It’s the practice sampler, if you will.

I have about a dozen unfinished projects right now, but after (finally!) completing the reticello needle book, I couldn’t wait to explore more reticello motifs.

I have three of Guiliana Buonpadre’s incredible embroidery books: Il Reticello, Punti a Giorno, and Fior di Reticello. They are certainly not cheap, but I think they’re a worthwhile investment. Each book is bi- or trilingual, and the pictures alone are so instructive that I rarely need to read the text.

Even though this is the practice sampler, I wanted it to be beautiful and nicely laid out. I started by drawing out every motif in the books, which range from single blocks to 4×4 block designs. After I had everything drawn, I picked a series of 2×2 blocks to start embroidering.

I’m not advanced enough to know how to execute the blocks just from these diagrams, but the sketches help me find which pages in the books I need.

I’m using a 28 count DMC cotton/linen blend and DMC no. 8 pearl cotton in 995 for this piece. After about a week of work, I can say I prefer linen to the cotton/linen blend. Smaller thread would also be more effective here. DMC doesn’t sell no. 12 pearl cotton in 995 (a true tragedy) so I’m going to try to get floche or coton a broder for the final sampler.

I started out completing one motif at a time – I didn’t quite trust myself to do all of the cutting at once.

My lack of trust in myself was warranted, and I made a mistake as soon as I started the second row of blocks. Luckily I had no. 12 pearl cotton in the same color as the fabric and I was able to lay down new threads where I mistakenly cut. You can see the replacement threads in this picture, but the repair was invisible once I did the embroidery.

Here’s the first six blocks. On the last block in the first row, I did much tighter needleweaving. I like the look of the narrower bars even though it’s a little extra work.

Now that I have the grid established, I’m going to prep more boxes before embroidering. I don’t have a large enough hoop to do all of the prep at once, but doing a few at a time is still more efficient than constantly moving the hoop around.

Many of the single block motifs show up in these 2×2 blocks, but there are a few missing that I want to practice. Once the 2×2 blocks are done I’m going to add a series of single blocks along the side.

I am thoroughly enjoying this. I haven’t decided what to enter in next year’s state fair yet, but it seems very likely there will be some reticello.