Gigliuccio hemstitching done on the back side

A reader very kindly reminded me that I had never posted the second part of this post on finishing a hem with Gigliuccio hemstitching (Peahole hemstitch) executed on the back side of the fabric.

So, without further ado, here is how to do it. You need to execute this on the back side of the work because the four-sided stitching will match that of the series of stitches you have done to secure the hem. This step today will be knotting the bundles together to create the characteristic look of this lovely hemstitch.

Assuming that we are carrying on after having secured the hem as we did here, turn the work so that the already executed hem is at the top and work from left to right on the back side of the work.

Step one will form the first four-sided stitch:

Step two will form half of the second four-sided stitch:

Step three will knot the two bundles:

Step four will complete the second four-sided stitch and return you to step one:

Repeat the series. Here is what it looks like on the back side:

This is the front side:

If you do this in tone-on-tone you will not see the criss-cross of threads.

There is a great in-depth booklet on this and many other little tips and tricks for executing the Gigliuccio Hemstitch in a variety of ways which can be had by contacting the author, Liliana Babbi Cappelletti. Be sure to ask for the English version if that's what you need.

To see how to do the Gigliuccio hemstitch on the right side of the work, check out this post here.

Macrame Fringes

I have been asked to tell you a bit about Italian Macramé Fringes for things like towels, placemats, tablecloths and other household furnishings. North Americans tend to think nostalgically to the 1970s and hemp macraméd plant holders and the like but in Italy, Macramé is still very much alive in the textile arts and in use frequently.

I showed you some summer Macramé purses that I saw in a shop window in Cesena and we talked about tassels and Macramé here and here.

What I saw most often in Italy however were Macramé Fringes of both the simpliest and the most elaborate combinations, all making the finishing touch on very attractive pieces.

In the Collezioni Comunali d’Arte Museum in Bologna there are several exquisite Macramé Fringe samples.

Here are a couple of my photos which turned out, there were many others but alas, my photographs are terrible! These Macramé Fringes are very small and delicate.

Here is an example of Macramé Fringe from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan:

An excellent book on Macramé Fringes with text in Italian and English is Macramé in Toscana by Cristina Notore:

It has many clear colour diagrams and lots of full colour photos of magnificent Macramé Fringes.

Macramé Fringes are worked on pillows, held either in the lap or on a tabletop, covered in striped or gingham fabric to be used to keep the knots lined up all the way across and evenly spaced. Large-headed pins keep the work securely fastened to the pillow. Materials used can be the warp threads of the actual furnishing you are making the Macramé Fringe for, Pearl Cotton, Cotone Povero or just about anything you like. A crochet hook helps with the pulling through of threads.

Here Liliana Babbi Cappelletti demonstrates on a Macramé pillow made of upholstery foam of her own design:

Special thanks to Stefania for the photo from the Poldi Pezzoli Museum!

Gigliuccio Hemstitch - Attaching the hem

Lots of readers have asked if there is another way to attach a hem while doing the Gigliuccio or Peahole Hemstitch at the same time as executing the hemstitching instead of in a separate operation. The answer is yes! However, the rules of how to execute the Gigliuccio change and instead of executing the work on the frontside of your fabric, you will have to do everything on the back side.

I finally got around to reading up on my camera's settings and was able to do a relatively nice set of super-macro photos for this, though it took many tries and hundreds of photos! I got a great table-top tripod for Christmas from my photographer-daughter and with a ball-head attachment it is perfect for what I need it to do! (If you're wondering: the camera is a Canon S5 15 and the tripod is a Joby Gorillapod.)

So, withdraw your threads for the Gigliuccio hemstitch, turn up your hem and baste it down (to the backside of the fabric). I tied a knot in my thread and then went into my hem area about 2 inches away from where I wanted to start stitching. Come up at the top of the hem fold right where you want to begin. Just to be clear, you are coming up from inside the hem fabric, you are not catching any of the front fabric at all.

