Assisi embroidery is a form of counted-thread embroidery based on an ancient Italian needlework tradition in which the background is filled with embroidery stitches and the main motifs are outlined but not stitched. The name is derived from the Italian town of Assisi where the modern form of the craft originated.
Assisi work uses a method known as voiding in which cross-stitch fills the background while the motif itself is left blank. Holbein stitch, a style of linear blackwork, is used to outline and emphasize the motif and to create surrounding decorative scrollwork. [1]
Traditionally, Assisi embroidery was rarely executed in cross-stitch but was most often in long-armed cross-stitch. Examples employing other stitches, such as Italian cross-stitch and Algerian plait stitch, are also known. The colours of thread used were red, blue, green or gold for the background and black or brown for the outlines. Traditional motifs were largely heraldic, especially heraldic beasts, and typically featured symmetrically arranged pairs of animals and birds surrounded by ornate filigree borders.
In the oldest pieces, the figures were drawn freehand on the fabric and surrounded with Holbein stitch. The background, often cream linen, [2] was filled as well as possible. For more modern pieces the pattern was constructed carefully on a paper grid in much the same way as counted cross-stitch patterns are created. Today Assisi embroidery is nearly always done this way.
Historically, Italy has had a long tradition of bright and colourful embroidery. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries monastic embroideries developed a simpler style where designs and motifs were voided on fine linen cloth with the outlines and background embroidered in coloured silk. Motifs were strongly influenced by traditional designs of bird or animal pairs surrounded by elaborate scrollwork. These early articles were most often used for religious purposes, e.g., altar cloths and chasubles.
By the sixteenth century Assisi work had become more popular and employed a wider range of motifs, many based on Renaissance imagery of satyrs, demons and ancient mythical creatures.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, this form of embroidery fell into decline and many of the designs and motifs were lost. It was only at the turn of the twentieth century that the practice was revived in the Italian town of Assisi from which this form of embroidery gets its name. St. Anne's Convent in October 1902 established the Laboratorio Ricreativo Festivo Femminile San Francesco di Assisi. [3] The aim of this handicrafts workshop was to revive traditional local handicrafts and provide employment to poor women to supplement their incomes. This cottage industry flourished and these designs using the counted thread technique quickly spread throughout Italy, Europe and further abroad.
A modern version of Assisi embroidery has been evolving in the twenty-first century. Many different colours and patterns are used for the background, and the motifs are extremely varied. However, the revived traditional version is still practised in the town of Assisi where one can see the local women sitting in front of their houses and embroidering Assisi work items for the local co-operative embroidery shop.
Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture. The stitcher counts the threads on a piece of evenweave fabric in each direction so that the stitches are of uniform size and appearance. This form of cross-stitch is also called counted cross-stitch in order to distinguish it from other forms of cross-stitch. Sometimes cross-stitch is done on designs printed on the fabric ; the stitcher simply stitches over the printed pattern. Cross-stitch is often executed on easily countable fabric called aida cloth whose weave creates a plainly visible grid of squares with holes for the needle at each corner.
Embroidery is the craft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. In modern days, embroidery is usually seen on caps, hats, coats, overlays, blankets, dress shirts, denim, dresses, stockings, scarfs, and golf shirts. Embroidery is available in a wide variety of thread or yarn colour. It is often used to personalize gifts or clothing items.
A needlework sampler is a piece of embroidery or cross-stitching produced as a 'specimen of achievement', demonstration or a test of skill in needlework. It often includes the alphabet, figures, motifs, decorative borders and sometimes the name of the person who embroidered it and the date. The word sampler is derived from the Latin exemplum, which means 'example'.
Blackwork, sometimes historically termed Spanish blackwork, is a form of embroidery generally worked in black thread, although other colours are also used on occasion, as in scarletwork, where the embroidery is worked in red thread. Originating in Tudor period England, blackwork typically, though not always, takes the form of a counted-thread embroidery, where the warp and weft yarns of a fabric are counted for the length of each stitch, producing uniform-length stitches and a precise pattern on an even-weave fabric. Blackwork may also take the form of free-stitch embroidery, where the yarns of a fabric are not counted while sewing.
Hardanger embroidery or "Hardangersøm" is a form of embroidery traditionally worked with white thread on white even-weave linen or cloth, using counted thread and drawn thread work techniques. It is sometimes called whitework embroidery.
Drawn thread work is one of the earliest forms of open work embroidery, and has been worked throughout Europe. Originally it was often used for ecclesiastical items and to ornament shrouds. It is a form of counted-thread embroidery based on removing threads from the warp and/or the weft of a piece of even-weave fabric. The remaining threads are grouped or bundled together into a variety of patterns. The more elaborate styles of drawn thread work use a variety of other stitches and techniques, but the drawn thread parts are their most distinctive element. It is also grouped with whitework embroidery because it was traditionally done in white thread on white fabric and is often combined with other whitework techniques.
