look around.

On the "Courses" page, be sure to click on the title of each technique that Anna teaches (so many!) to see photos of her beautiful needlework.

Here is an example of her Hedebo stitching:


For intensive courses over a weekend you can invite her to teach at your place - I would love to bring her to Canada to teach! I've just got to work out that airfare...

Contact her (anna.castagnetti@ricamiafilitesi.com) if you want to bring a small group to Verona for classes.

This is my favourite option: Art-embroidery courses. Besides teaching your selected technique, Anna will take you around Verona to see important artistic sites (yes, she speaks English!). This I can tell you is fantastic. Anna and another lady from Mantua took me to the Don Mazza Museum in Verona and I have to say, if you love needlework and are in Verona, you shouldn't miss this little place. I have posted many times about the needlework in this museum and I still haven't showed you half of what is there. See Italian Stumpwork, Embroidery on Tulle in Verona, Fine Italian Whitework and Samplers.

Also to check out on Anna's website is a free Stumpwork project to download (instructions in English!) on the "Projects" page.


Included in this project are the instructions for those lovely tassel-buttons used on many different types of Italian needlework. The pdf file is loaded with excellent close-up photos.

You can read more about Anna and her needlework here and here.

Multicoloured Tassel

When Elena at Italian Needlecrafts got some no. 5 Coats Cucirini (Anchor) multi-coloured Pearl Cotton thread I immediately wanted some (my inner thread addict reared its ugly head). I was thinking of making tassels because no. 5 Pearl Cotton is so nice for that - even better no. 3 Pearl Cotton but that has become very hard to find. I ordered 4 skeins thinking that I'd make 4 small simple tassels for the corners of a tablerunner.

I chose colour no. 1385 which is brown/gold/cream but it was a tough choice. I really wanted no. 1355 (green/yellow/blue) too.


The skeins arrived quickly and I leafed through Nappe e Pendagli by Giuseppa Federici for something simple - I love this book! I found a tassel I liked right away and went hunting for a wooden bead for the head. Some years ago there was a HUGE crafts store near here and when they closed down I bought all kinds of things that I "might use later"... so I already had several sizes of wooden beads at home. I picked a 7/8" one and made a wrap around a pencil with a single thread to get started.

The pattern called for 10 Punto Avorio stitches around the pencil. (While Punto Avorio is used in Puncetto, it is also used in several different Italian needlework techniques.)

Now, here's where I didn't think ahead. The pattern in the book was made with Cotone Povero which is an undyed cotton yarn a little thicker than kitchen string. It is almost twice the thickness of Pearl Cotton no. 5. The pattern said I wouldn't need to increase the number of Punto Avorio stitches from 10 as the thread would stretch around the wooden bead. Great! I forged ahead.

After making 10 Punto Avorio stitches around the pencil loop, I slipped the loop off the pencil and held it on top of the bead to continue. This is a little tricky to do - you need a third hand to hold it all steady, so I dropped my bead enough times to work up a sweat in frustration.

By the sixth row I was really liking how it was looking:


A couple of rows later however the stitches were really opening up and you could see the wooden bead. I decided I didn't mind it so I didn't increase the number of Punto Avorio stitches. At the bottom I just ran my thread end under the tighter fitting rows of stitches to hide it.

I got out my trusty Kreinik Custom Cord Maker and wound four lengths of thread into a cord. Knotting the cord every centimetre I managed to get about 7 or 8 little pieces like the ones here. This time I was a little better at measuring one centimetre!

The pattern called for ten tendrils with varying numbers of knotted pieces tied to them. I made a few cords, knotted them and cut them into little pieces. After attaching a few tendrils I decided that I'd better use another skein of thread for more pieces because I wasn't anywhere near having enough - my tassel looked quite sad and its head was too big.

More cording, knotting, cutting... hmmm. Not enough - another skein! Cord, knot, cut.... uh oh! I certainly was beyond my original idea of doing four simple tassels. My tassel still looked skimpy and I only had one skein of thread left. What to do? There was no going back now! I used up the rest of my last skein except a little bit for making a top loop to hang the tassel from. It was getting a bit heavy and the stitches around the wooden bead stretch quite a bit. In retrospect I think I should have increased the number of Punto Avorio stitches at least for the 7 or 8 rows around the widest part of the bead:


I really love the way it looks: nice and full. The multicoloured Pearl Cotton is perfect for making an interesting tassel. Each little piece has a knot before and after to keep it in place on the tendril length and then between some of the pieces are one, two or three knots just to give varying length. I did end up with ten tendrils. Some have only seven knotted pieces on them and some have as many as 20. Each tendril is different which creates a lovely effect!


