parma embroidery

A week or two ago I was chatting with a customer on the phone and she asked about Parma embroidery, having seen that Parma stitch was included in my stitch dictionary. Not having actually seen the dictionary yet – she was calling to order one – she wanted to know if it had any information about the style of embroidery. Unfortunately it doesn’t as the book is about stitches not embroidery styles. I can’t imagine how huge the book would have had to be if I had included all that sort of information…!

Instead I suggested that she look up Italian needlework, the blog of my friend Jeanine in Canada, who is a bit of an authority on all things to do with Italian embroidery. Jeanine and I looked into Parma embroidery a little a few years back, but unfortunately never really got very far with it at the time. But when I came to do the stitch dictionaries, it was such an interesting stitch that I knew it had to go in.

After getting off the phone to the customer, I went over to Jeanine’s blog to see if she had anything on Parma embroidery. No, unfortunately she didn’t. But my customer had said that she was really interested in Italian embroidery in general, so despite not being able to find anything on Parma embroidery itself, I felt sure she would really enjoy visiting Jeanine’s blog anyway.

I made a periodic visit to Jeanine’s blog today and lo and behold, what should I find but a recent posting on Parma embroidery! I immediately wondered whether my customer had asked for information and Jeanine had graciously provided it (Jeanine’s like that, you see), but it turns out that it was completely coincidental. It had just been on her list of topics to cover.

Parma stitch is a wonderfully textural stitch made up from a base of three rows of chain stitch with two rows of buttonhole stitch worked into parts of the chain stitch base.

So head on over to Jeanine’s always fascinating blog if you’d like to learn more about Parma embroidery, because the information is now there! 🙂 Its one of the fascinating stitches that is explained, step by step in both The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion, and The Right-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion. The instructions even cover how to handle curves, which can be a little tricky in this stitch.