travel – ArgoKnot

A Day of Textiles and Materials in the Açores

July 7, 2025 | 1 Comment

Late last week we sailed to São Jorge. It was a short sail, only 20 nm, but I did not do well. It’s been a long time since I’ve sailed anywhere and clearly I’ve lost my ‘sea legs.’ In another day or two we will sail to São Miguel, and that will be 150 nm, and will take about 20 hours. I am not looking forward to that. What I’d like to do is take something that would keep me asleep for the entire trip. Wishful thinking.

In Horta there was a fabric/knitting/embroidery shop called Retrosaria where I bought some cotton yarn for a vest pattern I got from Bare Naked Wools. After making a small knitted sample I realized that pattern really needs the softness and slight halo of wool. Oh well. The shop was small and did not have any fabrics that tempted me, but oh! The yarns! I’ve now learned that the Portuguese yarn company, Rosarios, sources all their wool and processes it all in Portugal. The wools are from Portuguese merino sheep and a few other breeds, all raised in Portugal. The combing, spinning, and dyeing is also done in Portugal, using eco-friendly processes. I think I bought a color card for this yarn about a decade ago in a little yarn shop in Coimbra. I regretted not buying any yarn that day. Now I will rectify that mistake!

Here is a quote from the Rosarios website: We like to create value, which is why we look to nature as an example and inspiration, and we focus on natural or naturally-derived fibers as a path towards greater sustainability. We like to create yarns because we believe that knitting, crochet and embroidery makes people happier. And we have been doing what we love since 1979. You can read about their history here.

The wall of sewing and embroidery threads!

I wanted to buy wool to make a vest pattern by Bare Naked Wools called Black Oak Vest. Sadly, Retrosaria did not have enough of any of the wool colors I liked. I could have made it in black or in a medium mauve, but these are not colors that excite me-or look good on me. I bought a medium gray cotton. After making a test swatch of the lace pattern I decided that this pattern needs wool yarn. The cotton was the right gauge, but it didn’t look the way I wanted it to look. All in all, I was sad not to get some Portuguese wool.

There are numberous Rosarios shops throughout the Açores, and I passed one yesterday on our drive around São Jorge. It was a weaving shop that also sold yarn. They are only open Monday-Friday, and yesterday was Saturday. There were woven items on display as well as several looms with works in progress. The reflections on the glass kept me from getting any photos of the temptations inside. There are several Rosarios shops on the island of São Miguel, so I know I’ll have another chance to buy some Portuguese wool to make that vest!

As luck would have it, I did meet a weaver yesterday! Her family has a coffee plantation in Faja dos Nimes (faja, pronounced ‘fazhah, is Portuguese for a flattened area that was created by lava flow. São Jorge is known for these volcanic flattened areas), and they have a small coffee plantation where they get about 400 kilos per year. They roast the beans and serve coffee at their Cafe Nunes (pronounced Nooneesh. They take visitors to see their coffee plants, right behind their house in terraced gardens. It’s small but they have the distinction of having the only coffee plantation in the Açores, and possibly in Europe (this may be old information now).

When we arrived I feared the only way up to the cafe was through this garden, climbing two ladders! It was a bit daunting. But down the street a short way was a driveway up to the cafe. Whew! The cafe was on the ground floor, and the weaving studio “De Artesanato” was upstairs. To the left, mostly outside the photo, is the family home. The coffee is growing behind these buildings, on terraces.

The mother of the family, about my age, is the weaver. She has a weaving studio, separate from the house and from the cafe, where she has four looms and an interesting spinning wheel. I think her name is Maria. Have you ever seen a spinning wheel like this? I could not ask Maria about it because she spoke no English. Her adult daughter who helps with the plantation and serves people in the cafe, was busy, and I know her mother relies on her to translate. Here is the wheel.

It’s not a great photo, but hopefully you can see that it is a parlor wheel, yet has a spindle rather than a bobbin. I’m guessing that you sit at the wheel and spin doing long draw, then wind on from the point, like a charka or a great wheel. She works with cotton, so maybe she spins some of it? I managed to tell her that I also spin, but I could not navigate that I spin on a different type of wheel.

Maria mostly does a type of weaving called “weft loop.” Many of you who are my age will remember bedspreads made of this type of weaving. Maria makes those bedspreads, as well as runners, in this technique. Our friend Linda, who lives on this island has bought a number of Maria’s weft loop designs. Linda has a bedspread as well as this runner.

