Thursday, May 20, 2010

Castello di Verrazzano

I told you in a previous post about Deruta Pulled Thread work and in that post I also told you that Deruta Drawn Thread work was something different. I will show you the difference here.

Last year on my tour with Vima deMarchi Micheli we visited the little town of Greve in Chianti in the Tuscany region of Italy where I bought a great woven tea towel with the Chianti region depicted on it from a little shop that sold household linens along the main street of the historic centre. We went on to visit the Castello di Verrazzano in the hills outside of town.


We enjoyed a guided tour of the grounds which were breathtakingly beautiful and looked down onto a wild boar reserve. After a tour of the wine cellars we went up to the loggia to admire the view and listen to some of the history of the company and the area. While listening to our guide I glanced over to some windows across from the loggia and started to examine the curtains which were really interesting...

This is my photo from outside, sorry it's not more clear but you get the complete design:


To my delight we went into the room where they were. All along the one wall in sets of two were windows, each with the same curtain in this intriguing embroidery.

This photo is much better, taken from inside:


There were six small tassels along the bottom hem which hung down, made of the same linen fibres as the curtains - I wondered if they were made out of the withdrawn threads.

I found out later after translating an article for Tuttoricamo on Deruta Drawn Thread work that that was indeed the technique that these curtains were embroidered in.

In fact, there was embroidery throughout the Castello... when we entered the dining room to have lunch we noticed that all the curtains there were embroidered in Punto Antico. We said to each other that we'd get photos after lunch but of course after many wine tastings we completely forgot!

A few days before, we had dined at the Cantinetta di Verrazzano restaurant in Via dei Tavolini no. 18 in Florence - enjoying the Verrazzano Chianti with Focaccia samplers for lunch. They have Verrazzano wine labels available for those who collect them. I picked up these two because they had photos of needlework on them!



To learn more about the history of Deruta Drawn Thread work, look under the 'Techniques' section for an article and more photos on the Tuttoricamo website.

There are some close up photos here.

Thanks to Armida for the photo of the curtain.

2 comments:

  1. Ciao, Jeanine, sono Barbara(longamar)di Modena,
    eravamo entrambe al corso di macramè di Lilli...
    Seguo da un po' il sito: complimenti per il tuo lavoro!E' bellissimo!!!!
    E' il colmo attingere notizie dell'Italia dal Canada: hai viaggiato e hai conoscenze sul ricamo italiano più di me che sono nata qui!!!
    Bellissime queste tendine, come mi piacerebbe riuscire a farne di simili!!!Hai qualche suggerimento?
    Baci

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  2. Ciao Barbara!!
    Grazie per i complimenti!
    Mi sembra che l'enciclopedia della Dillmont abbia un po' di questi disegni ma non sono chiamate 'Deruta sfilato'... sono nella sezione di "Merletti ricamati" altrimenti dovresti contattare Maria Elide Melani all'associazione: Ago, aga e fantasia sicuramente lei saprà di piu!

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    I believe that the DMC Encyclopedia of Needlework has some of these stitches diagrammed in the "Embroidered Laces" section.

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