Three in One - new book!

The latest book from Giuseppa Federici revisits three techniques: Ars Aesis, Catherine de'Medici Embroidery and Buratto drawn-thread work.

This volume is 64 pages beginning with a little bit of history on Catherine de'Medici Embroidery, then some background on Buratto drawn-thread work and some instructions on how to do it and the things you'll need in general followed by a small ornament project which is used to explain how to execute the withdrawn area and fill it with a motif done in the linen stitch. There are a good 7 pages of step-by-step photos so if you don't speak Italian, you'll still get it. Ornament embellishment and assembly finish this section.

There are then seven projects combining Catherine de'Medici and Buratto drawn-thread work - some lovely border treatments here as well. After that are several pages of charted patterns for both techniques to be used with your own imagination to create other lovely things with the project of a small clasped purse to get you going.

Commercial Buratto fabric is loosely woven evenweave linen with about 16-18 threads per inch so withdrawing threads to create a netted ground lends itself beautifully to larger design areas which are completed relatively quickly. It goes fabulously with Catherine de'Medici Embroidery creating delights of light and dark areas of design.

The final section is on Ars Aesis and here you'll find several pattern designs, projects, borders and edgings though you'll need her first book for detailed instructions on how to execute some of the needle lace edgings. Just so I've said it, the text is all in Italian.

Now, you know how I love textured embroidery! I just had to get out my needle and thread to try one of the borders which I had previously admired in the first book:

Ars Aesis uses no. 10 crochet cotton for thread which provides a different finish from pearl cotton. In Europe, both DMC and Anchor market quite a few colours in this type of thread (DMC Babylo no. 10 and Anchor Freccia no. 12) however I'm having some difficulty sourcing much on this side of the pond.

If you know anywhere in North America which sells DMC Babylo no. 10 or Anchor Freccia no. 12 in anything other than white and ecru, would you leave a comment below?

In Europe you can purchase this book by bank transfer directly from the author herself. 

Tombolo Disegni has it for those of us not in Europe, it can be found in the section of books with Catherine de'Medici Embroidery.

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.

Experiments on Buratto

A friend from Florence sent me a small piece of cotton Buratto woven by the Fondazione Lisio to test out.

This is not the modern version of Buratto that looks somewhat like burlap, this is recently hand woven fabric made in the ancient technique and on an ancient hand loom in an effort to produce a reproduction of the ancient Buratto, historically used in Italy. I told you a little about it previously in this post.

This is what the weave looks like on the Buratto from the Fondazione Lisio:

I mounted it on my slate frame which, happily was the perfect size, this piece of Buratto was 23 cm wide:

I think I may have mounted it incorrectly but it was good and taut and that's all I cared about. Then I went about experimenting.

The first motif I chose from Alessandro Paganino's 16th century pattern book called: Il Burato. I did it in a horizontal darning stitch with Coton a Broder no. 12 Ecru. Too bad I have since discovered that the no. 12 Coton a Broder in my stash is no longer available to purchase. I liked the coverage I got with the thread used.

After that I thought about Catherine de'Medici Embroidery and so I got out some Cotone Povero yarn and did a little dividing line under the Paganino motif.

Then I thought about other kinds of embroideries that were traditionally done on Buratto. Both Sicilian and Sardinian netted work came to mind so I decided to do a motif in the Linen Stitch using some Sardinian linen thread that a friend had given me. I chose a motif from GiovanAndrea Vavassore's 16th century pattern book called: Opera Nuova Universale intitolata Corona di Ricami.

Oh how I struggled with the linen thread but I think I would have even if the Buratto had been made of silk. And speaking of silk, I wanted to do my last motif in silk yarn that I have which is similar in thickness to the Cotone Povero but made of silk and viscose of Bamboo. I tried several motifs but was unhappy with the results, the silk yarn was too thick for more than one pass in Darning Stitch and looked strange for parts of the motifs where there was only one square of design.

I thought about it for a dangerously long time until it was in danger of become a UFO (unfinished object). I really wanted to use the silk/bamboo thread.

Well, I told myself, just do something in Catherine de'Medici stitch and be done! I hunted around in the Punto Madama Caterina book of patterns from the Accademia Punto Assisi and found a small motif.

The silk/bamboo thread was a dream after the linen thread but untwisted quickly and left a lot of fluff everywhere. I love the twisted-rope effect of the Catherine de'Medici stitch!

All in all, I would say that this ancient-style Buratto by the Fondazione Lisio has been given a fair test by me. It held up well to the many times I ripped out threads of all types. Now to unmount it and see what happens when I wash it!

I put my Buratto with some towels on the hand-wash cycle in the washing machine, then blocked it on a big fluffy towel face-down and ironed it dry. My blocking could have been better but here it is:

The cotton woven threads of the Buratto plumped up and so, of course, the holes got smaller. It shrunk about 2 cm from selvedge to selvedge (left and right sides in the photo) and I washed it in cold water. The Buratto is really soft after washing! My darning-stitched motif at the top is more filled-in, the silk/bamboo lost a lot of it's definition and thus I think I prefer the unwashed silk/bamboo thread better as you can see the effect of the Catherine de'Medici stitch.