I bought a simpler woven runner as well as this blue and white placemat. I only bought one placemat to use as a center on our table on Pandora. I hope you can see the ‘turkey track’ design between the larger blue stripes. I love it!

The weft loop runner is quite long, with the loop design at both ends of the runner. I think I will turn it into a long bolster pillow for our bed at home, which has a machine woven coverlet made at the American Textile Museum when they were still in operation. I think the runner is as wide as our bed.

This is Maria’s largest loom that requires two weavers and has two sets of treadles. The center of this project is solid wool loops with the large borders woven in plain weave. The wool loops designs are all hand manipulated since this loom has only two shafts that are counter balance.

This is a photograph of an image of Maria and the 2nd weaver using the loom together. Slow work
for sure! What I found puzzling about all of Maria’s looms is how high the warp beam sits above the shafts and the reed. I think they have to push the beater back in order to throw the weft shuttle.

During the visit to the coffee growing area behind the house, Bob got this photo of Peter (as in the current Peter of Peter’s Sport Cafe in Horta-what a surprise to see him here and to have him recognize us) and me looking at the coffee plants. Maria, the weaver is on the left in this photo. It’s the only photo we have of her.

The rest of our day included a drive to the northern most point on the island where there is a lighthouse no longer in operation as well as a whale lookout, also no longer in operation. The way the lookout worked was that a spotter stood up there watching for whales, and when he saw one he would set off a firework that could be seen from the port. I’m not sure how he indicated the location of the whale. Maybe I’ll learn that before I write the next post. Too bad this photo does not show how long and steep the path to this lookout is, and how high it is.

The drive out to the whale lookout was a long, straight dirt road that passed through corn fields and cow pastures. There were fields where the hay had been harvested, and the many bales were stacked in the fields.

On our way back to the harbor in Zelas (pronounced Zehlash), we passed the Forest Reserve which we knew was not to be missed! I’ll just post a few images of that magical place.

Tree ferns, the oldest of plants, growing with hydrangea in this forest.

There was a small chapel in this forest.

….and oddly, a large stone laundry. I have no idea how old this laundry is.

At least there is a beautiful tile depiction of how this laundry was used.

To come back to knitting with the cotton yarn I had set aside, as luck would have it I saw a tempting pattern in an email from an Australian dyer. She offers patterns to go with her locally sourced Australian yarns that she dyes. This is also a vest pattern, or a simple top to be worn on its own, designed by Elenor Mortensen. It’s called “Eowyn Tee.”

Amazingly, the yarn specified is the same gauge as my Portuguese yarn, and the same color. This was too good to be true, so I immediately cast on and am now almost ready to put the sleeve stitches on a holder and continue with the body. The top down shaping is unique and was fun to do! And didn’t I find a cute yarn holder when I bought this yarn.

We leave for São Miguel today, where I will spend a week before heading to Scotland. I know there will be yarn purchases during my time in Scotland, but I’m glad I discovered ecologically produced Portuguese yarn while I was here. There is a Rosarios shop in São Miguel, so I am not yet finished looking at yarn in the Açores.

The Azores: Faial and Pico

July 2, 2025 | Leave a Comment

Tomorrow we may sail to São Jorge, an island near Faial. I’ve been in Azores for more than two weeks, on the islands and Faial and Pico. Here’s a little photo journal of what I’ve seen on these two islands.

Flowers! The Azores are famous for having miles and miles of hydrangeas. They were introduced here centuries ago and have thrived. You can drive for miles with lace caps and mopheads lining the roads in all the shades of hydrangea–pinks, deep purples, a mix of pink/blue purples, and of course, blue. We were a little early for the full show, but you can see how many buds are on the verge of opening.

This is a wall of deep blue morning glories on Pico, with my friend Lynn standing in awe of the display. She lives here part of every year and told me that people are now encouraged not to plant morning glories. They do appear to be rather invasive, but what a breathtaking view.

And then there are fields and fields of lantana, nasturtium, and purple clover. These have been the source of our bouquets onboard.

