Assisi Embroidery Pattern Book: Ancient Italian Cross-Stitch Designs

This classic DMC pattern book contains numerous magnificent Assisi embroidery designs from ancient Italy, and general directions on how to work this style of hand embroideries, featuring 23 full-page color plates.

The patterns were inspired by the marvelous wood carvings of the dome of San Rufino at Assisi and of the church of San Pietro at Perugia. They were composed with the utmost care and will enable you to execute pieces of work full of the artistic beauty of the originals. The first 5 plates contain detached motifs of various sizes and narrow borders, intended to supplement each other. The following 14 plates consist of strips of different widths, to which are added decorative and much varied borders, some of which show how to form the corner. The last 4 plates are large square patterns.

About Assisi embroidery -- Excerpt from the Wikipedia:

Assisi embroidery is a form of counted-thread embroidery based on an ancient Italian tradition where the background is filled with embroidery stitches and the main motifs are left void i.e. unstitched. 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 the background is filled in while the motif itself is left blank. Cross-stitch is used for the background and Blackwork Embroidery, i.e. Holbein stitch is then used to outline the motif and create the surrounding decorative scrollwork.

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 20th century that the practice was revived in the Italian town of Assisi from which this form of embroidery gets its name. In 1902 the 'Laboratorio Ricreativo Festivo Femminile San Francesco di Assisi' was established. The aim of this handicrafts workshop was to revive traditional local handicrafts and provide employment to poor women to supplement their income. This cottage industry flourished and these more modern designs, using the counted thread technique, quickly spread throughout Italy, Europe and further abroad.