I'm really impressed with the linen stitch! For all the zillions of times I ripped out and started over, the unwashed motif was uneven and you could really see the uneven thickness of the linen thread. After washing though, it looks good!

Unwashed

Washed

Traditional applications were things like flounces for curtains, pillows, tablecloths, inserts, ecc. I think you could also use it on clothing as it is so soft after washing. This should interest the folks who do period re-enactments.

The Fondazione Lisio has plans to try other materials like silk in future Buratto experiments. I am very glad that they have succeeded in helping to continue the ancient tradition of Buratto hand woven fabric. Watch their website for more news.

This was lots of fun! A few embroiderers were asked to participate in these experiments so I'm very interested to see everyone's results! There should be some posted soon on the TuttoRicamo blog.

A heartfelt thank you to the Fondazione Lisio for allowing me this opportunity and to my Florentine friend for thinking of me when searching out people to experiment on Buratto!

Catherine De'Medici Embroidery Article

For those who are part of the Embroiderers' Association of Canada (EAC), the new winter 2011 edition of their magazine Embroidery Canada is being delivered right now and inside is an article I wrote on Catherine De' Medici Embroidery with a Placemat project designed by the Accademia Punto Assisi.

I wrote this article in 2009 and am sad to report that the little store I visited in Assisi that I talk about in the article has since closed its doors. However the Accademia Punto Assisi is still going stronger than ever!

This is my own attempt at Catherine De' Medici Embroidery or Punto Madama:

The patterns were taken from an excellent book called: Caterina De' Medici, La Storia, Gli Schemi by Giuseppa Federici.

The peacock pattern can also be found in the Nov/Dec 2010 Piecework magazine with my accompanying article.

Caterina De'Medici Embroidery is a counted thread technique and is usually worked on an Italian fabric known as Buratto which today is a 100% loosely woven evenweave linen about 6 threads per centimetre (15 threads per inch), either cream coloured or unbleached (read more on Buratto here).

A thick cream-coloured or white twisted 100% cotton thread called “Cotone Povero” [poor cotton] is used for the stitching (done in Double Running Stitch executed in a particular way), edging and tassels.

Edge treatments can be widely spaced Blanket Stitches or a double crochet edge with popcorn picots on a small hem. Knotted tassels in a variety of styles are almost always the finishing touch. Sometimes colourful hand-painted ceramic beads from Deruta are added.

Here is some Caterina De'Medici Embroidery done by the Accademia Punto Assisi exhibited at the EGA San Francisco National Seminar in 2010:

San Vero Milis

I met so many talented stitchers on my last trip to Italy. I have to tell you about a fantastic lady from San Vero Milis in Sardinia. Her name is Rossella and she invited us to her lovely home and showed us lots of her needlework of which I can only show you a few pieces today as unfortunately most of my photos did not come out well.

Rossella is curious about all kinds of embroidery and needlework and she has tried many different techniques!

Punto Madama or Catherine de' Medici Embroidery

Fantastic Macramé fringe!

These last two Filet Lace pieces are designs by Maria Lai a famous Sardinian artist who uses textiles in her art. Rossella arranged for us to meet her but I'll tell you about that in another post.

After showing us her needlework and offering us coffee and delicious typical Sardinian pastries, we all piled into our cars and drove to Bosa, for a meeting with the ladies from the association La Foce which practices the ancient art of Bosa Filet Lace. Rossella had arranged for us to visit during one of their sessions where many ladies were working on fine pieces of Bosa Filet Lace.

I wish we could have spent more time in San Vero Milis, they have lots of artisan traditions and the scenery is breathtaking. I'll have to go back!

A shop in Assisi

I don't think I ever would have found it on my own... Arte Nostra in Via S. Agnese no. 8, Assisi. It's quite a big shop with lots of finished embroideries in the window and all over the shop displayed very attractively. Vima deMarchi Micheli took us there on the day we visited Assisi, Italy on her Italia Mia tour last year.


There were Assisi Embroideries and Catherine de'Medici Embroideries and other works of classic embroidery techniques for sale. Lots of lovely table runners, towels, cushions, tablecloths and dozens of other beautiful things.

Monica Manichini the owner showed us how to execute the main stitch in Catherine de'Medici Embroidery, the Double Running Stitch, done in such a way as to make the line of stitching look like a twisted thread sitting on top of the fabric.


While there, in addition to a small placemat in Catherine de'Medici Embroidery, I also bought the two books I talked about on Assisi Embroidery and Catherine de'Medici Embroidery in this post by the Accademia Punto Assisi. I don't know how else you can get these books other than contacting the store or the Accademia, I'm not sure if they are commercially sold anywhere else.

Unfortunately I must have been having a shaky day, as most of the pictures I took were very blurry...


These are some beautiful works of Catherine de'Medici Embroidery, I really liked the peacocks in the bottom left.

If you're in Assisi, don't pass up visiting this shop - it is a true delight.

