The next tour I took with WowCo was about the history of the city of Cartago, la valiente ciudad de Cartago.
Park of the Journalists (Parque de los Periodistas)
We met at the Park of the Journalists, next to the I love (heart) Cartago sign.
Isleta Park (Parque de la Isleta)
Monument to Cartago’s Founder, Marshall Jorge Robledo, Isleta Park.
Monument to the Sun, Isleta Park.
Old Railway Bridge, Crone River (Puente del Ferrocarril, RÃo La Vieja)
The river that passes through Cartago is called La Vieja, meaning the old lady or crone. It received this name because of a story written in the book ElegÃas de Varones Ilustres de Indias (Stories of Illustrious Men of the West Indies.) Captain Miguel Muñoz arrived to the area of the river that would be called the old lady/crone in 1536. He found an elderly indigenous woman dressed in fine gold jewelry. So the foreigner proceeded to steal the lady’s jewels and kill her by throwing her into the river.
There is a movement retelling the story from the elderly lady’s perspective and make her anonymous no more. They call the river Tata Yamba, meaning Yamba’s mother. This references Quimbaya Chief Yamba and imagines that it was his mother who was assaulted and killed by the Europeans.
We found some new embroidery-themed floor paintings and graffitis on the way.
Embroidery-themed paintings and graffitis
Pedro Morales Pino Plaza (Plazoleta Pedro Morales Pino)
Some of Cartago’s many churches.
Church of Guadalupe
Church of Guadalupe
House of the Artisan (Casa Artesanal)
There is a really nice little store selling handicrafts in Pedro Morales Pino Plaza across from the Church of Guadalupe. It is a cooperative space where each artisan has her own space to sell her wares.
House of the Artisan
The city is seeing lots of public works improvements.
The Pedro Morales Pino Music Conservatory is housed in the back half of the property.
House of the Viceroy
Interior courtyard, house of the Viceroy
House of the Viceroy tour
Entrance, house of the Viceroy
Sewing class at the MarÃa Auxiliadora (Mary help of Christians) School
Embroidery class at MarÃa Auxiliadora School, 1925.
The girls also learned work skills like typing.
Embroidery is part of Cartago’s identity.
There is a saying in Cartago, Más cartagüeño que un bordado. It means more Carthaginian than an embroidery. It is used to describe someone or something that represents the city’s identity well.
Window, House of the Viceroy.
Cartago was founded on August 9th, 1540. It just turned 483 years old this year (2023.)
It’s been a while since I visited Cartago (since before the pandemic) so it was time.
Cartago, in the southwest of Colombia.
Cartago is a town in southwest Colombia that is considered Colombia’s Embroidery Capital. Cartago’s most traditional style of embroidery is Calado which translates to openwork. Calado is a type of drawn thread embroidery (deshilado) and it also encompasses tape lace (encaje de sesgos.)
Cartago Openwork/Drawn thread (calado de Cartago.)
The best way to get to Cartago from the US is to fly. There is an American Airlines flight from Miami to Pereira’s Matecaña airport almost every day. From Pereira, ground transportation to Cartago can be arranged; it’s roughly 45 minutes away.
The Wow Company offers very interesting tours so I decided to take two of them:
The artisanal experience (Experiencia artesanal)
The courageous city of Cartago (La valiente ciudad de Cartago)
Artisanal Experience
The embroidery tour bus
We were collected in a mini-bus, about 15 of us, bright and early at 8:30 am, and were driven to the nearby town of Ansermanuevo, where most of the embroiderers live.
Ansermanuevo, cradle of Drawn thread Embroidery (Cuna del Calado y Bordado.) Sign outside of town: an embroidery frame, hands and a needle.
Ansermanuevo, cradle of Drawn thread Embroidery (Cuna del Calado y Bordado.) Sign outside of town: an embroidery frame, hands and a needle.
Lina Medina explaining Casa Victoria’s mission and teaching us how to draw threads from fabric using a piece of jute.
Casa Victoria is an association by embroiderers, for embroiderers.
Lina told us that the typical embroiderer only makes about $250,000 pesos a month (US $62.50 as of 8/5/2023) from embroidering.
The typical guayabera (Caribbean/Cuban shirt)
The typical guayabera (Caribbean shirt) costs $250,000 pesos at a shop in Cartago. The embroiderer only makes $18,000 pesos for embroidering the side panels (both of them!) of the guayabera. That is three days worth of effort that net the embroiderer only 7.2% of the final cost of the shirt.