June is a month of festivals throughout the islands. We got to participate in one on Faial and one in a small village on Pico near our friends’ house. The first festival we saw took place in Horta and was called “Maravilho,” which means “wonder.” The word is a combination of the word for sea (mar) and the word for island (ilhos); together they create the word “wonder.” It was a grass roots kind of festival with people selling handmade wares and food, and there were free rides on homemade creations like a bathtub swing, a stuffed chair swing, and best of all (!), a bamboo contraption that was a kind of rudimentary whirl-a-gig!

One of the vendors was screen printing tote bags from his small booth. I bought this one fresh off the press.

They spent a good deal of time balancing the size of the kids on this homemade whirl-a-gig, otherwise the ride would not twirl. Note the smallest child is in a bucket!

A week later we went to a festival on Pico. People brought food to share, and there was music planned but it was too windy to play Azorean guitars which are quite fragile instruments. They are shaped a bit like a mandolin and have 12 strings, although this one appears to have 8.

Instead they played recorded folk music and performed some of their folk dances, which include a caller to guide the dance. The wind was howling. Notice how lightly dressed the women are. I was wearing long sleeves, long pants, and a sweater. No was chilled except me!

While we were visiting Pico another festival took place on Faial, in Horta. It may have been Semana do Mar, Sea Week. The fish decorations were in the air, on the ground, and on walls. The day before we left for Pico I watched a crew of men drive a cherry picker down the road to get all these decorations up on the power lines.

Did you know that Portugal is paved in mosaic walkways? I learned this when we visited mainland Portugal about a decade ago. I did not know I’d find more of them in the Azores. It’s mesmerizing to walk the streets seeing so many different designs. Here are a few. Even the simplest designs are a delight to see.

My favorite!

Sometimes the designs are white on black, sometimes black on white.

There is so much to celebrate here: food, art, fine craft, museums, boats in the harbor, including whaling boats that are no longer used for whaling but get launched often for rowing and sailing practice. We will not be able to take advantage of everything here before we leave for the next island, São Jorge, probably tomorrow.

Short Time

February 22, 2025 | 2 Comments

This is my last week in Antigua, and the week is shaping up to be memorable. It’s our last year down here, so good byes are somewhat bittersweet. We’ll miss the friends we’ve made here, especially the locals. The future is full of possibilities with our travels to the Azores for part of June and July, and then my adventure in Scotland in the second half of July.

Bob is about to have a very exciting week. He has volunteered to greet some of the arriving mega yachts on a night this week. His watch time is 2am – 6am on Monday. His ‘job’ is to greet the yachts on arrival with a large banner, then photograph the crew standing onboard with the banner. And most importantly he will be delivering some number of cases of beer (Caribe, I think) to each yacht based on how many crew are on each boat. Here is the cast of volunteers getting their instructions.

Why is everyone looking up? There is a drone taking the photo from above. Hopefully the drone caught everyone, which I could not from where I was standing. I didn’t find Bob, but hopefully the drone did!

Antigua seems to have some kind of yacht event every week during the late winter and into spring. Right now the Caribbean 600 is about to start. Everyday we’ve watched boats go out for trials in the morning, returning in the afternoon. They motor right past us and then begin hoisting their sails. After I return home Bob will be crew on one of these behemoth vessels during the next big yachting event. He’ll be in sailing heaven. Last evening, after the volunteer event, we went to a reception for the sailors participating in the Mini Globe Race. This is an arount-the-world race of 15 very small boats, about 18 ft. long, that will be single-handed. What an interesting group.

The setting for the reception was the Sailing Academy, quite a stunning spot to spend an evening. Aside from the power boat on the left of the dock, the rest of the boats are the Mini Globe sailboats.

The founder of the Mini Globe Race, Don MacIntyre, designed the boat and then sailed around the world in it himself. He is in the center of this photo with Bob on the right and a local man from the Antigua Yacht Club on the left. Don held a reception where each sailor got to talk about what has drawn them to participate in something like this. I thought I would think they are all unhinged, but surprisingly I didn’t. Not that I would ever want to do this when I don’t even enjoy sailing between the islands down here. But, I’m amazed to say that in most cases I understood their reasoning. There are two women in this year’s race, an older woman from Spain, and a young woman from the UK.

Here is Bob with a German sailor, Christian, whose boat is named “Argo.” Part of the rules of this race is that you have to build the boat yourself, or buy it from someone who has already done the race. There aren’t too many of these boats so mostly the sailors have to make their own, either from plans or as a kit. Most of the racers have spent about two years building the boat before they can do the qualifying event of sailing from Lagos, Portugal, to Antigua. The race then leaves from Antigua (tomorrow morning) and heads to the Panama Canal.

