This beautiful and accessible book will deepen the understanding of anyone who loves textiles. It explores woven textiles thematically, through the work of contemporary artists and designers. Some make their art from unwoven threads, the raw material of which textiles are born. Others use digital technology so that elements of light, sound, and even motion are literally woven in the fabric. An excellent resource for everyone with an interest in contemporary woven textiles, this book features work by the following international selection of artists and designers: Gabriel Dawe, Ball-Nogues Studio, Susie MacMurray, Laura Thomas, Sue Lawty, Lauren Moriarty, Elana Herzog, Tamar Frank, Marianne Kemp, Dashing Tweeds, Hiroko Takeda, Christine Keller, Hilde Hauan Johnsen, Sarah Taylor, Astrid Krogh, Priti Veja, Salt, Ainsley Hillard, Philip Beesley, Maria Blaisse, Barbara Layne, Zane Berzina, Maggie Orth, Elaine Ng Yan Ling, Lucy McMullen, Philippa Brock, Grethe Sorensen, Christy Matson, Lars Preisser, Lise Frolund and Hanne Raffnsoe, Elin Igland, Alyce Santoro, Drahomira Hampl, Nadia-Anne Ricketts, Eleanor Pritchard, Aleksandra Gaca, Ismini Samanidou, Louise Bourgeois, Ane Henrikesen, Shane Waltener, Jeroen Vinken, Liz Williamson, Lucy Brown, Janine Antoni, Lia Cook, Petter Hellsing, Runa Carlsen, Wallace & Sewell, Ptolemy Mann, Missoni Home, ao for Gainsborough, NUNO Corporation, Norwegian Rain, Soukaina Aziz El Idrissi, Suzanne Tick, Travis Meinolf, and Anne Wilson.

Chloe Colchester's up-to-the-minute survey reveals a diverse, exciting and provocative field, one at the vanguard of extraordinary technological developments while also the source of astonishing works of beauty. From colour-changing, light-sensitive camouflage to emergency shelters of cement-impregnated fabric bonded to an inflatable plastic, from Eley Kishimoto's gorgeous patterns to the astonishing colours of Morphotex, this dazzlingly fresh sourcebook of original and inspiring designs will appeal to all designers and anyone with an interest in textiles.

Quilting, once regarded as a traditional craft, has broken through the barriers of history, art and commerce to become a global phenomenon, international multi-billion dollar industry and means of gendered cultural production. In Quilting, sociologist and quilter Marybeth C. Stalp explores how and why women quilt.
This close ethnographic study illustrates that women's lives can be transformed in often surprising ways by the activity and art of quilting. Some women who quilt as a leisure pastime are too afraid to admit to being a quilter for fear of ridicule; others boldly identify themselves as quilters and regard it as part of their everyday lives.
The place of quilting in women's lives affects core family and personal identity issues such as marriage, childcare, friendship and aging. The book's accessible and intimate portrayal of real quilters' lives provides a fabric for the sociology, anthropology and textile student to understand more about wider issues of cultural production and identity that stem from this very personal pastime.

Textile Technology and Design addresses the critical role of the interior at the intersection of design and technology, with a range of interdisciplinary arguments by a wide range of contributors: from design practitioners to researchers and scholars to aerospace engineers. Chapters examine the way in which textiles and technology - while seemingly distinct - continually inform each other through their persistent overlapping of interests, and eventually coalesce in the practice of interior design. Covering all kinds of interiors from domestic (prefabricated kitchens and 3D wallpaper) to extreme (underwater habitats and space stations), it features a variety of critical aspects including pattern and ornament, domestic technologies, craft and the imperfect, gender issues, sound and smart textiles. This book is essential reading for students of textile technology, textile design and interior design.

Common Threads explores ideas of artistic identity and memory contained within the narrated stories of ten textile artists. It reveals how individuals bring a sense of linearity to fragments of memory and create a cohesive sense of self through telling their life's story.By employing a systems model, the author constructs new ideas of interrogating identity and art practice. The model, "Constructing Personal Narratives", brings into focus the hermeneutic circle of learning, and identifies the importance and need to provide opportunities for lifelong learning. The stories told by the participants who returned to the formal education sector later in life reveal the profound effects adult learning had upon their lives. The writer reveals how the model generated the interview questions that provided the rich biographical content that emerged within dialogues.The common threads of experience and feelings of the ten participants and the author are revealed, and from these emerge deepened understandings of both the place of stories within our lives and how stories can further an understanding of what it means to be an artist. Emerging from these stories are implications for teaching practice; these are presented as observations and questions in terms of how educators should be part of the learning experience with those they educate.

This volume brings together research into the process of commercialization of the folk crafts of Thailand: the conditions of its emergence, the parties involved in its development, the changes in the processes and organization of production which accompany it, the channels through which commercialized craft products are marketed, the nature of the audiences they reach, and the transformations in appearance and meaning which the products undergo as a result of their commercialization. The first part of the book explores the commercialization of hill tribe textiles, particularly those of the Hmong refugees from Laos. The second part presents a series of case studies of the various ways in which the products of lowland Thai "craft villages" became commercialized.