What now seems to have been the scorching summer of 2026—judging by the chilly breeze creeping under my clothes this morning—had completely worn me out this year. A subtle weariness, both physical and mental, had drained me and sapped my motivation: the heat, the kids’ exams, turning fifty? I don’t know. I know that Valtopina came to my rescue. Before me was Raffaella Bartolucci’s booth with its Assisi embroidery, and to my left, La mi’ cocca Deruta with its fuseruole and… The small plates commemorating the 800th anniversary of St. Francis’s death, which immediately made my wallet tremble: for an important wedding anniversary, I’d instantly decided they’d be coming home with me (and the bell, too…). Back home, my first love from when I was 8—Assisi stitch—was waiting for me, filled with a renewed desire to embroider. I hadn’t done counted threadwork in so long that I couldn’t even find a needle without a point! What a shame! Yet, rediscovering those familiar motions and the delight of square stitch won me back!

I took some creative liberties with the technique: I worked with 2×2 threads and adapted the color to match the ceramics; compared to the traditional color, this one has a slight hint of purple (DMC 3807).

In the background of one of the photos, there’s a very interesting new publication by Raffaella Bartolucci on the evolution of Assisi Stitch designs!

Following up on my first project, I restyled the old Assisi pouch by unpicking and re-embroidering the drawstring loops, adding a couple more at the ends for a more secure closure, and then re-threading a cord. While I was at it, I re-sewed the hem of a strip I’d made years ago and added the missing corner tassels. The funny thing is that for both projects, I still had the original skeins of Florentine twisted thread. This means, first of all, that I use pearl cotton far too little in general; second, that the skeins of thread sit there waiting, in that dark, forgotten box, for their moment of redemption—to make you count the years, without a second thought and with great delight: the color, still intact and shining, sparked a rusty synapse, which unlocked the memory of the exact moment when I was embroidering that strip—on vacation in Puglia, at the little table in the house facing the blue-green sea. Mario was two years old—so we’re talking about 17 years ago—and he’d fall asleep while eating, with a slice of pizza still in his mouth: a flash of memory, conveyed by a tangle of brick-red threads.

Needless to say, the works I created in Assisi had a profound influence on those that followed…