Step One: Moving left to right, slide the needle back toward the left under four ground threads:

Step Two: Insert the needle into the hem fabric without catching any of the front fabric to the right four threads, only catch about two ground threads of the hem fabric:

Step Three: Slide the needle behind the same four ground threads as in Step One:

Step Four: Moving diagonally to the right, go up and over four ground threads and slide the needle behind the four ground threads directly above:

Step Five: Insert the needle four ground threads to the right and down, coming out right where your previous stitching is:

Now we begin the whole procedure again, to the right four ground threads and slide the needle back toward the left under four ground threads and carry on from Step Two above:

This is what it should look like on the backside:

This is what it should look like on the frontside:

This is the first step of the Gigliuccio hemstitch which is, in this case, the Four-Sided Stitch and the Simple Hemstitch combined. You will have to do the second part of the Gigliuccio (the other row of Four-Sided Stitch and the bundle knotting) on the back side as well in order to have your stitching match. Click here for the second part of this tutorial.

An excellent publication on the finer points of the Gigliuccio Hemstitch is Liliana Babbi Cappelletti's booklet which is available in Italian from Tombolo Disegni. There was an English version done (called Peahole Hemstitch), you may want to contact the author to see if you can get a copy from her. The step-by-step images are fantastic and even if you can't get your hands on the English version, you should have very little trouble with the Italian version.

Parma Embroidery

I really like textured needlework and Parma Embroidery is a very textured technique. The principle stitch is a composition of three parallel rows of Chain Stitches with two rows of Buttonhole Stitches worked over the first and second and second and third Chain Stitch rows with the festoons resting against each other down the middle of the band.

Sound complicated? It's not.


As with any technique however, practice improves stitch tension and curves can be a bit tricky – you will need to compensate in your Chain Stitch rows.

Here are some photos of works from Emporium Magazine, 1926, Vol. LXIII No. 374. Both are cushions:



The Patronato dei Lavori Femminili Parmensi (the Society of Parmese Feminine Works) was formed in the early 1920s providing a means of support for the women of Parma through needlework. Under the direction of Bianca Bonfigli Bignotti, the women were set to work embroidering Romanesque designs from local cathedrals, baptisteries, ornate doorways and sculpted friezes.

They chose heavy, natural or undyed linen fabric and natural cotton floche thread and went about "sculpting with the needle". The stitches chosen to best imitate the relief effect of the motifs are attributed to the talents of Irma Lanza Balestrieri.

In 1925 the Society produced a book which was revised and reprinted in 1926 called: Motivi Ornamentali dei Nostri Monumenti Studiati per L'Applicazione al Ricamo (Ornamental Motifs of Our Monuments Studied for the Application of Embroidery).

Parma Embroidery earned a Silver Medallion in Florence in 1925 and a Gold Medallion at the Mostra dell'Artiginato e delle Piccole Industrie di Firenze (Artisan and Small Industries Exhibition of Florence) in 1926.

All traces of the Society are lost after the Second World War but Parma Embroidery is mentioned in needlework manuals produced in the second half of the 20th century. You can even see something in English in the Anchor Manual of Needlework reprinted by Interweave Press in 1990.

Thanks to the extensive research of Manuela Soldi, in 2009 the second edition of Motivi Ornamentali dei Nostri Monumenti Studiati per L'Applicazione al Ricamo was reprinted with a well-documented introduction, some pictorial images from other Italian publications of the epoch and even some technical instructions done by Liliana Babbi Cappelletti. You can get this publication from Elena at Italian Needlecrafts.

Yvette has posted a great picture on her blog of how your curves can look, once you have mastered this stitch!

Sicilian Drawn Thread Work - II

Today a lovely little surprise came in the mail, a little coaster of Sicilian Drawn Thread Work '700. It's done on super-fine linen with what appears to be Pearl Cotton thread. The netted ground is made by withdrawing both warp and weft threads and wrapping the bars. The designs are executed in a Darning Stitch. The piece measures 4.25 inches squared.


