Retors D'Alsace - DMC Alsatian Twist Thread

In Italy in the spring of 2009, DMC re-released the thread they call Retors d'Alsace or Alsatian Twist.

It is available in two weights, no. 8 and no. 12 - similar to Pearl Cotton but twisted more and slightly different in thickness, and comes in 82 colours for the no. 8 and 65 colours for the no. 12. DMC states it is suitable for embroidery, cross stitch, crochet and lacemaking.

The skeins are 20 grams each and sell for around €4,20 which is about $5.60 USD using today's exchange rates. The thread is made of Egyptian long staple cotton which has been mercerized twice - this makes it both strong and shiny. Retors d'Alsace is made at DMC's plant in Mulhouse in the Alsace region of France.

DMC's Italian website says it is the return of a thread they made in the early 20th century. I looked in the back of my Italian 1926 copy of L'Uncinetto (Grosso Uncinetto) from the DMC Library [Grosso Uncinetto is Large Crochet in Italian] and I found a listing of Retors d'Alsace threads in weights ranging from 5 to 100!

I don't know when they stopped producing this lovely thread. If you search around on the internet, you can find some old spools of different weights of Retors d'Alsace, there are quite a few no. 50 weight ones here.

At the Italia Invita Forum of 2009, DMC had an impressive area to display their wares complete with stitched pieces from the old DMC Library of booklets. They were giving out samples of the "new" Retors d'Alsace. If you'd like to see what their display looks like when they visit shows in Italy, check out their blog.

Mary Corbet over at Needle 'n Thread did a review of Retors d'Alsace if you'd like to take a closer look.

Retors d'Alsace is widely available only in Italy. DMC had plans to distribute it in other European countries - but last I checked, it still wasn't even available in France!

Monogram categories

I recently purchased this little booklet written for young women c.1906 by Lucia Petrali Castaldi who would later (1925) become the editor of the Mani di Fata embroidery magazine and an accomplished author of many other texts.

There are 18 pages in total: four complete alphabets, four pages of examples of how to arrange monograms and ciphers, some images of other embroidery types which might compliment work with a monogram and a few words of wisdom.

I have translated a few lines below to give you an idea of the mood of the day for the young embroiderer in early 20th century Italy:

"Women and girls of good sense find it necessary to mark their linens, both personal and household, with their own initials or with their whole name.
On this point they are all in agreement: the differences begin with all the different ways to mark your linens. There are those who prefer something quick and adopt only one cursive initial - that of their last name - embroidered in Stem or Chain Stitch, when not resorting to the rapid, horrible stamping of indelible ink. They are practical women with little patience, always attracted by other treatments which do not require the measure of movements and tranquility of person. 
Some women prefer the traditional markings - on each piece - made with the no-less traditional Backstitch in red cotton: they are precise women, a bit limited, devoted to the past: they are never in a hurry and do everything the way one should.
Finally, there are women - real ladies - even if their purse is more than modest, meager, with brilliant views of educated taste.
They known to adopt, when appropriate, one or another of the various techniques and use them with finesse: although breathless from their daily tasks, they know how to find the time for so many beautiful works: beautiful not in material wealth, but in the good taste of choice and execution. 
{...}
Well prepared monograms executed with skill, with the right effects of chiaroscuro, immediately give the idea of the completely personal and innate taste of the woman who chose them."

A design for around a buttonhole on a man's shirt.

Here is the listing on the last page of other booklets by Lucia Petrali Castaldi at the time: 

You can read more about Lucia Petrali Castaldi on the Tuttoricamo website: click on the British flag for the English version then "Prominent Characters".

Mezza Mandolina and Embroidered Netting

Happy New Year to everyone!
I have been occupied elsewhere lately but things are slowly returning to normal and I will get back to posting regularly soon. If you have emailed me, please be patient awhile longer, I will answer you eventually, there are many messages and only so much time to answer them.

It has come to my attention that some readers were confused as to the actual needlework technique of Mezza Mandolina and I realize that if you don't ever click on the links in the post, you will never know that it is a knotted netting.

Let's clarify a couple of things. First, if you see some words in a different colour than the rest of the text of the post or if it is underlined, that means you can click on it to go to a different website to see related photos or articles. Second, Mezza Mandolina in the post I wrote is a knotted netting technique similar to the netting made for Filet Lace (also called Lacis or Modàno).