Of the 15 entrants in this race (which will take 13 months to complete, ending back in Antigua) most are Australians, including a father/son team. Since it’s a single-handed race the son built two boats, one for his father and one for him. That was a big commitment and a big challenge. Now they will compete against each other. There was an interesting Polish man who now lives in Ireland, so his boat flies the Irish flag, which is quite a contrast to his strong Polish accent. There is one American man, Josh, whom Bob and I enjoyed meeting. He used to be an extreme mountain climber. He says sailing is lot less dangerous. Well, if he says so. He gave us his card with his website listed on it so we can track his progress. I know Bob will be glued to that, as he was when Jessica Watson sailed around the world.

Tonight there is another gathering to celebrate yet another sailing-related thing. There will be drinks and grilled food on the terrace of the yacht club, where the volunteer crowd was photographed yesterday evening. Bob is loving all this. At some point this morning the 15 Mini Globe boats will parade through the harbor blowing their air horns. They should sail right by us. Did I mention that Bob is loving all this!

Meanwhile, I am knitting, and there is a glimmer of a chance that I might finish my current project before heading home one week from today. This morning I spilled black coffee the part I am currently knitting. Horrors! I gave it a soak in cold water, trying not to get the attached yarn balls wet, and it looks like I have avoided having a stain. I can’t continue knitting until it dries. In the photo below I am checking to see if the back panel matches the number of stripes and the measurement of the first front panel. I am also taking photos to record the project in my new organizational tool, Notion. The right front and the back are now finished, and I am working on the second front panel. One week to go, including the finishing work which has some i-cord embellishment as well as sewing the pieces together. Alas, I have no buttons! I’d like to wear it in New England before the cold temperatures give way to spring.

Knowing that I will not be back here for the foreseeable future I had to buy more of Nancy Nicholsen’s island pottery. She does not ship so I feel compelled to enlarge my collection on my last few days here. Actually, I bought 4 pieces that will all be gifts. I’m not sure how I’ll get home with them since they weigh more than clothing, and I have a fair amount of that to pack. Here are my pieces, which live on Pandora and get used almost every night at dinner.

The new things I purchased are heavily packed for travel, so I can’t photograph them. I love these designs and the colors Nancy uses in her glazes. She gathers the clay locally, and her blue on blue pieces really match the color of the water here–the aqua of shallow, coastal waters and the deep indigo of the sea. These are wonderful mementos of Antigua.

My time here is now short. One week from now I will be sitting in the airport awaiting my flight. The future is looming large with projects I want to start at home, some teaching engagements, and more travel! I will soon be catching up with friends and helping to hang an exhibit of woven works. It’s all great!

Looking Forward, Looking Back

January 20, 2025 | Leave a Comment

It’s January, the first month of the new year as well as my birth month. It’s the month when the ancient god Janus for whom the month gets its name, compels us to take stock of where we’ve been and what we’ve done as we look to the future for where we’re going and what we’ll do. He is the god with two faces, looking forward and looking back. He predates the Roman gods and is likely a god from Etruscan origins. The Etruscans are near and dear to me, in spite of what little is known of their culture. Their artwork is glorious and is seen in subsequent centuries in Roman culture. I visited Tarquinia in the late 1970s, in college, where there are many Etruscan tombs with artwork still intact. I had the thrill of being there again a couple of months ago, in October. The images of Etruscan artwork are prominent in my mind this month as I plan for the future.

This is my last year in my 60s. This is a year where I want to pay particular attention to looking back so I can determine where and how I want to go forward Into what will hopefully more than a decade of continued creativity. I know I have to keep de-stashing and even more importantly, I want to create things. I realize I must clear some space both physically and mentally in order to create. I am becoming bogged down in my own stuff. Someone else, younger, with more years of creativity in their future, needs to take some of this burden off my hands.

I’ve been in Antigua for 6 days now. I was treated to a quick tropical squall on the morning of my birthday, followed by a beautiful rainbow.

Then the day progressed with getting a cooking/baking lesson with the French chef of La Brasserie in English Harbour, Antigua. Eric gave me a lesson in making macaroons with fillings. He made me a large macaroon cake which is called an ‘Ispahan’ in French. My macaron cake was scented with rose water, and the filling was a butter cream/custard mixture which I also learned to make, raspberry jam, and fresh raspberries. It’s wonderful to have a beautiful dessert that tastes as good as it looks.