Average Embroiderer’s Income
Colombian Pesos
US Dollars
Monthly income
$250,000
$62.50
Income from one embroidered shirt
$18,000
$4.50
Time taken to embroider panels for shirt
3 days
Percentage of sale price that goes to the embroiderer
7.2%
Casa Victoria aims to make sure their embroiderers get paid at least $30,000 pesos (US $7.50) per shirt.
Learning to draw threads from a piece of jute fabric.
Ansermanuevo Culture House
The next stop was at the Ansermanuevo’s Culture House.
Carolina Restrepo at the Ansermanuevo Culture House.
Carolina Restrepo told us about her work teaching the local children to embroider and make embroidered murals on chicken wire.
Given how poorly paid the embroiderers are, many mothers do not encourage their children to learn. Carolina wants to make sure the next generation does not stop embroidering. This is their town’s tradition, and even if they choose not to pursue it as a source of income, they could still practice it as a traditional pastime and artistic endeavour.
Embroidered murals on chicken wire.
Close-up of one of the embroidered murals
Embroidered mural of a local bird, a troupial (Icterus icterus), on a coffee plant.
Captain Córdoba, from the local fire department, regaling us with his poems about Ansermanuevo and its embroiderers.
Calado Lesson at Fatima School
The next stop was at the Fatima parish school for a lesson in embroidery history.
Embroidery was introduced to the region by the Vicentine and Franciscan religious communities in the late 1800s (19th) century when they arrived to open schools for girls.
The sisters made sewing part of the curriculum. Calado (drawn thread) was part of the course so they could make household and church linens.
With time, the Cartago and Ansermanuevo women developed a unique style which was then sold to others outside their households.
Calado lesson
We were taken to a classroom with embroidery frames containing fabric with the threads already removed forming a grid. We were taught some basic stitches (grid and cross.) We were given very nice coffee and snacks.
My calado effort was put into an ornament. Great souvenir.
Class members’ finished ornaments.
Back to Cartago and Lunch
We were then driven back to Cartago in the embroidery bus and taken to Casa Vieja restaurant where the specialty is pork cutlet by the meter (three feet.)
Cutlet by the meter (chuleta por metro) at Casa Vieja in Cartago.
Visiting Penelope
We went to visit Penelope next.
Penelope is the name given to the statue made by Carlos Tulio Suarez and Margarita Gamboa (the tape lace) to honor Cartago’s embroiderers. She resides in front of city hall.
Monument to the Embroiderer
Her name comes from the character in Homer’s Odyssey. The queen of Ithaca would weave during the day and undo her work at night in order to delay having to marry one of the many suitors requesting her hand thinking her husband dead.
Embroidered Graffitis
On to the Comuna One, commonly called the Sandpit (la Arenera.) This working class neighborhood was founded by sand extractors (sand to be used for construction) and embroiderers.
Embroidered Graffitis Tour
Carolina Restrepo took us through the streets and showed us the embroidered graffitis made by the neighborhood’s children.
Embroidered graffiti with a stumpwork flower.
Tribute to Leo Graff
One of the big graffitis is a tribute to local musician Leo Graff. One of his songs celebrates the culture of the Arenera neighborhood by mentioning that in every house there is at least one embroiderer (en todas las casas por lo menos una borda.)
After his death, his son made a music video of his song, Arenera, showing the local embroiderers.
Music video by Leo Graff’s son – tribute to the Arenera neighborhood.
Another embroidered graffiti.
Surface Embroidery Class
We then went to Nancy Zúñiga’s house (Carolina Restrepo’s mother) for a class on surface embroidery.
Her house is by the river with lots of plants. We were offered coffee and snacks.
Surface embroidery class at Nancy Zúñiga’s house
My project turned into an ornament.
The embroidery tour was great! We learned a lot about the history of the area, its embroidery culture and the embroiderers. It was very well organized and safe.
It is definitely geared towards textile newbies. One person did not know the difference between weaving and embroidery and he walked away with self-made projects using drawn thread (calado) and surface embroidery.
But seasoned embroiderers will enjoy the history and the embroidery culture. There are references to embroidery everywhere in both towns. In the embroidered graffitis tour, a lady opened her door as we were passing by and we saw her embroidering a shirt. We said hi to her and her dog and she sold us yummy fruit ice creams. Mine was lulo fruit (Solanum quitoense.)
