A guide to figurative stitching in textile art, with techniques and tips. Figurative stitch is soaring in popularity. In this guide, textile artist Rosie James shares ideas and techniques on using the sewing machine's needle and thread almost as a pencil. The book covers: How to set up your machine; How to tackle drawing (with exercises that will help even those who are afraid to put pen to paper); Transferring drawing to cloth, working with transparency, different surfaces and adding fabrics and colour; Photography, with details on using photographs in textiles; Putting it all together with layering images, playing with scale, repetition and composition. Tips and advise throughout will show textile artists how to expand their repertoire and how to use figurative stitch to really showcase their creativity. Illustrated throughout with stitch drawings by Rosie James and other leading artists, this is a welcome paperback edition that will inspire both professionals and those new to stitching.

This fantastic book showcases the prestigious Embroiderers' Guild's huge collection of embroidered birds through the ages. Featuring photographs taken especially for the book, items are shown in full along with detailed images that show off the stunning birds at their best.

Carpets from Islamic lands have been treasured for centuries on nearly every continent on earth. Prized by European monarchs and traded as far afield as Tibet and the Americas, these woven and knotted masterpieces are both distinguished works of art and revealing utilitarian objects that offer a rare glimpse of life in the Islamic world. Carpets from Islamic Lands features more than forty fine classical carpets held in the al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait, along with several important pre-Islamic carpet fragments. Friedrich Spuhler describes this spectacular collection in the context of the history of Islamic art, recounting the carpets' fascinating stories and celebrating their intricate designs and masterful craftsmanship. Including pictures of many carpets never before reproduced in print, and a few that may have been lost forever following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, this richly illustrated volume is essential reading for modern admirers of oriental carpets, and a treasure in its own right.

The Grammar of Pattern describes characteristics of textile and other surface patterns, and identifies, illustrates, and reviews a wide range of pattern types including spotted, striped, checked, tessellating and other types of all-over patterns with original drawings and images. This book includes original black-and-white line drawings and color images. The modular nature of patterns is explored, and attention is focused on the vast diversity of pattern types which can emerge from a small inventory of components. The book features material that is easily accessible with obvious mathematical content kept to a minimum and offers fresh perspectives on the nature of tessellating and other all-over patterns. This book serves as an effective practical guide for both students and professionals. Select sample exercises and student assignments are included, making this an ideal course text for teachers engaged across the full range of design education.

The potential for large sizes, portability and versatility for religious objects including banners, hangings, altarpieces and palls was the impetus for the emergence of fabrics as a painting support in Western art in the Middle Ages. The functionality of the works explains the survival of relatively few examples and although painted cloths were the most common form of interior decoration for centuries, they have received less attention from art historians and historians in part due to this poor survival rate. The papers in this volume explore the use of painted cloths in religious ceremony, pageantry, domestic interiors and scenic art, focusing on their change of context and significance from the 14th to the 21st century and examining their different function, materials and method of creation.

This text sets out to explain fashion design and product development as an integrated process the function of which is to market a continuous stream of garments at a profit. It explores materials, manufacture, costs, quality and the organization of the design and development process. The book is aimed at students of BTEC courses in clothing, CFI diploma and degree courses in clothing, management technologists in the clothing business, and members of retail buying departments.

A creative and practical guide on how to get in touch with your local natural world to create thoughtful works of textile art. Filled with projects and step-by-step techniques, this book is perfect for textile students and professionals alike. Renowned quilter and textile artist Helen Parrott explores the creative potential of your local surroundings and teaches you the processes and techniques used to create beautiful textile artworks. Drawing on the Slow Stitch movement, she explains how mark-making techniques can be used meditatively to record personal lives and surroundings influenced by seasonal changes of colour, energy and light. She encourages you to connect to your own locality, whether it be urban or rural, at home or on holiday, and its specific seasonal aspects in order to create a personal, working cycle of textile art. The book is divided into seasons; from learning how to spot the first signs of Spring to recording seasonal characteristics - equinox through to solstice - Helen teaches you how to be in tune with your environment. Each location will have different signs, so each artwork will truly be unique. Techniques and projects are also covered in this book: she first teaches you the basics of both hand and machine stitch techniques, working with free-form stitching, chain stitch, corded quilting and then moves onto applique, blackwork and dyeing. The techniques build in complexity ending with pieced textiles and collages. Helen also explores how to work with dot and line, repeating patterns, light and shadow, colour (and lack of colour), plant structures and people in landscapes. The last chapter consolidates techniques you've learnt in the book and showcases finished works from her exhibitions, as well as the Bradford Textile Archive, to help you better understand where inspiration leads.