Sicilian Drawn Thread Work dates back to the late 14th century and today falls into three main categories: '400, '500 and '700.

'400: designs are executed in the Linen Stitch on a netted ground described above.

Here is an example of the Linen Stitch that I showed you in a previous post. Note: this is Filet work and NOT Sicilian Drawn Thread work - the netting shown here is knotted and inserted. Sicilian Drawn Thread Work '400 is executed on a netting ground made from the ground fabric and uses the Linen Stitch for the motifs.



'500: designs are executed by constructing the netted ground around motifs formed by cutting away the ground fabric and then outlining them in overcasting. This is a piece of '500 that I talked to you about in a previous post:


('500 can also be reversed by executing the overcasting around a voided design area.) Here is a little example I did at the Italia Invita Workshop by Giovanna Gurrieri in 2007:


'700: motifs are darned onto a netted ground, described above (my little coaster would be an example of '700).

There were also two other categories of Sicilian Drawn Thread Work, the '800 and '500 Vittoria but I'm told that these types have all but disappeared.

The Anchor Manual of Needlework has a little section on Sicilian Drawn Thread Work but there is not much in the way of books on the subject. If you're lucky enough on Ebay and can afford the crazy prices, you might look for Lo Sfilato Sardo e Siciliano by Amelia Brizzi Ramazzotti published in the early 1920s. An excellent didactic booklet for making the netting from the ground fabric is: La Rete A Sfilato Eseguita Su Tessuto by Liliana Babbi Cappelletti. I don't see the English version on Elena's website Italian Needlecrafts, but you may want to write to her, or if the English version is out of print, then the Italian Version can be found at Tombolo Disegni (click on Libri/Books, then Libri/Ricamo, then Ricamo Italiani and send an email request to order - it's no. 6 in a listing inside a box with no photos near the bottom of the page).

Annalisa has posted a great tutorial on her blog of how to get started by making your basic netting ground. She will continue with a later tutorial of how to do the stitching of the motifs. She has kindly posted my English translations under the Italian.

Macramé Summer Bags

Summer has finally arrived where I live and it reminds me that I was going to make myself a Macramé Summer Bag. It looks like it will be a project for next summer!

Last year I took a Macramé course in Cesena, Italy with Liliana Babbi Cappelletti. A friend and I took the train from Rome on a hot day in May and headed for Cesena where we would spend the weekend enjoying ourselves with other friends at Lilli's home while she taught us the secrets of Macramé.

The first leg of the trip was great, aside from our train being a bit behind schedule, we were in a modern, air-conditioned train car with comfortable seats and a table between us. The trouble started when our train ran more behind schedule and we discovered that it would now be difficult to make our connection. We also discovered that there was to be massive computer system upgrade to the Bologna train station on the very day that my friend had to head back to Rome. Bologna is one of the main connector stations in Italy and most of the northern trains run through it. The computer upgrade meant that the Bologna station would be closed to traffic during the upgrade. With these worries, we arrived at our connecting station and ran to catch the next train, lugging behind us our baggage in the 40 degree Celsius heat. Sweating and out of breath, we pulled each other onto the train and squeezed in with our bags. The train was more than full of passengers and was an old, non air-conditioned model. Packed in tight like sardines in a can we stood sweating a few feet from the door - no chance of any kind of a seat on this train. We also realized at this point that my friend had left her cell phone on the kitchen table at home and we had no way to contact Lilli and her husband who were waiting to pick us up at the station in Cesena to tell them we were quite late. Then, at the last stop before ours we saw a ticket official working his way towards us. Oh no! In our haste to make the connection, we had not stamped our train tickets in the little yellow validation boxes at our connecting station!

It seems most other people had not stamped their tickets either so his approach was excruciatingly slow and he was becoming more and more abusive as he got closer to us. I dug into my pocket for the 10 euros we would need to pay the fine he was going to give us. He was not happy even with those who paid without a fight (and most people protested loudly). Thankfully the suffering was soon over and we stepped out onto the platform to look for Lilli. I was drowning in sweat and felt self-conscious getting into Lilli's husband's nice air-conditioned luxury car.