If you look closely at this photo of Sardinian Filet Lace, you can see that at the intersection of threads there is a little knot:

When doing embroidered Filet, you must first make the netting ground. The tool used to make the netting is called the Modàno in Italian, which is why embroidered netting is often called Modàno Netting. In English it is called the shuttle. The following photo of a shuttle is from Therese de Dillmont's Needlework Encyclopedia book online:

Have a look at Therese de Dillmont's Needlework Encyclopedia book online to understand how knotted netting is made. There is also some history of Filet Netting here.

Back to Mezza Mandolina. As far as we understand from the old texts and painted portraits, Mezza Mandolina was made in the same way as Filet Lace, that is, it was a knotted netting which was then embroidered or not. Instead of making even rows of square meshes as in Filet Lace, Mezza Mandolina had several meshes which were bigger or smaller according to different patterns.

In this portrait of Eleonora di Toledo, you can see the embroidery on her blouse of Mezza Mandolina:

while in this portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England, her blouse of a different pattern of Mezza Mandolina is not embroiderered (click on the photo for a closer look):

Interestingly, I have been told of a different technique which was also called Mezza Mandolina, done while weaving traditional Buratto fabric in Tuscany. As soon as I have some information on that, I will post it.

I hope this clears up some of the confusion regarding Mezza Mandolina. Please leave a comment below if I haven't answered all of your questions.

Have a look at this website for the author's adventures in recreating Mezza Mandolina. If you want to try it out, here are some tutorials. Or go here for Enza Termini's adventures in recreating Mezza Mandolina in Italian (click on the heading: Mezza Mandolina).

Buon Natale and Merry Christmas

If you've got to kill some time waiting for your kids to fall asleep tonight, head on over to the Aemilia Ars website and check out the latest photos in their Gallerie of the recent show in Bologna, Mondo Creativo.

All the best to everyone for a joyous holiday and I wish you lots free time for stitching!

Gigliuccio Hemstitch - How to

As mentioned previously, the Gigliuccio or Peahole Hemstitch has many different methods of execution. I have tried a few and all have their merits but since so many of you have asked how to do it, I will show you the way I currently like the best. I prepared a brief tutorial last year for an online friend, so I will be using that and elaborating a bit.

You need to prepare your channels of withdrawn thread areas for the first part of the Gigliuccio which is executed in Punto Quadro or Four-Sided Stitch. Again, there are many ways to execute Punto Quadro but I'm going to show you how I have learned it.

For this example we will withdraw one ground thread and skip four, withdraw 8 ground threads, skip four and withdraw one ground thread. The middle part (the 8 threads) can vary depending on the look you want to achieve and the type of fabric you are using. You shouldn't make too wide of a withdrawn area, as your Gigliuccio can be difficult to control.

On the front of the work, let's execute the Punto Quadro. I turn the work so that the part that would be the turned-up hem is on the left-hand side (click on the photo for a closer look):

Here is what the front and back look like when we have completed this row:

Now we return to do the second part which is a combination of Punto Quadro and the Gigliuccio.

We'll do one Punto Quadro as before and half of a second one. Then we're going to wrap around the second bundle of threads once:

Bring the needle around to encircle the two bundles to form a loop with the thread, be careful to go behind the bundles and bring the needle through the loop:

Notice that the needle goes behind the bundles but in front of the thread of the loop - this is important!

Pull the thread to the left and position the knot with your thumbnail a little to the left of the half-way point of the open area. Tighten the knot, but you don't need to pull really hard, just enough to close it:

Now go back and wrap the second bundle taking care not to not to pass through the loop you are making but under it - we're not creating another knot, just a wrap. When this is done, your knot should have moved slightly to the right and into the half-way position of the open area.

We must wrap the second bundle one more time to complete the third leg of the Punto Quadro. Again, be careful not to pass the needle through the loop you are forming. You can nudge the stitch down to the right-hand edge of the open area to make it level with the third leg of the previously done Punto Quadro.

The last leg of the Punto Quadro is the first leg of the next one, so we start again immediately with the next set:

This is what the front and back look like when we're done:

This is what it looks like in tone on tone:

This a double row of Gigliuccio with a hem (which is secured with a separate row of Simple Hemstitching).