Back in 2021, I took the Moroccan Tile tambour class with Sarah Rickards, which was part of the RSN (Royal School of Needlework) 2021 International Summer School.
It was my first time with tambour embroidery. Perhaps it was a little ambitious for my first time. Maybe that’s why it took me 2 years to finish it!
Tambour embroidery, which is also known by the names below, is performed with not a needle but a hook. It is done on organdy (the see through fabric) and stitched from the wrong side (the back.)
Because it is done from the wrong side, all the beads or sequins are threaded through the working thread. The end is secured to the fabric and the rest of the thread is in a spool.
I stitched the center petals in satin stitch using a regular needle. I could not get the tambour stitches to look flat.
It is a beautiful project. Learning to make the basic chain stitch was hard work, it took lots of practice. Taking the chain stitch to attach sequins and beads was also very hard: I had to learn to keep the sequin or bead against the fabric while I twisted the thread around the hook–lots of practice.
This type of embroidery is what is used in haut couture gowns, the ones that look frothy because of the tulle or organdy skirts and bodices with the shimmering beads and sequins.
My husband is a big fan of the Crewelwork Company. It’s not that he wants to embroider the kits himself, he wants to buy them for me to do.
So after me telling him for most of 2022 that I had too much to do, I finally gave him the green light to get me a kit from them in November.
I finished stitching it in mid December, a nice, small project. It uses stem stitch, long and short, satin, padded satin, french knot, and laid work. The fabric came pre-printed with the design, so there was no guesswork (ruler work) for the laid work.
Laid work
Crewelwork is nice style of embroidery, it’s wool threads (in this case from Appletons) over linen twill fabric.
The Crewelwork Company has many designs in the Jacobean style, like the one below:
The Muncaster Bed Hanging from the Crewelwork Company.
What makes it Jacobean is the design elements: the tree of life, the laid work, mounts, stylized flowers, etc. It could technically be made in cotton threads and still be Jacobean, but it is closely associated with crewelwork.
I think the Muncaster Bed Hanging is the Crewelwork Company’s largest/most complex kit. It is very expensive, but you are getting a large piece of fabric 100 x 145 cm (40 x 57 inches) with all the threads, needles and instructions. Not to mention all the work that went into developing it. It is a replica of a bed hanging from Muncaster Castle in Cumbria, UK.
A project like this could easily take a couple of years. That’s why I already told my husband to not even think about it!
I had never done a counted canvas project before (does the canvas sampler I did in elementary school count?) so when I saw that Debbie Rowley was doing a special class for the South Central Region of the EGA, I immediately signed up for it.
I’ve been curious about counted canvas for a while. Gary Parr from FiberTalk always talks about it, so what better chance to try it out.
The class came with the kit, all the materials and a very nice instruction booklet with very clear diagrams. Once the class started (once a week over four weeks online) we had access to a Groups.io site with all the handouts, and videos for each individual stitch.
Debbie is a great teacher, very organized.
Debbie uses very interesting threads:
Finca Presencia cotton floss and pearl.
Kreinik metallic threads.
Rainbow gallery.
Threadworx overdyed.
I’m glad she chose these threads from smaller, independent providers. The colors are beautiful and the texture is amazing.
Central motif in progress
The stitches were very interesting with names like amadeus, jessica, fish head, etc.
One thing about counted canvas that I did not like is that it’s not very forgiving. If you make a mistake you will find it in the next set of stitches because they will not fit right. After I finished the green fish heads in the center, I realized that I had miscounted previous purple amadeus in the center, so I had to pick everything and start again from scratch.
Must count and re-count!
Lots of Jessicas
The colorful swirls are called jessicas and they are very interesting. The last few stitches are tucked under the first ones, making the swirls very neat.
I used a laying tool to make the pink woven squares nice and smooth. The color grading is achieved by adding more threads of another color as they advance to the left and to the top.
La clase vino con todos los materiales y el librito de las instrucciones con diagramas muy claros. Ya empezada la clase (semanal por cuatro semanas en lÃnea) la profesora nos dió acceso a una página de Groups.io site con todos los papeles y videos para cada puntada.
Debbie es muy buena profesora, muy organizada.
Debbie usa hilos muy interesantes:
Finca Presencia de algodón perlado y de madeja.
Hilos metálicos de Kreinik.
Rainbow Gallery.
Threadworx sobreteñido.
Me encantó que escogiera estos hilos de compañÃas pequeñas e independientes. Los colores son muy bonitos y las texturas maravillosas.
