Festa del Ricamo 2010: thank you!

Everything has started with the Festa del Ricamo. In 2008 one of my best friends, really good at surfing on the web, visited out of the blue the blog by Caterina, brilliant student of medicine with a great knack for TV series. Between an American TV serie review and the other, Caterina had written a post where she presented the Festa del Ricamo, an event organized by the enterprise of her parents Monica and Giovanni: the Cenina S.a.s.. More specifically Caterina had asked to the web-surfers if they knew some English/Italian/French interpreters in Arezzo to employ during the Festa where three guests were foreign: two French designers, Isabelle Vautier and Annaïck Chauvel, and an English one Kate Hoyle. So, a few days before getting graduated at the School for Interpreters and Translators, I sent my CV to Caterina, just imaging, on the tales of my teachers at school, that this experience would have been cold and full of mere business talks. With the courage you have when you are 20 and the fear one has when facing for the first time a job, I introduced myself to Cenina after reading Caterina's post and … time has passed and with this forth edition of the Festa del Ricamo I've celebrated my personal anniversary: it's now two years I work for Casa Cenina and the enthusiasm is always the same.
As for the first Festa del Ricamo, also this year I've been catapulted in a world full of charts and chats. And for those who have never taken a needle in their hand, the atmosphere you breath at the Festa is surprisingly and nicely bizarre.
This year our embroidery friends have had the pleasure to look at and touch the works by designers from different countries. Maria Concetta Ronchetti of Antichi Ricami has kindly shown her work surrounded by several groups of embroiderers willing to learn the technique of the Broderie Suisse. In the opposite part of the room, Nicoletta Farrauto of Nikyscreations has installed a very precious table rich in primitives and green plants, all to admire. And Marie Suarez, in the good company of her personal embroiderer Bernadette, has made the Italian public know her delicate and wonderful works.
If the main hall of Santa Flora was invaded by embroideries, fabrics, charts and embroiderers, downstairs Jennifer Manefield of Stof and Patrizia Girlanda have inaugurated at its best the new section of the catalog of Casa Cenina dedicated to Patchwork, among pieces and fabrics of all colors and dimensions.
As in the past year, but with an unexpected and well-desired sun, the garden of Santa Flora has been brightened up by our little market, soon made empty by our friends the embroiderers all working under a daily pollen snow (Caterina has sufferd a lot!). Just in the middle of the little market Sharon of the Crescent Colours has presented a selection of American charts and her wonderful hand-dyed threads.
Once again the Festa del Ricamo has simply transposed from web to "real life" the main goal of Casa Cenina: make seriousness and professionalism go together with the will to meet each other and share the same passion for embroidery (and from this edition on also for patchwork!).

---

Some pictures of the event

---