To use it to secure a hem, it is executed on the back side of the work, check out this tutorial for the first part and this tutorial for the second part.

Mezza Mandolina - Complex Netting

I received an intriguing email some weeks ago from Enza Termine of Sicily. You may remember her from a previous post on circular netting.

Enza had come across a web page by an SCA member who was investigating Mezza Mandolina, a more complex type of netting or Lacis evidenced in a portrait by Bronzino of Eleonora, wife of Cosimo I de' Medici and another portrait of Elizabeth I of England. Both portraits date to the mid-to-late sixteenth century.

This is a detail of the Bronzino portrait taken from Elisa Ricci's Old Italian Lace, 1913, the netting has been further embellished with embroidery:

Enza had also found this page with Mezza Mandolina tutorials by the same SCA member for different patterns that she had been able to figure out by experimentation.

Enza was curious about the name of the technique Mezza Mandolina. We found it mentioned by Elisa Ricci in her Old Italian Lace, 1913 (Antiche Trine Italiane. Trine ad ago - 1908):
"There is a variety of mesh-work very seldom found existing now, although several designs for its manufacture are to be seen in an old pattern-book, Isabella Parasole's Studio delle virtuose Donne published in 1597; the work was known as mezza mandolina, and is a net of irregular mesh, sometimes left plain, but more often embroidered with little leaves in matting-stitch which fill the square mesh and join it to the others so that the background can hardly be seen between the interwoven figures."

In the Ricci text is the above portrait of Eleonora which is preceded by a photo of a pattern page for Mezza Mandolina from a different text by Isabetta C. Parasole called Gemma Pretiosa, 1615. There is then a photo of some plain (not embroidered) extant Mezza Mandolina kept in the Bargagli collection in Florence. (You can download Old Italian Lace from here)

In my researching I found that all texts cite Parasole in one text or another of hers. Unfortunately extant Parasole texts are extremely rare and while out of copyright, are part of private and museum collections and are not yet in the public domain. The German version of a 1616 text can be found here but there are no patterns for Mezza Mandolina. One librarian at the Smithsonian Museum told me that they plan to scan their rare texts and put them online in the future, this is exciting as they have four Parasole texts in their collections.

The tiny text Origine ed uso delle Trine a Refe has a rather complex pattern for embroidering Mezza Mandolina from Parasole's Pretiosa gemma delle virtuose donne, reprinted by Luchino Gargano in Venice, 1600 - you can see it here. I'm not sure how you would manage something so complex on netting but then, I don't have any experience in doing it!

Enza decided to see if she could reproduce the Mezza Mandolina pattern from the Bronzino portrait. She had some good results which she shared with me but asked me to wait until she could perfect her technique and she has just sent me this photo of her results:

She has written of her adventures on her website (click on Mezza Mandolina - text in Italian) and she also found this extant example of Mezza Mandolina from the late 19th century in the National Museum of Abruzzo.

Does anyone know anything else about Mezza Mandolina? Please leave a comment below.

Thanks to Enza for sharing her photo and adventures with us!

To read a follow-up post for this subject, click here.

Quickie Punto Antico Ornaments

I've been asked about some quickie Italian needlework Ornaments. For those who are still playing beat the clock before the Holidays to get some ornaments done, here is a great suggestion from Barbara in Modena.

Barbara has taken some simple Punto Antico designs from Bruna Gubbini's Punto Antico books and changed the colours to represent the Holidays. Then she's covered styrofoam balls with the stitching and trimmed them with decorative ribbon, passementerie, etc.



You can check out the tutorial she has written for Tuttoricamo. (Click on the British flag for the English pages then on the left side of the homepage, click on "Arts", then "Christmas Decorations".

To find some free Punto Antico designs online, go to the Italian needlework magazine Ricamo Italiano's website and check out the files in these issues: 

No. 5 Marzo 2005
No. 7 Maggio 2005
No. 8 Giugno 2005
No. 9 Luglio 2005
No. 13 Novembre 2005
No. 14 Dicembre 2005
No. 16 Febbraio 2006
No. 22-23 Agosto-Settembre 2006
No. 29 Marzo 2007
No. 37 Novembre 2007