Berlin wool work is a style of embroidery similar to today's needlepoint that was particularly popular in Europe and America from 1804 to 1875. It is typically executed with wool yarn on canvas, worked in a single stitch such as cross stitch or tent stitch, although Beeton's book of Needlework (1870) describes 15 different stitches for use in Berlin work. It was traditionally stitched in many colours and hues, producing intricate three-dimensional looks by careful shading. Silk or beads were frequently used as highlights. The design of such embroidery was made possible by the great progress made in dyeing, initially with new mordants and chemical dyes, followed in 1856, especially by the discovery of aniline dyes, which produced bright colors.
Crewel embroidery, or crewelwork, is a type of surface embroidery using wool. A wide variety of different embroidery stitches are used to follow a design outline applied to the fabric. The technique is at least a thousand years old.
Backstitch or back stitch and its variants stem stitch, outline stitch and split stitch are a class of embroidery and sewing stitches in which individual stitches are made backward to the general direction of sewing. In embroidery, these stitches form lines and are most often used to outline shapes and to add fine detail to an embroidered picture. It is also used to embroider lettering. In hand sewing, it is a utility stitch which strongly and permanently attaches two pieces of fabric. The small stitches done back-and-forth makes the back stitch the strongest stitch among the basic stitches. Hence it can be used to sew strong seams by hand, without a sewing machine.
Embroidery in India includes dozens of embroidery styles that vary by region and clothing styles. Designs in Indian embroidery are formed on the basis of the texture and the design of the fabric and the stitch. The dot and the alternate dot, the circle, the square, the triangle, and permutations and combinations of these constitute the design.
Holbein stitch is a simple, reversible line embroidery stitch most commonly used in Blackwork embroidery and Assisi embroidery. The stitch is named after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), a 16th-century portrait painter best known for his paintings of Henry VIII and his children, almost all of whom are depicted wearing clothing decorated with blackwork embroidery.
Cutwork or cut work, also known as punto tagliato in Italian, is a needlework technique in which portions of a textile, typically cotton or linen, are cut away and the resulting "hole" is reinforced and filled with embroidery or needle lace.
Cross stitches in embroidery, needlepoint, and other forms of needlework include a number of related stitches in which the thread is sewn in an x or + shape. Cross stitch has been called "probably the most widely used stitch of all" and is part of the needlework traditions of the Balkans, Middle East, Afghanistan, Colonial America and Victorian England.
Shisheh or abhla bharat embroidery, or mirror-work, is a type of embroidery which attaches small pieces of mirrors or reflective metal to fabric. Mirror embroidery is common throughout Asia, and today can be found in the traditional embroidery of the Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, China, and Indonesia.
Ukrainian embroidery occupies an important place among the various branches of Ukrainian decorative arts. Embroidery has a rich history in Ukraine, and has long appeared in Ukrainian folk dress as well as played a part in traditional Ukrainian weddings and other celebrations. Appearing all across the country, Ukrainian embroidery varies depending on the region of origin. From Poltava, Kyiv, and Chernihiv in the east, to Volyn and Polissia in the northwest, to Bukovina, and the Hutsul area in the southwest, the designs have a long history which defines its ornamental motifs and compositions, as well as its favorite choice of colors and types of stitches.
In needlework, a slip is a design representing a cutting or specimen of a plant, usually with flowers or fruit and leaves on a stem. Most often, slip refers to a plant design stitched in canvaswork (pettipoint), cut out, and applied to a woven background fabric. By extension, slip may also mean any embroidered or canvaswork motif, floral or not, mounted to fabric in this way.
English embroidery includes embroidery worked in England or by English people abroad from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. The oldest surviving English embroideries include items from the early 10th century preserved in Durham Cathedral and the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, if it was worked in England. The professional workshops of Medieval England created rich embroidery in metal thread and silk for ecclesiastical and secular uses. This style was called Opus Anglicanum or "English work", and was famous throughout Europe.
The term Hedebo embroidery covers several forms of white embroidery which originated in the Hedebo (heathland) region of Zealand, Denmark, in the 1760s. The varied techniques which evolved over the next hundred years in the farming community were subsequently developed by the middle classes until around 1820. They were applied to articles of clothing such as collars and cuffs but were also used to decorate bed linen.
The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework was founded in Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1896 by Margaret C. Whiting and Ellen Miller. They formed the society in 1896 as a way to help residents boost the town's economy by reviving American needlework from the 1700s. It was inspired by the crewel embroidery of 18th-century women who had lived in the Deerfield, Massachusetts, area. Members of the Blue and White Society initially used the patterns and stitches from these earlier works, but because these new embroideries were not meant to replicate the earlier works, the embroidery soon deviated from the original versions with new patterns and stitches, and even the use of linen, rather than wool, thread. The society disbanded in 1926 for several reasons. Ellen Miller was in declining health; the trained stitchers were getting old and could not continue; Margaret C. Whiting's sight was fading; and, the design and quality of commercially produced items was increasing.
Colcha embroidery from the southwest United States is a form of surface embroidery that uses wool threads on cotton or linen fabric. During the Spanish Colonial period, the word colcha referred to a densely embroidered wool coverlet. In time, the word also came to refer to the embroidery stitch that was used for these coverlets, and then began to be used on other surfaces. The colcha stitch is self-couched, with threads applied at a 45-degree angle to tie down the stitch. Originally, the wool threads were dyed naturally, using plants or insects, such as cochineal. Both materials used and design motifs have varied over time.