It’s been a rather busy few days since we arrived in Antigua. We’ve met up with cruising friends who have either returned here or stayed here through the holidays. Some non-sailing friends visited during their winter vacation here. It’s their first time in Antigua, and setting aside the Christmas winds that have arrived bringing high winds and rain, I think they are enjoying the island.

Today is our first day with no scheduled events, so we took our dinghy to a new breakfast place called You and Me. It has well shaded outdoor seating area with great views of the head of Falmouth Harbour.

After I finish this blog post I intend to knit for most of the day. My older son gave me a wonderful selection of yarn for Christmas. It’s from a local shop near him, and the yarn is “Yarn Citizens Luxe.” He bought five colors: Pearl (close to white), Heather (barely lavender), Jasmine (medium lavender), Ocean (medium indigo), and Coal (medium charcoal grey). The yarn is 49% baby alpaca, 39 % mulberry silk, and 12% cashmere. I can barely feel it as I knit, and it looks like a cloud.

My goal this year is to concentrate on finishing many UFOs, but this gemlike yarn obviously took precedence. I’m knitting a simple top/down raglan sweater and will use the colors from palest at the neckline to darkest at the hem. Even with our busy schedule, I’ve made sure to have relaxing knitting time part of every day.

Looking back, I am more satisfied than I expected with my projects this year. I should make a record of them, and to help me accomplish that my younger son introduced me to the app called Notion a couple of years ago. Notion allows you to keep track of projects in motion, to keep track of the order in which one needs to tackle projects, and to keep a record of things accomplished. I still haven’t managed how to include photos with this work tracking app, so I haven’t used it to its best potential. On the other end of the organized spectrum, I have an older friend who records all her finished projects in a regular notebook with a printout of the photo she takes when she finishes something. I have not resorted to that method because I have a basic dislike of having a lot of notebooks taking up precious space on my shelves. The notebooks I already have are burdensome enough, not to mention the many decades of periodicals I have kept and the books I own. While these are all precious possessions to me, the lack of space is getting worrisome. Sometimes I feel I might get buried in my workshop and never escape. Learning how to better use Notion this year is pretty high on my list.

In November I was invited to participate in a textile arts exhibit at a private club in Hartford. I think there were only eight invitees, and two of us were new to this event. The exhibit will be on display for the months of January and February. The club held a lovely opening reception a couple of days before Bob and I left to come back to Antigua. I invited a good friend to join me, and when I arrived I realized I knew quite a few of the attendees, but only one of the other artists. It’s always inspiring to see what other textile artists do, and I came away with wonderful images in my head. I was the only tapestry artist on display.

I thought above the fireplace was a prime place for artwork, and I was honored to have a piece there. On the left are two felted landscapes done by the only other artist I knew from the group, Diane Cadrain. On the right is my tapestry “Sunset on Wilson Cove.”

To list the things I feel are accomplishments I’ve made this year, I might put this exhibit at the top of the list. It’s not often that textile artists have a venue to show their work, and I’m very glad I was asked and glad that I managed to pull some works together before leaving the country. I participated in two other shows during this year, and while that’s not much, it makes three events that brought tapestry weaving to the public.

I did a lot of weaving this year. I finished half the warp of woven sashiko, and I made a number of sakiori samples which led to a vest that actually fits me and a tote bag I’m enjoying using. I have the tote bag with me now on Pandora.

Jody captured the best view of the vest which is from the back (althought it’s quite wrinkled from a long car ride!). There are side gussets of sakiori and two sakiori pockets on the front, but the back is almost entirely sakiori. Here’s the front—a photo also taken by my friend Jody.

The fabric for the trim on this vest is what I used as the fabric strips for weaving.

I wove my first wedge weave tapestry, wove half the warp of my sashiko project and gave away four of the finished squares.

At long last I finished the Caribbean tapestry that I began during the pandemic. I can’t post a photo of it because I plan to submit it the Connecticut biennial when I return home. What I can show is the wonderful frame Bob built for the tapestry. This is our best attempt so far at having the back be as neat and tidy as the front.

