Marta Cucchia and the Giuditta Brozzetti Weaving Studio

Sometimes people do things that make you absolutely marvel at their talent. Marta Cucchia of the Giuditta Brozzetti Weaving Studio in Perugia is one of those people who does this to me.

Everything Marta makes is amazing. I've told you a little about her and the Giuditta Brozzetti Weaving Studio before. I had the enormous good fortune of visiting them in 2009.

Back then Marta had recently finished a piece she had been studying and figuring out from a Pintoricchio painting.

She explained how she was fascinated by the designs on the fabric in the painting and thought to challenge herself by recreating the piece.

The piece is quite long and each line is a different pattern!

The inspiration for this work is the cloth that the Baby Jesus is wrapped in in this Pintoricchio painting which can be found in the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria museum in Perugia.

I am still in awe of Marta's talent five years later. She continues to do amazing work and is always finding new things to challenge herself with. If you ever find yourself in Perugia, you should not miss a trip to the Giuditta Brozzetti Weaving Studio, they have guided tours (in English too!).

Thanks to Vima for the use of her photos!

Italian needlework at EGA

Slowly, slowly I'm getting organized. I've been home from San Francisco for 4 days and while there are still piles of things to sort, the piles are getting smaller!

Here are a few pics from the Embroiderers' Guild of America National Seminar at the Marriott Hotel in San Francisco:

This is the display table we set up on Saturday, September 4th (no sympathy for jet lag, we got right to work!) with lots of help from Giovanna of Tuttoricamo...


Beautiful Italian needlework from Assisi, Panicale, Deruta, Perugia, Lake Trasimeno and other towns in the delicious region of Umbria, Italy.


Clara Baldelli Bombelli of the Giuditta Brozzetti workshop with some of her daughter's handwoven pieces.


Signora Derna stitching some Assisi work (she's been doing it since she was 5 years old!), she was a joy to watch. It was her first ever journey outside of her hometown of Assisi, Italy and she had an excellent time in San Francisco.


Anna Maria Porzi braves an extreme close-up to display some beautiful crocheted earrings from the Lake Trasimeno area of Umbria.


On Market Day the two ladies from Assisi dressed in Medieval garb to sell their wares, this is Tiziana Borsellini, President of the Accademia Punto Assisi.

It was a fantastic week of Italian needlework emersion. I helped the Italian ladies with their display tables and their booths on Market Day, I took Vima deMarchi Micheli's four day Notebook of Italian Embroidery course, attended her lecture on September 5th and helped with her Exhibition on September 8th.


On the 12th of September we rented a car and drove up to Vima's home for one last taste of La Dolce Vita before returning to our respective homes. I miss them all already!

Thanks to my daughter for taking the group shot!

Vacation

Well, I leave in the morning for a week in San Diego with my daughter and then a week in San Francisco at the EGA National Seminar.

While at Seminar I will be taking Vima deMarchi Micheli's course on Italian needlework and attending her lecture as well as helping out her Italian guests with market day and anything else they need. Giovanna from TuttoRicamo is coming and Clara from Giuditta Brozzetti as well as Tiziana and Anna Maria from the Accademia Punto Assisi too – I can't wait to see everyone!

I didn't get all the posts finished that I wanted to and I'm not sure how much (if at all) I'll be able to post while I'm away. I certainly won't have access to my library or a scanner. Please use this time to go back and check out some older posts. My statistics program tells me that on average each visitor only reads about three posts - there is so much more to see and I only started in March of this year so it won't be an endless task.

I do have so many more things to tell you about so I hope you will come back and visit my blog after September 14th and we'll resume our journey through Italian needlework!

Handwoven Fabrics from Perugia

Just outside the walls of the city of Perugia, there is a beautiful deconsecrated church called San Francesco delle Donne which houses a lot of history. Dating back to 1212, it is one of the oldest Franciscan churches in Italy. Today it is home to the Giuditta Brozzetti Workshop which makes the most beautiful handwoven textiles.


Giuditta Casini Brozzetti started her workshop in 1921. She hunted down all the local medieval and renaissance designs that she could find and employed the women of her area to weave household and church fabrics and woven furnishing products. She permitted her workers to weave their products at home so that they could also attend to their families while earning a living at the same time. For the most part, the items woven were worked on hand operated jacquard looms. Patterns were hammered manually using a system of wooden pegs to make punched cards. With the help of the artist Bruno da Osimo, who prepared many of the patterns used by her workshop, Giuditta Brozzetti produced many beautiful items.

Some sketches for Perugian fabric by Bruno da Osimo from the book: L'Officina di Bruno da Osimo:


The workshop became much appreciated and admired and before the Second World War its products were even exported to the US.


The tradition of the Giuditta Brozzetti workshop has been passed down by now four generations and today the workshop calls the church San Francesco delle Donne its home. Marta Cucchia is the youngest descendant who now creates her own designs there.

Here Marta and Vima deMarchi Micheli hold up a magnificent runner woven with silk:


Marta was kind enough to give us a guided tour in May of 2009, giving us demonstrations of weaving and pattern punching as well as letting us fondle all the beautiful products on display.


The Giuditta Brozzetti workshop teaches weaving, embroidery, lacemaking and gives guided tours of the church. It should not be missed if you spend any time in Perugia!

For more photos and enthusiastic reviews, go here, here, here and here!