For centuries, the peoples of Sub-Saharan Africa have been producing domestic and professional embroidery to decorate themselves, their families, clients, homes and public spaces. Embroidery is an expression of artistic, personal, family, regional and even political creativity which has played an important role in the social and cultural lives of people throughout the region. It has also reflected economic and political changes over time as well as social, religious and artistic contexts. This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Africa south of the Sahara from the early modern period through to the present. From quilted armour to embroidered caps and leather sandals, it offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination of the material, technical, artistic and design dimensions of the subject. Generously illustrated with 395 images (362 in colour) of clothes, accessories, and examples of decorated soft furnishings such as cushions, bed linen, curtains, floor coverings and wall hangings, the Encyclopedia is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject.

Embroideries from the Greek islands dazzle with their bright colours and charming motifs. This publication reveals little-known pieces from the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford, newly photographed and published here for the first time. The embroideries include fragments of pillowcases, bed valances, tents and curtains, as well as items of dress. As with all collections of textiles, the story of the Ashmolean holdings is chiefly about their makers and their ingenuity. Once forming the bulk of bridal trousseaux, Greek embroidered textiles were produced and maintained by young and old women for themselves and the house using locally produced materials. A mark of their worth and a platform for self-expression, embroidered textiles also helped Greek women to negotiate their place in the community, signalling status and affiliation.

These stylish craft books are highly accessible, with all techniques fully explained, and each project photographed from start to finish. Each book contains 25 beautiful and original projects.

This book explores the fascinating history and present-day practices associated with cotton. This is a story of commercial and cultural enterprise, of the ties and tensions between East and West, of technological and industrial revolution, social modernization, colonialism and slavery. Cotton's history mirrors profound global transformations. And cotton remains one of the most significant mass commodities today. Cotton's track record on labor conditions in factories and plantations has tarnished its history and reputation, even as cotton clothes became the hallmark of modern industrialized society. Cotton expressed popular fashions and popular politics in dynamic ways. Yet cottons also take other cultural forms and are part of vibrant craft traditions in many parts of the world. This book explores the history, impact and ongoing life of this hugely influential textile.

Addressing textiles as a distinctive area of cultural practice and field of scholarly research, The Textile Reader introduces students to the key issues essential to the exploration of the textile from both a critical and a creative perspective. The second edition brings together lectures, catalogue essays, academic articles, fiction and poetry, as well as several articles available in English translation for the first time, to capture the diversity of voices informing textile studies today. Content is organized around the themes of touch, memory, structure, politics, and production plus a new section exploring the role of community. With 22 new contributors, this revised edition includes selected work from Maria Fusco, Ursula le Guin, Elaine Igoe, Faith Ringgold, and T'ai Smith. Extended introductions and annotated suggestions for further reading by the editor Jessica Hemmings make the second edition an invaluable resource to students of textiles, craft and material culture.

Cultural Threads considers contemporary artists and designers who work at the intersection of cultures and use textiles as their vehicle. Ideas about belonging to multiple cultures, which can result in a sense of connection to everywhere and nowhere, are more pertinent to society today than ever. So too are the layers of history - often overlooked - behind the objects that make up our material world. The roots of postcolonial theory lie in literature and have, in the past, been communicated through dense academic jargon. Cultural Threads breaks with what can read as impenetrable rhetoric to show the rich visual diversity of craft and art that engages with multiple cultural influences. Many of these objects exist in an in-between world of their own, not wholly embraced by the establishments of art, nor functional objects in the conventional sense of craft. Cultural Threads is an exploration of contemporary textiles and their relationship with postcolonial culture. However, the postcolonial thinking examined here shares with craft an interest in the lived, rather than the purely theoretical, giving a very human account of the interactions in between craft and culture.