Motivo central en camino
Las puntadas son muy interesantes con nombres como amadeus, jessica, cabeza de pescado, etc.
Una cosa que no me gustó es que no perdona ni un error. Si se comete un error, va a ser evidente en la próxima puntada porque no va a encajar.
Los remolinos coloridos se llaman jessica y son muy interesantes. Las últimas puntadas van escondidas por debajo de las primeras, para que los remolinos queden bien pulcros.
This past summer I worked on two goldwork projects:
Leaves of Gold by Kelley Aldridge as part of the RSN Summer School.
Japanese Cherry Blossoms by Jane Nicholas as part of the EGA National Seminar.
Leaves of Gold, design by Kelley AldridgeJapanese Cherry Blossoms, design by Jane Nicholas
Goldwork Techniques
The Leaves of Gold project had three types of padding.
I’ve done felt padding before, where pieces of felt are layered to achieve a curved surface.
Felt padding
New to me, this project introduced me to hard padding using a waxed cord
Hard padding
And soft padding using a cotton yarn that is waxed in order to be manipulated.
Soft padding
The project used Japanese and Rococo threads for the outlines of the stems and inside the leaves. The gold threads are couched onto the fabric using sewing thread.
Japanese thread over the hard paddingJapanese thread and rococo thread on the stem outlines
The leaves also had rough purl, and chipping (cutwork) and broad plate.
Rough purl is a coiled tube that can be cut and attached like a bead. The needle and thread go through the purl.
Chipping is down with a checked purl (very textured, catches the light really well) that is cut in small pieces (one or two millimeters) hence the name “cutwork” and attached with needle and thread like a bead in a random pattern.
Broad plate is a metal ribbon that is attached with thread as it is folded onto itself. The folds hide the thread.
Rough Purl over the soft paddingBroad plate over the felt padding
The broad plate was new to me as well as the s-ing of purls to make them look like stem stitch.
S-ing of check and rough purl in the middle of the stems, small outlines on pearl purlS-ing with rough purl and spangles.
I’m a member of the EGA (Embroiderers’ Guild of America) and I attended 2022’s National Seminar in New York City.
EGA’s 2022 National Seminar.Mercedes seeing the samplers for the first time in three years.
At the seminar I met up my dear cousin Sandra that lives in Florida and is an EGA Member-at-Large and my Calado de Cartago teacher, Mercedes Lopez.
Mercedes has been teaching me Calado de Cartago (Cartago openwork or drawn thread work-see here for more info) via WhatsApp for the past three years. This was the first time in those three years that we’ve been able to see each other.
Mercedes gave me a book profiling different embroiderers from Cartago by Lina RodrÃguez
During the Seminar we took a class with Jane Nicholas, her Japanese Cherry Blossoms. They were a motive of three cherry blossoms in goldwork.
Here I am working on the Japanese Cherry Blossoms by Jane NicholasMyself, Jane Nicholas, and Mercedes
It was a great time, catching up with friends who live far away, learning new things and meeting new stitchy friends.
Durante los últimos tres años, Mercedes me ha estado enseñando Calado de Cartago (para más información) via WhatsApp. Esta fue la primera vez en tres años que nos hemos podido ver.
Mercedes me dió un libro con entrevistas a bordadores de Cartago por Lina RodrÃguez
The Royal School of Needlework’s summer school was over two weeks in July, 2022. They had two options: in-person at Hampton Court Palace or online.
Since I could not travel to the UK this summer, I opted for the online option.
I signed up for two classes:
Introduction to crewelwork : snail by Jung Byung
Leaves of Gold by Kelley Aldridge
They were both great, I learned a lot.
Crewelwork Snail. Design by Jung Byung
The project included straight and satin stitches, seeding, trellis, etc.
Crewelwork snail in couched stitch.
The snail’s shell was couched is a spiral, very cool.
Trellis
For the trellises, I used a ruler to keep them even, I tried eyeing them with my needle and they came up crooked.
Leaves of Gold. Design by Kelley Aldridge
Goldwork is always fun. I learned to work with broad plate along with different types of gold threads (Japanese, rococo) and s-ing of purls. Plus soft and hard padding, along with the more common felt padding.
This year was the RSN’s 150th anniversary and the summer school package came with a commemorative kit that we stitched together online to celebrate World Embroidery Day (July 30th.)
Online session during World Embroidery Day.
It was a great experience, I just wished I could have done it in person at Hampton Court (where the RSN is located.) Maybe someday.
Empty Thimble 