This fall I made some fabric trays for a party favor for an upcoming event I will not be able to attend, and I made three lace flowers that I included in a fascinator that was made from various pieces of antigue machine lace I have and several ribbon embroidered flowers that I’ve made over the years. That was a fun project initiated by my lace group to become a new category of lace at the Big E Arts and Crafts exhibition. The fascinators are now on display at a local library.

And then there was a little weaving and a LOT of dyeing in Umbria, Italy, which I wrote about here and here. In December my friend Jody and I put some of our new knowledge to work during a two-day dyeing session in my kitchen—right after the new year. We used indigo, weld, madder, and olive leaves and branches from my olive tree. It was hard to stop, and it’s one of the first things I want to do when I return home. The circle of colors starting on the lower right is 3 shades of maddder, , weld, olive leaves, weld with a short dip in indigo, two skeins in indigo (the first one is very blotchy, not sure why), and the last two are indigo dipped in madder. The last skein is close to a color I wanted to recreate from one of the skeins we dyed in Italy. I look forward to attempting that again at home this spring.

I also finished two knitted items this year: a vest with the yarns I got from the 2023 Kate Davies advent yarn box. It is tunic length and has a shadow knitting pattern running through it. The 2nd project is a sweater from a Kate Davies pattern called “Auchnaha.” I used her beautiful ooskit yarn in a natural grey/brown. I’ve enjoyed wearing both these sweaters before leaving New England for the tropical weather in Antigua.

Just before I left home I stopped at Hartford Artisans for a short meeting. It’s impossible to go there without being tempted by any number of wonderful handwoven/handmade things. This time I succumbed to this charming little pouch. It had a rather sad plastic button that imitated bronze. That just would not do! I changed the button to a shell, and added a shell to the plain commercial fabric at the top. I also added a piece of kumihimo from my stash of samples to turn the pouch into a wristlet purse. I’ve got it with me now in the Caribbean, and it is perfect here!

I’m pretty sure I have accomplished significantly more this year than in previous years. While it feels awkward and quite self-absorbed to list all my finished projects, I am trying to understand how I did these things, and how I can maintain this surge of work in 2025. It takes luck, of course, since we need good health to be productive, and that’s something none of us can predict. It’s time to knuckle down to learn more about Notion so I can keep better records, to de-stash my extensive work space, and get down to the business of doing what I love. Forward ho!

Jacquard Weaving in Perugia

November 22, 2024 | 4 Comments

Here I sit in English Harbour, Antigua, thinking about my recent return from Umbria, Italy, and the highlight of my time there: a visit to a jacquard weaving museum and atelier in Perugia that is housed in a 13th c. Franciscan church.

Perugia became a walled city in the Middle Ages, prior to the building of this church in 1212. It was originally a simple hermitage that was founded by St. Francis of Assisi when he and his followers stayed here together. By 1252 the monastery was ceded to Benedictine nuns and given the name San Francesco delle Donne. St. Francis of the women—for the women? It was abandoned numerous times through the centuries, and I don’t know those stories. Our host at La Romita, the art school where we were taking a workshop on tapestry weaving and natural dyeing, mentioned that Perugia defended itself many times over the centuries. Most of the conflicts had to do with the vying city states and their status in the Catholic Church, and throughout the Middle Ages Perugia was an impoverished place, in spite of their reputation for excellent craftsmanship in pottery and textiles, and probably other fine crafts that I haven’t found in my searches. There is some great information on the Giuditta Brozzetti website.

The Brozzetti family started the weaving museum and atelier in 1912, but not in its current location. The museum is named in honor of the current owner’s great grandmother, Giuditta Brozzetti. Giuditta started an atelier to bring back the historic handwovens of Perugia, especially the “Perugian tablecloths” that were often used as altar cloths in churches, as well as being tablecloths in the homes of the very wealthy. Textiles were far more valuable throughout history than they are today and were always listed in the inventories of wealthy families. The atelier and museum moved to this magnificent site in the church in 1996. I believe it took a lot of work to bring the church into state we see it today. It is magnificent!

Here is an excerpt from an interview with Marta Cucchia, the great granddaughter of the founder and current owner:

“My studio is one of the last weaving ateliers in Italy – and the only one that reproduces medieval Perugian Tableclothes using Jacquard looms from nineteenth century. Furthermore, with the pedal looms, typical of the Umbrian countryside, we create fabrics using millenary techniques passed down orally from generation to generation. My great-grandmother, Giuditta Brozzetti, founded this Laboratory in 1921. From then on, the passion for hand-weaving was passed down from mother to daughter, each woman bringing her own experience according to her personality and studies.”

