01 March, 2009

DMC and Therese de Dillmont in Russia

All of us who have used embroidery floss know about the DMC Corporation.

But I'm not sure, unless you have a current, still in print, copy of the Encyclopedia of Needlework, that you know who Therese de Dillmont is.

A tiny part of her history is here, stating her Encyclopedia of Needlework was first published in 1886 and translated and distributed to 100 countries!

Russian needlewomen obviously benefited from her translated Encyclopedia, as well as from other DMC publications. I am fortunate to have a 1992 reprint of a 1902 edition in Russian, along with some other finds from an antique book store of other translated embroidery books by DMC.
book titled: Course of women's handwork (forgive me if this is not exactly grammatical)


reprint page of 1902 edition, originally published in St. Petersburg


But the REAL gem is this in-oh-so-horrible-shape linen covered book by DMC -- full of
charts of "letters, monograms, ciphers and ornaments". The title is: DMC Library,
Mytki i Uzori (?? something and patterns for embroidery).



The cover says it is from the Grossman and Knebel Bookstore in Moscow, but an side page says it was published in Riga.

Some examples from inside:



the last section of the book is devoted to monograms -- in charts, and some still on their onion paper for pencil transfer:


and my monogram is conveniently already designed for me!

the famous DMC monogram on the back of the book

4 comments:

Dee D said...

What wonderful books. Now I want to see you work up your monogram on something. It is so beautiful. I've a French embroidery book - can't read a word of it, but that doesn't matter. The illustrations are great.

Anonymous said...

What treasures!
The name of DMC book is Метки и Узоры - Marks (or labels) and patterns
There is an old cyrilic "e" that got you confused. :)

MaryjoO said...

Holey Fiber -- thanks for clearing up the word!! I couldn't for the life of me figure out WHAT that word was -- and learned something new, too -- I can read most of the old cyrilic but obviously didn't know about the "e" :)

Anonymous said...

A real treasure to have books like that on your shelf!