Assisi Embroidery

Traditionally, Assisi work was rarely executed in cross-stitch, but most often in long-armed cross-stitch. But examples in other stitches are also known, such as cross-stitch, Italian cross-stitch and Algerian plait stitch.

There are two ways to do Assisi embroidery:

In the oldest pieces, the figures were drawn on the fabric free-hand, surrounded with Holbein stitch and the background was filled as good as possible. For more modern pieces the pattern was constructed carefully on paper, like for usual cross-stich. Today Assisi embroider is always done that way.

In the last 20 years, a modern version of Assisi embroidery has evolved. Many different colors and patterns are used for the background, and the motifs are extremely varied. However, the 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 cooperative embroidery shop; this is based on the 'Laboratorio Ricreativo Festivo Femminile San Francesco di Assisi', a handicrafts workshop established in 1902 to give employment to poor women to supplement their income.

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Working the Background Instead of the Picture

Voiding reverses the stitcher's instinct. In most counted work the motif is stitched and the ground is left alone; in Assisi work hours of cross-stitch go into everything except the motif, which exists only as a reserved silhouette. That inversion dictates the workflow. In the oldest pieces the figures were drawn freehand on the fabric, surrounded with Holbein stitch, and the background was filled as well as possible around them. Modern pieces are constructed carefully on paper first, like ordinary cross-stitch charts, because a miscount in the ground distorts the blank shape it surrounds — there is no stitched outline strong enough to hide a background that has drifted by a thread. The outlined edge therefore does double duty: it defines the motif and it forgives small irregularities in the filling behind it.

A Town That Kept Its Stitch

Few embroidery styles remain tied to a living local trade the way Assisi work is tied to Assisi. The handicrafts workshop established there in 1902, the Laboratorio Ricreativo Festivo Femminile San Francesco di Assisi, was set up to give poor women employment supplementing their income, and the cooperative tradition continues: visitors can still see local women embroidering Assisi work in front of their houses for the cooperative shop. The modern evolution of the style over the last decades — patterned, multicolored backgrounds and a far wider range of motifs — has not displaced that traditional practice. A heraldic beast left blank in a red ground and a contemporary design in a patterned ground are recognizably the same technique, separated by palette rather than by method.

Choosing Ground, Thread and Scale

Assisi work stands or falls on contrast, so its materials are chosen for a clean silhouette: a smooth, even counted ground that will not blur the reserved motif, and a background thread — traditionally red above all — dense enough in long-armed cross-stitch to read as a solid field. Scale matters as well; a heraldic beast that reads boldly on a cloth worked over two threads turns fussy if the count is too fine and the background stitches shrink into texture. Workers therefore test a motif's outline against the intended fabric before committing to the long background fill.