Italian Kits

One of the things I wanted most when trying to learn about Italian needlework in the beginning of my research was a kit... I thought a kit would give me a little window into all aspects of a technique. I imagined a little packet with a design, technical instructions, some Italian fabric and threads with the right needle for the embroidery.

Italian kits, if you can find them, are, for the most part, not anything like that. Most people I wrote to told me they didn't make kits. Since we're talking about 10 years ago, most people didn't have books about their specialty technique either. No one had any written instructions that they wanted to give out, even if you were willing to pay.

When I did find "kits" they consisted mostly of a blurry picture of the finished product, sometimes with a separate drawn design (rarely at actual size), a list of the stitches used and the fabrics and threads recommended (no colours were ever listed precisely either). To be fair, the kits weren't made for going outside of Italy, so it is logical that they wouldn't have details about things Italians would already know, or be able to find out relatively easily. In a time of few websites and even fewer email addresses, this was a slow and often disappointing process for me. Even when I managed to assemble all required materials I then couldn't proceed for lack of instructions.

Making things from the magazines was equally disappointing. More often than not the stitches weren't explained or only some of the project was, for example the central motif but not the hemstitching.

I discovered some essential things necessary for understanding Italian stitching instructions. No one, no one, could understand why I wanted to reproduce an exact replica of a piece. Wouldn't I like to change it a bit to personalize it? It was expected that I would want to change the size, colours, fabric, threads - even the stitches used to make the design my own. I can tell you that when you show "anglosaxon" stitching instructional books and kits to Italians they are amazed at the detail. I believe this to be a fundamental cultural difference and its an important one. I am at my most comfortable and happiest when being instructed on every step... having to make my own decisions (which could be wrong!) is scary to me and I am very reluctant especially when using expensive threads and fabrics that I went to a lot of trouble to acquire.

I bought an Italian encyclopedia of embroidery and an English one and started to compare stitches, finding that some of them were the same and just had different names. This helped a lot with things that weren't exactly "Italian" techniques.

Over time things have progressed quite a bit but we are still very far from equal. At the Italia Invita Forum in 2007, I purchased all the kits I could find at the various booths hoping to be able to work them out later at home. This is a perfect example of what I'm trying to tell you:


It's a kit I purchased at the Puncetto booth. The stitched sample was an attractive bracelet of red and blue thread. Inside an opaque little bag (not unlike a travel make-up bag) was a colour computer printout of the pattern, with the steps for creating one motif. Nothing about assembly, borders or the filling between motifs and no stitch instructions. There was a fuzzy colour printout of the stitched sample (red and blue) on one side. There were two small balls of Finca no. 12 thread in orange and green and the clasp for the finished bracelet. I don't remember what it cost but I remember thinking that it was expensive, at the same time I bought two books as well with a total cost of 50 euros. Unfortunately neither of the books had instructions either, they were just patterns. Okay, so it is my own fault that I didn't look carefully enough at what I was buying but seriously, I don't think it would have mattered. I would still have bought them all in the hopes of getting home and figuring it out. Here we are three years later and there they sit still waiting for me. Even though by now I've done some experimenting on my own and even taken a two hour lesson and had a friend patiently show me some stitches.

Other kits I bought at the Forum that year were: one that had fabric with the traced design on it, a needle and thread and a colour photo of the finished piece. No stitch instructions; One that was a colour printout of a scan of the finished piece with reference to a book written by the same author. I had the book so I wasn't worried... upon arriving home however I saw that the book had the stitches explained but the composition of the kit was no where to be found, meaning I would need to understand enough about the technique in order to assemble the motifs myself; some came with washed out photocopies of stitch instructions; I have not stitched any of them.

This is not to say that by Italian standards they are not good kits. They are excellent kits if you already know how to stitch the techniques. Every single one would be useful to someone who knew what they were doing. I guess what I learned was that Italian kits are not for beginners and they are not like the kits I am accustomed to in my "anglosaxon" world.

As I said, things are beginning to change. I have a completely amazing Italian kit for a cushion that came with a very professional booklet with all the instructions for the stitches and assembly, Italian linen fabric for the front and back, thread, needles even some tips and tricks...


You can't see in the scan here but there are even English instructions below the Italian... comprehensible English!

Just lately there has been some interest in producing Italian kits for the non-Italian needlework world. These kits, produced by Fiorella Collection, will be on Italian needlework techniques or techniques with an Italian flavour. The booklets will come in Italian, French and English to start and you'll need to specify the language you want as each booklet is produced separately. In order to make them affordable, they are instructional books without the supplies, however they will be sold online where you can order the supplies needed in most cases.

Here is one of two already available:


The booklet even has the instructions for executing the picots along the edges! This work is known as Catherine de'Medici Embroidery and it is a Counted Thread Technique. The design is by Rosalba Pepi from the Laboratorio Tessile di Alice in Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy.

They are the closest thing to what I dreamed of long ago - made by the Italian needlework schools and masters. I hope they catch on as they will be perfect for giving us a little taste of the numerous different Italian needlework techniques.

The times they are a-changin'.

You can get the two Fiorella Collection booklets already available from Elena at Italian Needlecrafts.