Italia Invita 2013

 

The 6th International Italia Invita Forum of Textile Creativity has updated their website to include the theme and competitions for the next Italia Invita Forum in Parma, Italy on May 10 - 12th, 2013.

Techniques covered at the next Forum will include: Embroidery, Lace, Quilting, Knitting, Crocheting, Felting, Cross Stitch, Weaving, Straw Plaiting, and just about any other textile art.

The theme will be: Intreccio Internationale which is difficult to translate into two words."Intreccio" is a weave, a plait or braid, a plot (of a story), an intertwining or interweaving - of paths, lives, things. The way they have explained it on the English general info page of their website is as follows:

...the theme is “Intreccio Internazionale” because we will search the path that “the thread” has made, prior to materialize into an art, a technique, a precious artifact. An invitation to retrace the steps through which every single work of each school has reached perfection, thanks to contamination with other techniques.

As usual, there are two competitions open to the public with the entries being displayed during the Forum:

The topics chosen for 2013 are ‘circle’ and ‘internationality’: one as a symbol of unity, of what has no beginning and no end, and the other as the basis of the “growth” due to the exchange between different cultures.

The Squaring the Circle competition is open to individual quilters, groups and associations and the International Circle competition is open to anyone who wants to use any textile method to create a themed piece.

Prizes include a Juki sewing machine, a Juki cutting and sewing machine, Aurifil threads and €1,800.00 in vouchers to spend at the Italia Invita Forum in the vendors section.

I was waiting until they had made the rules available in English on their website to tell you about this but I have learned that the rules will not be made available in any other language than Italian. This seemed strange to me for an international competition and event. I received this response to my query from Fiere di Parma, the company that hosts the event:

The rules are only in Italian because the competition is reserved only for Italian citizens due to issues with the Government.
Unfortunately, the law does not allow Italy to organize international competitions and so we were forced to deal with this limitation.

There will be workshops and classes that you can register for and attend and I am told that a list of these will be available in the next couple of weeks.

A list of exhibitors and vendors will become available after the new year.  So check back to the Italia Invita website often for updates.

In other posts I have told you about previous editions of Italia Invita Forums:

Italia Invita - Part One - 2003

Italia Invita - Part Two - 2005
Italia Invita - Part Three - 2007

Italia Invita - Part Four - 2009
Italia Invita - Part Five - 2011

Truly, if you get the chance to go, make the effort. No where else can you get so many Italian needlework schools, teachers, techniques and supplies at a single event.

Ricamo Italiano - Digital Magazine

I used to subscribe to one of the Italian needlework magazines called Ricamo Italiano which started up in the fall of 2004. The subscription for overseas was about double the European price but at the time I could afford it and anyway, I usually figure on paying about double the cover price for any publication from Italy because the shipping is so much.

In 2010 they decided to raise the overseas price for a subscription so much that I had to give them up.

Silvia from Turin emailed me to say that she had discovered that they now have a digital edition which you can purchase and download instantly.

I decided to purchase an issue and take you along with me for the ride. Before we get started, let me say that I'm not recommending/soliciting this magazine and I don't earn anything by this post. This is just an adventure in Italian Needlework.

I took screenshots along the way and then added some arrows in with Photoshop. My monitor is a 27 inch iMac so I'm sorry, there is a lot of white space but I didn't want to cut anything off that might help you if you were going to try this.

Now, I didn't find anything indicating that this was even available on the Ricamo Italiano website, but there might be something there that I just didn't see, or they may have updated it since this post if you're reading this sometime in the future.

Click on the photos for a closer look.

Arriving at the EZPRess website, which thanks to Silvia, we know exists, use the pull down menu at the top for English or which ever language you like, it uses Google Translate which does an okay job for what we need here.

On the left is a "search by category" heading with directly below it another pull down menu. For reasons probably to do with translation, the list does not appear in English alphabetical order, so you'll find "embroidery" under "boys". Don't ask, just select "embroidery" and let's move on. ;-)

There are only two choices for "embroidery" and they are both Ricamo Italiano, so you can take your pick between September 2012 (issue 95) or October 2012 (issue 96) or you can sign up for a subscription. I chose issue 96 and clicked on "acquista ora" - the buttons don't translate.