Now (darn!) I must order more thread.
:-D
Maybe I'll get some of that other colour too...

Nappe e Pendagli is available from Tombolo Disegni (click on Libri/Books, then Libri/Ricamo, then Ricamo Italiani - send an email request to order).

Knotted Tassel II

Recently a friend from Italy sent me a small kit as a gift. I decided to document making the project here. It is a knotted tassel - I love making these and each one is a little different from the other.

The kit is from the Laboratorio Tessile di Alice. Two very talented women are responsible for this workshop/embroidery school: Rosalba Pepi and Paola Baldetti. The Laboratorio's main home is in the 14th century Church of St. Stephen in via San Lazzo in Castiglion Fiorentino near Arezzo, Italy. Now a cultural centre, this church's interior walls are covered in frescos from the late 14th and early 15th centuries. The other seat of the Laboratorio is the 18th century Villa Candida in Viale Roma no. 21, in Foligno, Italy which is also home to a sporting club. Can you imagine going to a needlework class in one or the other of these fantastic settings?

In a recent issue of one of the Italian needlework magazines, I don't remember if it was RAKAM or Ricamo Italiano, there was a photo of a tassel sampler on the wall. A frame with a coloured background and different tassels pinned to it. I really like that idea and was thinking to work my way through the tassels in the book Nappe e Pendagli by Giuseppa Federici... it is still in the idea process but if I do decide to do it, I'll show you how it goes along.

Back to the kit! It is very simple, a piece of cardboard with a photo of the finished knotted tassel on one side and the instructions on the back, some Cotone Povero, (cotton yarn) and a ceramic bead.


The cotton is precut into six three-stranded lengths with a knot at one end, all ready to get you started on making your knots!


There is also one long length for stringing the pieces together.

I made a series of knots on each length about 1 cm apart and cut them every second knot to get six groups of 20 knotted pieces.


Next I took the long length and doubled it, then put it into a needle and knotted one end. Then I strung the pieces on in groups of 20, placing a knot before and after each group with about 1 cm between each group.


I always pierce the middle of a strand for the first and last piece so they don't slip over the knot that is supposed to hold them in groups.

Then I cut between the fifth and fourth groups so that I had a length with four groups and a length with two groups still on the end of the length in my needle.

I inserted the needle with the two groups on its length through the hole in the bead, made a loop the size I wanted for hanging the tassel and passed the needle through the hole in the bead again, making sure to hang on to the loop on top to keep it the desired size. I caught the length with four groups around the middle; that is: with two groups on either side so that now I had three lengths hanging below the bead with two groups each. I passed the needle back through the bead. At this point it says to overcast the loop that will be used for hanging the tassel. I don't usually do this, but I will do it here as I'm always game for new things!


I found that overcasting the loop was the hardest part of the whole thing! In the end I managed it and did my last stitch as a Buttonhole stitch to lock the overcasting in place. Then I plunged the needle through the bead one more time (my lumpy Buttonhole stitch ended up hiding in the hole of the bead). On the other side of the bead I made a knot close to the bead and cut the thread.

Now comparing my knotted tassel with the one in the photo, I notice that the loop on top in the picture is quite small and there is another piece of thread looped into it for hanging. Oh well, mine is quite twisty and I like it!


At this point you can move the pieces in the groups around so that they are going every which-way and for added fluffiness, get them wet and let them dry. You get a super fluffy tassel!

You can get the book Nappe e Pendagli from Tombolo Disegni: click on "Libri/Books", then "Libri/Ricamo", then "Ricamo Italiani", the text is in Italian – send an email request to order.

(p.s.: my tassel doesn't look like the photo in the kit because my idea of 1 cm was probably twice as long as it should have been! With smaller pieces, you get the effect of the individual groups whereas mine is a bit of a blob! – I need more practice!)