My Italian Fall
No international or domestic tumbles involved. Only, just like that, my fall project begins.
Yes, I am sticking with a project inspired by the big Italian towel/cover in my last post. I’m working it on a much smaller piece – a quotation rather than a full reproduction. I’m using the 19 x 27 inch (48.26 x 68.58 cm) piece of 40-count linen I mentioned earlier. That’s obviously less than the 381.89 x 582.68 inches (970 x 1480 cm) of the original. It’s very hard to make out the stitch or thread count of the original, but it does look like (most of the time) stitches happen over 4 threads. I couldn’t get close enough to get a dimensioned or scale-related photo of a strip, but I can say that I am working over 2×2 threads, and my individual motifs are smaller than on the original.
Although the size makes it a hint at the original, the design snippet I use will be a “larger” representation of the whole than it would have been if I had hit the stitch size of the original. More stitches per inch may make my pattern rendition smaller north/south and east/west, and will allow me to fit more repeats on my smaller cloth. Still nowhere near the repeat scale of the museum piece, though.
Now on to the stitches. I am using Montenegrin for the solid lines of green, red, and yellow. The Amy Mitten booklet Autopsy of the Montenegrin Stitch, Exhumed is invaluable for guidance on the various directional angles and corners needed. I used it before while stitching my long green sampler. It was what got me through the maze of this design:
I chose the squared back version of Montenegrin for the band above, but Mitten presents two versions, and I am using the other with a solid strip back for this one. Mostly for variety, and to see how the two compare.
Another stitch I used on Long Green is also present on this one. I call it “Meshy” but it’s official name is two-sided Italian cross stitch. I am using it for the solid infilling on the flower-like parts. Although it’s not called out in the MFA description, the closeup photos I took clearly show the mesh structure of the stitch, when it is pulled extremely tightly. Because of silk’s tensile strength, it works especially well for this stitch. You can see that mesh at large scale, with all ground threads bundled (none cut), completely covered by the silk in the Meshy part of my long, green sampler:
However, for this piece I’ve chosen DMC cotton floss – one strand. I wanted to work from stash, and to guarantee washability. In retrospect silk might have been a much better choice, allowing greater delicacy over all and a better defined mesh; but it’s pricey, and would be a new purchase. I’m putting off buying imports until a sane US international trade policy manifests.
Cotton doesn’t have the oomph of silk. Yanking on it to maximize the mesh effect can lead to breakage, and its bulk makes the filling more bead-like than lacy, especially in the narrow spaces of this design. Still, it’s not that far from the original, and if I’m careful I can teeter on the edge of destruction without actually shredding the thread. And working the narrow petal shapes in this stitch is proving out to be its own challenge. It shows and works much better in larger, open spaces.
I had toyed with making this truly two-sided. Meshy is two-sided, and the Montinegrin variant I picked has a not-exactly-the-same but close-enough reverse. And double running can be two sided. But I’ve already made enough mistakes and corrected them without pulling everything out (very hard to do with Meshy) that the back is compromised. I will settle for MOSTLY double-sided on this one.
Obviously there’s a ton more to do on this cloth.
I may move it to my largest Millennium scrolling frame. It’s just a hair too wide in its short side dimension (bottom in the photo) to fit on my next-to-largest one. But to do that since I have measured and placed my beginning to maximize the stitched field, I will need to add waste cloth or wide twill tape around the top and bottom. I need to add “real estate” for the scrolling rods to bite. And depending on how much tension I can achieve in the east west direction using my shortest set of extenders, I may want to add some twill to the long edges to accommodate lacing, too. But for now I’ll continue with the hoop. Working with it is much slower, but it is more portable, and I wander around the house quite a bit now as I stitch, to take advantage of changes in sitting venue.
Stay tuned, there will be LOTS more progress reports on this one. I hope they won’t be too boring. The pattern will remain mostly the same throughout the piece, but I do have several challenges coming up. For example, how to handle corners, and how to divide the framed plain linen center using double or single widths of the design. And if I do so, graphing out the supplemental edging sprigs, and how to place and space them.
On the health front, all continues well. Preventive radiation continues. No side effects ill or beneficial so far, although the superpower of magnified vision would come in handy. Mobility, sitting stamina, and general energy levels are increasing. I can make it around the house without a cane now, and only use it for going outside, or up and down the stairs. I’m a lot slower than I used to be, but even slowly, I can now get there. All is good.
AHA!
I’ve finally figured out what to stitch!
Two years ago Friend Merlyn and I went to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and saw an exhibit that featured (among other things) this Italian masterwork.
It’s described as a towel done in Punto Scritto and Punto a Spina Pesce MFA Accession 83.242, Italian, 16th century, silks on linen. In terms of size, this piece is big enough to be a table spread to seat eight, much bigger than anything I’d think of as a bath towel.
These stitch terms are used in MFA descriptions, but not many other places, and probably haven’t been updated since the initial acquisition and accession in 1883. Punto Scritto is clearly double running stitch. Punto a Spina Pesce (as far as I can figure) appears to be what we would call a form of long armed cross stitch (LACS) because the stitches that form each adjacent unit employ the same insertion/emergence spots, although modern stitches using that Italian name appear to spread the entry/exit points out, like herringbone stitch. I also note that the directionality of the individual stitch units as it rounds corners makes me think that execution was most like the Montenegrin stitch variant of LACS (more on this below).
I shared several photos of this at the time of our visit. And I put it on my list for redaction. Well, now is that time. I’m going to chart this one up, and then use the designs on a MUCH smaller cloth of my own. And as I look closer at this one, I think I will try to use a similar range of colors (but in cotton for washability), and the stitches I think look the closest to those of the original. At least on the front. I don’t see any photos of the back on the museum page in order to make totally accurate identifications, and am not impelled to write to request any. One thing I did note is that for the solid filled areas, the tightly pulled two-sided cross stitch variant I call Meshy was used. That isn’t credited on the museum page.
Another thing my close-ups show is that the piece was stitched over squares of four by four threads. There appear to be quite a few mis-hits and subsequent corrections where four by three or three by three threads were covered. This seems to pop up mostly in the curly bits that spring off the lily like flowers. I don’t know the actual count of the ground, and obviously couldn’t get up close enough to take a dimensioned photo, but I think that 2×2 on my 40 count linen will look close to the scale of the original.
Given that the Meshy and double running stitch bits can be done truly double sided, I have to think further on the use of something in the LACS family that is presentable on both sides. I’ll probably settle on Montenegrin. Both front and back of that are presentable, although the front does feature an additional vertical bar. It’s hard to make out on the photos, but some of the solid lines, especially the dark green ones that run the length and width of the piece do seem to sport a bar in places. But the deep yellow bits that run inside the motifs, don’t. Maybe the stitcher, noting the difference between the appearance of the two sides of the stitch chose to use the more open “reverse” on the front for the yellow bits, and what we consider the front of the stitch’s more solid effect for the framing lines. Fortunately, I have both practice with the stitch plus Amy Mitten’s excellent flip book on executing Montenegrin, covering all possible directional angles, so the transitions in this design will be easy, even upside down.
Now off to chart, and once the main motifs are captured, figure out how to compose them into a viable “small snapshot” piece on my 19 x 27 inch (48.26 x 68.58 cm) cut of linen.
String-Or-Nothing 