When you click the button a little pop up menu tells you that what you've selected has been added to your cart and you have the option to continue shopping or going on to the cart and paying which is the option I chose.

Now you must click on "cash", you'll notice my "x" shows that you must pay the value added tax or VAT. Many international websites are set up so that the program knows if you're overseas and that you are not required to pay the VAT. This is not one of them. I also understand that in Italy there is a difference in business license, if you anticipate mainly Italian clients, you choose one license, if you anticipate international clients, you choose the other (more expensive) license. These people are anticipating Italian clients and I'm not going to argue over €0,50 which is like, $0.65USD.

Now we must register with EZPress. Click accordingly and you will land at the page which gives you some advice about google.mail clients. I forgot to take a screenshot of this page until after I'd finished, so you may notice in the next photo that my cart is empty on the left. Yours however should still have your magazine in it.

Click "register" and we go on to the cart where you have your choice of payment methods. I chose PayPal and then "check out" at the bottom.

Now, I wasn't quick enough to get the next screenshot but a big green check mark flashed on the screen and some text telling me that I'd entered my order correctly and that I was now being re-routed to PayPal's website, which I was.

After completing my PayPal payment, I chose to return to the EZPress website and landed at this page. I clicked where I indicate with the red arrow, but if you chose a subscription you must click where I've put the 'x".

This brings you to your order summary and you must remember to download both the magazine and the "foglione" which has some patterns on it. It looks like you can do this 100 times each.

What they don't tell you is that the magazine file is 74.1MB so that takes a few minutes to load. The 'foglione' is only 135 KB (for issue 96). The magazine is 86 pages.

If you choose the subscription, you get the same price that Italians get for a printed subscription and you'll get "12 months". Just a word to the wise, this magazine does not always print issues in consecutive months so "12 months" usually takes you into the following year. This can be confusing but at least this way, you'll know it didn't get lost in the mail!

Punto Maglie

Photo copyright Associazione Punto Maglie.

The town of Maglie is located in the Apulia region of south-east Italy. The heel of the boot if your Italian geography is a little vague.

Punto Maglie or Maglie Embroidery is a type of needle lace which takes its origins from Burano, the famous lace-making island in the Venetian Lagoon.

Photo copyright Associazione Punto Maglie.

Characteristics particular to Punto Maglie are the human figures (pupo or pupa, masculine or feminine) often found among the geometric motifs, the most important of which are the star motifs.

Inserts are built upon a support of fabric with the pattern attached on top and are then cut away from the support and inserted into fabrics. Whole pieces can be constructed in this manner or by withdrawing some threads of the ground fabric and building on top of it in a similar method to traditional Reticello.

In 1905, as an experiment, evening embroidery and lace classes were added to the curriculum of an Applied Arts school instigated by Egidio Lanoce, advocate and pioneer of technical schools for the working classes. It was here that Punto Maglie was born.

Photo copyright Associazione Punto Maglie.

Around the same time a local noblewoman, Lady Carolina De Viti De Marco in Starace started a group of embroiderers, some who had trained at the Applied Arts school, to produce embroidered items to sell in order to supplement their household incomes. Lady Carolina and her descendants would go on to become very important to the textile arts of the area, but let's leave that for another post.

Photo copyright Associazione Punto Maglie.

Embroideries and laces from Maglie were exported to America and other European countries and participated and were recognized in the various International Fairs of the period.

Magie enjoyed much success with these endeavours until the years of the First World War.

Today the tradition of Punto Maglie is continued by the embroidery school Associazione Punto Maglie located at no. 60 via Luigi Puzzovio in Maglie. You can contact them by email at: punto maglie @ virgilio . it (remove all the spaces between the characters).

Many thanks to Liliana for the photos!

