38 count linen – evenweave or not? Part 2

Yesterday we established what evenweave linen actually is. Today, let’s consider its relevance to 38 count linen.

In creating my book Portuguese Whitework: Bullion Embroidery from Guimarães, all the linens I used were 38 count (also known as 20L linen in some markets). I tried a number of different brands:

• Sotema linen from Italy
• Graziano linen from Italy
• a Portuguese linen from a manufacturer just near Guimarães, sent to me by a Portuguese stitching friend

So, how did they rate as evenweave or not? Please note that I do not wash linens before I use them, so none of them are preshrunk.

Let’s start with Graziano. While doing the book, the Graziano linen that was available was Nuovo Ricamo. It was a lovely linen that I very much enjoyed using. It has now been discontinued by Graziano, and replaced by a linen called Pronto Ricamo. Pronto Ricamo is not as high quality as Nuovo Ricamo.

Graziano Nuovo Ricamo 20L/38 count linen
While this fabric is no longer available, some of you may have it in your stash, so I am including it in my survey.
For this linen, over a distance of 10cm (4 inches) I counted 150 x 153 threads.

Graziano Pronto Ricamo 20L/38 count linen
For this linen, over a distance of 10cm (4 inches) I counted 150 x 154 threads.

Sotema 20L/38 count linen
I used Sotema linen for the runner in the book, and I enjoyed it very much.
For this linen, over a distance of 10cm (4 inches) I counted 152 x 156 threads.

Portuguese 20L/38 count linen
I don’t know the brand of this linen, but it comes from a manufacturer very near to Guimarães.
For this linen, over a distance of 10cm (4 inches) I counted 152 x 158 threads.

So what do we learn from this?
Firstly, the Graziano Nuovo Ricamo linen is the one that has the closest number of threads, with a difference of only 3. The Graziano Pronto Ricamo and Sotema linens are the next closest, with a difference of only 4 threads. The Portuguese linen has a difference of 6 threads.

Over a small pattern of 10 x 10cm (4 x 4 inches) or less, none of these would be particularly noticeable. Over a large distance of 100cm (40 inches), then the differences would be much more noticeable:
Nuovo: 30 threads difference
Pronto: 40 threads difference
Sotema: 40 threads difference
Portuguese: 60 threads difference

The difference over that long span for the Portuguese linen is twice the number of threads than the Nuovo linen. That makes quite a lot of difference!

A interesting question was raised yesterday in an email to me: “If a fabric is sold as evenweave does that mean you can trust the designation or do you still recommend counting?”

If a linen is sold as evenweave, then I would expect it to be pretty close to having an equal number of threads across the same distance for the warp and weft. But it is highly likely that it will not be exact. Therefore, I do recommend counting if it is at all important – such as if your design is meant to turn out square. If you don’t count, and it is important to the project, you’ll soon find out, because you’ll see it is not turning out as you expected!

Tomorrow we will look at what you can do if there is a large difference between the quantity of warp and weft threads.