Things went much better after that and we went to the hotel and had an amazing seafood dinner during which we told our tale of the day's travel woes. Cesena is located about 15km from the Adriatic coast in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and most definitely a great place for seafood! After dinner Lilli and her husband took us for a drive around town to see the main architectural delights and then we stopped to take a bit of a walk in the historic centre.

Since we had come for Macramé, Lilli took us to a shop window which had wonderful Macramé purses. These were not the casual Macramé summer bags that I was used to at home. These ones were full of Italian style and far more attractive. It's a good thing the store was closed or I would have been tempted to get one!


Somewhere in my mind I thought I might make myself one someday... after taking Lilli's course, I was able to identify the different knots. The principal knots on all of these purses were the Nodo Giuseppina (Josephine Knot) and the Nodo Piatto Alternato (Alternating Square Knot). I still want to try making one... one day!

For our class we made the tassel I showed you in a previous post. I'm sure Lilli could make one of these purses easily, she is very good at Macramé – here are two pictures of Macramé borders on pieces she made/was making for her home:



Here Lilli demonstrates, making it look easy:


In the end, it was a fabulous weekend, though my friend from Rome had to leave early and spend all day trying to get home due to the Bologna train station closure.

There are some pictures of other Italian Macramé bags here, here and here.

Rodi Stitch

Punto Rodi or Rodi Stitch is a Pulled Thread Stitch used for filling spaces of a design and creating a light, open area. It is used a lot in Italian needlework especially for filling the insides of flowers.

This image taken from the book Nuova Enciclopedia dei Lavori Femminili by Mani di Fata:


When I went looking to find instructions on how to execute it, I found that there are many variations! All have one thing in common and that is that Rodi Stitch is executed in diagonal lines.

I took needle in hand and made you instructions of two different variations. First we'll look at the way Vima deMarchi Micheli teaches it in her Italian Needlework Techniques class that she teaches for the Embroiderers Guild of America. I used 38ct Sotema 20L ivory coloured linen from Italy and DMC Spécial Dentelles #80 thread.

Rodi Stitch - Technique 1
Worked from right to left, bottom to top, turn the work 180 degrees to do the return row. Pull the stitches firmly to open up holes which are bigger than the ground fabric holes for the desired effect. Each stitch is executed twice.

Click on the photo for a closer look:


I did it in coloured thread so you could see the stitches, then I did it in thread matching the background colour so you can see the effect. I also show you how the back looks:


With this method, the back looks the same as the front.

The second working I did was from Liliana Babbi Cappelletti's excellent booklet (see info below).

Rodi Stitch - Technique 2
Worked from right to left, top to bottom, you do not turn the work to do the return row. Again, pull each stitch to open up the fabric. Each stitch is executed only once. You must make a cross-over stitch at the end of the row in order to return.

Click on the photo for a closer look:


And here is the back:


As you can see, the back looks different from the front with this method. The overall effect is the same, though with only one stitch instead of two, this way looks a bit more delicate (it's hard to tell from these small patches, I know - it is the impression I get when looking at the two patches on my fabric here in my hand).

Liliana Babbi Cappelletti has at least six variations of Rodi Stitch in her instruction booklet: Il punto rodi e le sue varianti, il punto principessa e altri retini di fondo. Text in Italian but very clear diagrams. You can get this booklet from Tombolo Disegni. Click on "Libri/Books", then "Libri Ricamo", then "Ricamo Italiani", send an email request to order. (Note: there are no photos of this book on the page, it is the first entry in a listing.)


I believe the English terminology for this stitch is Faggot Stitch.

Here is a short video on YouTube.

Grosso Intaglio - Large Cutwork

I really enjoy the look of Cutwork embroidery though the actual execution of it bores me to tears... endless Buttonhole stitches! I noticed in Italy that Cutwork embroidery was everywhere...