Gigliuccio Hemstitch - Embroidery Canada

A note to let Canadian readers know that in the fall 2012 issue of the Embroiderer's Association of Canada (EAC)'s magazine Embroidery Canada, the last photo of my article on the Gigliuccio Hemstitch is missing.

Sandra the editor tells me that there will be a note in the next issue but in the meantime, here it is below for your reference (click on the image for a closer look):

Lace Exhibit at the Met Museum in New York

 

If you find yourself anywhere near the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York before January 13, 2013, check out their Gems of European Lace exhibit at the Antonio Ratti Textile Centre!

Taken from the press release:

Included in the installation are examples of the two major lacemaking techniques: needle lace (built up from a single thread that is worked in a variety of looping, or buttonhole, stitches) and bobbin lace (woven—or braided—together from multiple threads organized on individual bobbins). Beyond the two basic technical categories, lace is also often described with the name of the town or region where a particular style was first made. The exhibition will include outstanding examples of Venetian (needle) lace, Brussels (bobbin) lace, and Devon (bobbin) lace. Of particular interest is a 19th-century handkerchief associated with King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette of Belgium. The queen was a patron of the local lace industry.

There is also a lovely filet lace dress which belonged to the early 20th century American socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig an avid collector whose pieces formed the basis for the Costume Institute at the Met.

Two Italian examples in the exhibit are from the Nuttall Collection, donated by Magdalena Nuttall in 1908. You can read more about this collection by downloading the Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1908.

A special thank you to Sarah for the info about this event!

A Mirror to my Art finalists

The 20 finalists are posted on the A Mirror to my Art blog this, as you may recall, is a needlework challenge put on by the Needleprint blog for hand-held mirror needlework, I talked about it here. 

I know of at least two Italian entries and I am so proud that the Italians took up the challenge to enter this contest as their needlework is so beautiful, I really wanted the English-speaking world to see some of it.

Go and vote for your favorite piece, there are 20 entries, each with it's own post. You must leave a comment below the photo to vote.

I will wait to talk about the Italian entries until the winners have been chosen so as not to influence the voting in any way.

Good luck to everyone!

Veronese Crochet Lace - prizewinner

Every year I long to attend (but never have) the Hand Embroidery and Weaving Exhibition at Valtopina in Perugia. I search the internet for reports from attendees and drool over photos posted on blogs and websites. The region of Umbria is rich in embroidery history and there are so many interesting local techniques. One day I really must attend, if for no other reason than to satisfy my longing to do so.

Along with the various exhibitions at the show, there is always an open competition and this year's theme was Green Monuments of Umbria - the trees. This year, participants were required to demonstrate the development of their ideas for the pattern on paper and then to produce a tablecloth big enough for six settings (hemmed measurement: 140 cm x 160 cm) along with matching napkins (hemmed measurement: 40 cm x 40 cm) with their embroidery or lace ideas applied.

The category of lace was split by two winners using the techniques of Veronese Crochet Lace and a needle lace from the Apuglia region called Punto Maglie.

I wrote to Anna Castagnetti of Ricami a Fili Tesi to congratulate her and asked if she would share some details on the prize-winning piece of Veronese Crochet Lace she made together with Donatella Granzarolo. Here is what she said:

"Donatella made all the Veronese Crochet Lace pieces and I joined them together with needle lace bars covered in buttonhole stitch, after having prepared the holes in the fabric. Each tree is made up of eight pieces (three leaves equal one piece) and the trunk. At the four corners of each insertion there are a further four pieces (the sets of leaves). The insertions are finished around the edges with a cording or overcast stitch surrounded by a row of four sided stitch. Threads used were: DMC Cordonnet Special no. 80 for the buttonhole bars; Anchor Lace no. 20 bobbin lace thread for the Veronese Crochet Lace; Crochet Cotton no. 60 for the rest. I can't tell you how much time it took to make it all, we worked together which doubles the execution time and as we live 50 km away from each other, additional time was required for travel."

Below is a picture of one of the inserts:

Congratulations Anna and Donatella! Thank you for sharing the details of this piece with us and for the great photo!