This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination of the material, technical, artistic and design dimensions of the subject, including its use by today’s fashion designers. For millennia, the peoples of Central Asian, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent have migrated and traded along the multiple strands of the Silk Road, both north–south and east–west. This history of contact has found rich expression within the arts and crafts of the region and particularly in the heritage of embroidery which has sat at the heart of the social and cultural lives of these diverse communities. Embroidery has been produced to decorate individuals, their families, their clients, their homes and public spaces and has reflected economic and political changes over time as well as social, religious and artistic contexts. Generously illustrated with 500 images (over 450 in colour) of clothes, accessories, and examples of decorated soft furnishings such as cushions, bed linen, curtains, floor coverings and wall hangings, the Encyclopedia is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject. This volume is the second in the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery series. The first volume, on embroidery from the Arab World, won the 2017 Dartmouth Medal, awarded by the American Library Association for a reference work of outstanding quality and significance.

Crewelwork embroidery traditionally features bold striking designs, rich vivid colours and thick textured woollen thread, and these designs are certainly no different. Crewel Inspirations highlights the very best crewelwork has to offer in both design and technique. Featuring talented embroidery designers Hazel Blomkamp, Di Kirchner, Phillipa Turnbull, Margaret Light and Susan Casson, this special collection, including cushions, a footstool, a mandala, a framed picture and a jewellery roll, have been curated into one publication. With 8 stunning crewelwork projects to make, there are clear step-by-step instructions, pullout patterns, a stitch guide and all the information you need to create them. Discover the origins, stitches, techniques and designs that are uniquely crewelwork, and learn how to make your own beautiful works of art.

Popular author Corinne Lapierre creates a charming range of 20 exquisite folk embroidered felt birds, including a swan, a hen, a goose, a partridge, an owl, a dove, a peacock and a flamingo. Beautifully made in lovely, soft colours, the birds are filled with toy stuffing and embellished with folk-style surface embroidery in different-coloured threads. The stitches include chain, feather, fly running, blanket, French knots and satin stitch. There are also bead and sequin embellishments on some birds. The book includes pretty hand-drawn step-by-step illustrations and there are same-size templates at the back of the book for all the designs. The birds all have optional ribbon hangers for display.

This second edition of 'Textile Conservator's Manual', now revised and available in paperback, provides an in-depth review of the current practice, ethics and materials used in textile conservation. Concentrating on decorative art objects from the major cultures, the book gives practical instruction and a wide variety of case histories.

While the format has been simplified, the text has been expanded and updated to include changes bought about by recent developments in the conservation of material. This new information will increase the reader's ability to interpret signs of ageing and past activity on the object. New case histories in Part Two represent major investigations into the technical history.

A basis is provided from which to develop practical skills, taking into account the needs of the object, its essential characteristics of appearance and, above all, its structure. The book covers a wide range of decorative objects, from a fragment of linen 4000 years old to a theatrical backcloth of the twentieth century.

This book is practical and thought-provoking, not only about what is being done and how, but also why.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: The profession; Technology; The objects, examination, options and choice; Recording, handling and preparation; Chemicals and their uses; Cleaning; Support and consolidation; Reassembly and finishing; Display, storage and transportation; Equipment and the workroom; Appendix A; Materials and equipment; Appendix B; Fire, flood and infestation. Appendix C; Glossary of weaving terms. PART TWO: Case histories revised; Detection and reconstruction; Upholstery; Large objects; Experience and experiment; Disasters; Index.

Kari Hestnes has been a knit designer for almost 40 years-and she's a perennial fan favorite for her focus on gorgeous details and stunning embellishment, her flattering garment shaping, and her playful, vivid use of color. Now, she's revisited those four decades of challenging and endlessly rewarding work in order to bring together the best of the best, in one extraordinary collection: classic cabling, dynamic textures, and brilliant multicolor patterns for sweaters, cardigans, and tops, all featuring Hestnes's inimitable style and characteristic aesthetic flourishes. - Patterns using a variety of techniques and design elements, with instructions included for a minimum of five sizes - Full-color photographs of each project-plus additional nature photos were taken by Kari herself - Decades of timeless design inspiration, now available in English for the first time

The highly anticipated third installment of this popular set takes knitters on a brand-new and freshly exhilarating journey, filled with color and imagination: roaring tigers, cunning foxes, wide-eyed fawns, whirling flowers, and so much more! With Lumi Karmitsa's creativity, inventiveness, and unforgettable color combinations coming to life on every page, this is an endlessly charming collection full of design delights no knitter will want to miss. - Packed with dynamic, expressive, irrepressibly fun patterns for mittens, socks, and matching sets. - Clear step-by-step instructions, with full-color charts and high-quality photos. - Readily adaptable designs-mix and match, choose your own colors, work long or short socks and mittens with or without decorative cuffs.