... a window in Perugia...


... in the salon of our hotel in Rome...


A few years ago I read in RAKAM, an Italian needlework magazine, about another kind of Cutwork embroidery called Grosso Intaglio also known as: Grosso Richelieu, Doppio Intaglio or Doppio Richelieu.

In this type of needlework, besides the fact that it is executed on a lower count linen with thicker threads, you embellish the insides of the cut out designs, that is: with Satin Stitch and other classic embroidery stitches, you fill in the motifs.

This image is from Grosso Richelieu by Amelia Brizzi Ramazzotti. It is a third edition and bears no date but the second edition carries the date of 1915 to give you an idea of timeline.


This technique dates back to the beginning of the 20th century. The motifs were mainly floral and ornamental though sometimes geometrical. Heavier and more robust fabrics were used sometimes with threads as thick as Pearl cotton nos. 2 and 3. This work was mostly done in white on white or cream on cream, sometimes in ecru on undyed fabric and there were also a few coloured works.

As Grosso Intaglio was more durable than regular Cutwork, it was perfect for things like curtains, cushions, the turn back margin on bedsheets, and table centres but was also done on parasols, bags, items for the bathroom and nursery and to protect the backs and arms of furniture.

I think I would find this kind of Cutwork more interesting to do - what about you?

RAKAM, Dicembre 2006 has some execution instructions by Liliana Babbi Cappelletti.

Hand Towels - Drawn-Thread Work

One of the biggest differences between Italian needlework and that which we do at least here in North America is that lots of Italians still decorate household linens and use them daily. I don't know about where you are, but around here if any needlework gets done or is on display, its usually in a frame for placing on the wall.

I really love what I call 'guest towels' (probably because at my house when I was little, they were only put out if we had house guests- which was rare!) or decorative hand towels are still relatively common.

Often in Italy hand towels are done on extremely high count linen, with lots of hemstitching or whitework on them, but I've seen lots of coloured embroidery too.

A popular fabric for hand towels is a linen fabric called Crespo. It has a certain shine to it and the weaving is very compact, making a solid surface for embroidery. I bought some to do some Gigliuccio hemstitching on. When setting out to withdraw the ground threads I got worried that it would be difficult as the weave seems to criss-cross quite a bit. It turned out to be quite easy to do however and I didn't have any difficulty:


I did all the hemming on two hand towels using Ritorto Fiorentino pearl cotton no. 12 and now I search for just the right monogram to stitch on them for my daughter's trousseaux.

While in Ferrara last year I saw some beautiful drawn-thread work done on terry-cloth towels. Elisabetta Holzer Spinelli was kind enough to show me some of her beautiful and intricate work:


These towels had bands intended for embroidery on them from which she withdrew threads and embroidered over:


These are colour photographs though it might not seem so. Elisabetta's incredible sense of colour matching shows in these elegant towels.

I have many books on hemstitching as I'm a drawn-thread junkie. Mani di Fata has five booklets with easy-to-follow diagrams on hemstitching called Punti a Giorno in Italian, of varying degrees of difficulty. Though the scant instructions are in Italian, the diagrams say it all.

Maria Pia Gaiart has several books on drawn-thread work, these are well diagrammed, some in English and Italian, some only in Italian. You can get these books from Tombolo Disegni. (click on 'Books', then 'Sfilati ed Assia' - you must send an email request to order.

Liliana Babbi Cappelletti has a great new book out on intricate drawn-thread work called Sfilature Legate [Tied Drawn-Thread Work], though the text is in Italian, plans are in the works for an English edition. Her diagrams are excellent and step-by-step, you should be able to figure out the patterns with the Italian version if you can't wait for the English, email Elena at Italian Needlecrafts.

There are several tutorials on Tuttoricamo's website under the "How its Done" section.

To really test myself, one day I'll do some scalloped edging on a hand towel...