Marta has four women who assist her in the studio, and they have all come out of textile schools to make this field their livelihood. What an exciting place to work!

Some of the projects that Marta oversees are replicas of actual textiles in paintings from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. During our visit Marta showed us a couple of impressive replicas. She had high resolution images taken of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper,” and she had small areas enlarged so she could study the tablecloth. In hind sight, why didn’t I think to ask her if she thought that cloth had been woven in Perugia?

Even in this low resolution image of the fresco, taken from the intenet, you can see that the tablecloth is highly figured at each end, but also there is a hint that the white on white areas also have interesting weave structures.

Detail of a similar fabric from a different painting:

Here Marta is showing us some of the images she used to design the tablecloth. Clearly I am scratching my head in amazement!

And here is the finished cloth, woven at the Giuditta Brozzetti Atelier:

The jacquard looms in this studio are all from the 19th c except one that is older from the 18 c. These are hand manipulated looms, where the process of weaving involves attaching every thread in the warp to a jacquard attachment that has a series of cards that control the patterns. The weaver stands at the front of the loom and depresses the one treadle (a heavy one that sits rather high off the ground!) with her right foot —yes, they are all women at this atelier. Depressing the treadle opens the shed, and the weaver pushes a lever that is above the beater that engages one of the jacquard cards, then she pulls a cord that sends the fly shuttle through the shed of the open warp. Here is a video of the process, although at this point the weaver is weaving some plain weave between the designs, rather than the more interesting pattern.

Here is Marta showing us one of the many charts of jacquard designs in her collection. These graphed charts are used to make the cards which will control the weaving patten on the looms.

And here is my best attempt at getting a shot of the entire loom. The warp on the loom will be obvious to most of you. The yellow cords anre atracked to each warp thread and are running vertically to a loft area where you just see a bit of the roll of cards used to weave the design. There are other ‘chains’ of cards being stored on the railing of the loft.

I neglected to count how many jacquard looms are in this large studio, but here’s a photo of the long row of them in the museum.

Many traditional Perugian designs can be woven on regular shaft looms with floor treadles. Marta demonstrated this on what looks like an equally old loom to the jacquard looms.

Here is particularly stunning tablecloth woven on a shaft loom in a traditional woven structure with luscious colors. I tentatively asked if it was for sale (and the price) and learned that Marta wove this tablecloth for her wedding. What a treasure…

During the time when Marta’s mother led this studio they produced some designs for clothing. During Marta’s tenure she has also had commissions from Italian haut couture houses.

These dresses were designed and woven here, and I’m guessing this occurred in a past decade, perhaps the 1960s? 1970s?

There are other modern designs available here. This is quite a striking pattern that was for sale as a shawl or a cushion.

While we were there one of the weavers brought out this tiny gem woven in the same structure. They are not yet available, but as soon as they are I need one! I’m sure they will be popular. When I posted a photo of this Facebook some of my friends immediately asked how to get one.

This is my prize purchase from the day, a gem that gives me a little shiver of thrill whenever I take it with me somewhere. It is equally beautiful on the inside, lined in a fine silk fabric from Fendi.

Marta and I also discussed some of the fine finishing that goes into many of the pieces they make. In particular, Marta’s mother adds a beautiful bullion edge to some of the table runners. I must give this a try on some of my handwoven projects. I bought a small runner that I cannot show you because it is at home, and I am writing this in Antigua. Mine is off white on white, with jacquard designs at each end, and the point twill design in the middle. This one is far more elaborate, but I want you see the bullion stitch edges.

Each one of the pieces woven here are exceptional examples of textile skill. In many parts of the US, textiles are no longer valued as they deserve. I hope we can bring some of that respect and awe back into our lives. My house is full of my own handwovens, and sometimes I marvel that many of my guests don’t realize that. I’m not sure people even see textiles anymore, beyond noticing someone in a beautiful dress. There is so much to marvel at in the world of handmade cloth. The Giuditta Brozzetti Museum and Atelier has to be one of the best places to go and relish the beauty of handwoven goods. Get there if you can! If not, there are beautiful images and descriptions on the website.