Whitework embroidery traditionally features beautifully intricate designs using white thread on white background fabric, examples of which can be found in many cultures across the world. Without the addition of colour, the fabric surface is ornamented with high-relief stitching, cutting, pulling or withdrawing threads with some styles utilizing all these techniques. Whitework Inspirations highlights the very best whitework has to offer in both design and technique. Featuring talented embroidery designers Kim Beamish, Deborah Love, Judy Stephenson, Christine P Bishop, Susan O'Connor, Patricia Girolami and Luzine Happel, this special collection - including a tablecloth, table mats and sachets - has been curated into one publication. With 8 stunning whitework projects to make, there are clear step-by-step instructions, pullout patterns, a stitch guide and all the information you need to create them. Discover the origins, stitches, techniques and designs that are uniquely whitework, and learn how to make your own beautiful works of art.

uring the 1920s and 1930s, Phyllis Barron (1890-1964) and Dorothy Larcher (1882-1952) were at the forefront of a revival in hand block-printing in Britain. As designer-makers they formed a unique partnership, producing innovative textiles and seeing the entire process through from beginning to end. Using whatever materials they could muster - fabric ranging from balloon cotton to prison sheets and velvet, and everyday items such as combs and car mats for printing - and pushing the boundaries of what could be achieved with predominantly natural dyes, these two remarkable women ran a successful business that lasted from 1923 until the outbreak of World War II. Nearly one hundred years on, another special collaboration between the Craft Studies Centre in Farnham, Christopher Farr Cloth and Ivo Prints, has brought a selection of Barron and Larcher's work back into production. The warm welcome they have received across the globe is a testament to the timeless quality of great design.

This glorious book is a modern guide to weaving, an ancient craft that is reaching new heights of popularity, from acclaimed contemporary weaver and textile artist Rachna Garodia. It contains a wealth of practical advice and tons of inspiration for every aspect of this endlessly adaptable craft, from gathering materials to making and exhibiting ambitious woven masterpieces, bringing in a wide selection of mixed media. Meditative and calming, a session at the loom is a great way to relax, and create something beautiful in the process. And you don't need expensive equipment: you can start your weaving journey on a small wooden frame or even a piece of cardboard, and it's now easy to book time on larger looms outside the home. The book includes: * Setting up and using your loom, from the simplest small frames to sophisticated table and floor looms. * Design and planning: taking inspiration from the natural world, sketching, photographing, making moodboards and exploring colour. * Gathering materials: from natural straw, grass, flowers, feathers, bark and seedpods to more traditional yarns and threads and even paper and photographs. * Personalising your work by incorporating well-loved old fabrics and precious sentimental items. * Unusual techniques: weaving with photographs or directly onto handmade paper, three-dimensional sculptural weaving, non-loom techniques such as looping and netting. * Gorgeously illustrated with work from the author and other artists from around the world, this book is an engaging and beautiful introduction to weaving for established textile artists or those coming to the craft for the first time.

This sumptuous and inspiring book, written by needlework expert Trish Burr and created in association with The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is a stunning, contemporary guide to embroidering flowers. All the reusable iron-on transfers needed are kept safely together with the book in an attractive hardback folder. Focusing mainly on long-and-short stitch and Trish's delicate, considered use of silk shading, the book contains all the clearly-illustrated stitches needed, and gives thorough advice on preparation and choosing fabrics and threads - including a handy thread conversion chart. The embroideries are reworkings of botanical artworks from Kew's Art Collection. There is one 'starter' project to encourage readers to try out the techniques, one large sampler containing 18 small elements that can be worked individually or as a group, and nine further projects - including a striking spider chrysanthemum, an elegant waterlily and an opulent magnolia. All the projects are shown step-by-step, with an order of work diagram given where appropriate. The enclosed reusable iron-on transfer papers offer embroiderers a fast and accurate method of transferring the designs - the transfers simply need ironing on to fabric so that the reader can start embroidering straight away. The templates are also included at full size at the back of the book. This stunning yet practical book is a must-have for anyone interested in capturing flowers in thread.