For hundreds of years, skilled craftspeople in the Syrian centers of Aleppo, Damascus, and Homs produced intricately woven textiles for the royal courts, worldly merchants, and elite Bedouin families of the Ottoman Empire. City dwellers were renowned for wearing brightly colored silk garments that glittered with gold and silver threads. By contrast, nomadic Bedouins wore woolen garments in hues and designs reflecting their desert lifestyle. The allure of these garments stems from the technical virtuosity with which they were woven and the aesthetic beauty of their drape and stylized designs. Dressed with Distinction offers a window onto the history of textile production in the Middle East during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, until political and social changes led to the dominance of Western-style commercially manufactured attire. In addition to articulating the social and seasonal contexts in which the garments were worn, this book examines the styles of dress of women, men, and children in Ottoman Syria, including cloaks (abaya), head coverings (hatta), women's body coverings (carsaf), and jackets (qumbas).

This book features the original sample collection and handwritten drafts of the talented, early 20th century weaver, Bertha Gray Hayes of Providence, Rhode Island. She designed and wove miniature overshot patterns for four-harness looms that are creative and unique. The book contains color reproductions of 72 original sample cards and 20 recently discovered patterns, many shown with a picture of the woven sample, and each with computer-generated drawdowns and drafting patterns. Her designs are unique in their asymmetry and personal in her use of name drafting to create the designs. Bertha Hayes attended the first nine National Conferences of American Handweavers (1938-1946). She learned to weave by herself through the Shuttle-Craft home course and was a charter member of the Shuttle-Craft Guild, and authored articles on weaving.

Kaffe Fassett uses the colorful Venetian island of Burano to form the backdrop of another stunning collection of new quilt designs from the Kaffe Fassett Studio. In this 22nd installment of Kaffe Fassett's ever-popular series of patchwork and quilting books, the quilts have been photographed on location in Burano, a tiny island in Italy's Venetian archipelago, famous for its lace making but also for its brilliantly painted houses in a myriad jewel colors. The colorful house walls, sometimes distressed and occasionally decorated with murals, form the backdrop, along with the canals, bridges, and boats of this special Venetian island, to another wonderful selection of Kaffe's new quilt designs. The collection of 19 quilts features both new fabric designs from the Kaffe Collective and some of his Classics. Bali Brocade makes a fantastic background to Kaffe's sumptuous Shimmer Star quilt with its ripples of pattern in contrasting prints. His two versions of a very simple quilt, comes in two very different colorways. Hot Steps is a riot of color, whereas by contrast its sister quilt, Cool Steps, in dusty blues, greens, and greys has an dreamy quality. Liza Prior Lucy's rich and dark Turkish Coffee quilt, with its hint of Eastern promise, fussy cuts Kaffe's new Turkish Delight fabric to brilliant effect. Kaffe Fassett's Quilts in Burano provides all the instructional text, diagrams, and templates to make the quilts, plus a section on basic patchwork techniques for less experienced quilters.

Textiles connect a variety of practices and traditions, ranging from the refined couture garments of Parisian fashion to the high-tech filaments strong enough to hoist a satellite into space. High-performance fabrics are being reconceived as immersive webs, structural networks and information exchanges, and their ability to interface with technology is changing how the human body is experienced and how the urban environment is built. Today, textiles reveal their capacity to transform our world more than any other material. "Textile Futures" highlights recent works from key practitioners and examines the changing role of textiles. Recent developments present new technical possibilities that are beginning to redefine textiles as a uniquely multidisciplinary field of innovation and research. This book is an important tool for any textile practitioner, fashion designer, architect, interior designer or student designer interested in following new developments in the field of textiles, seeking new sustainable sources, or just eager to discover new works that reveal the potency of textiles as an ultramaterial.

'There is a certain feeling - standing between rows of richly dyed blue cloth - that you are within an enclave of protection, that within this ocean you can feel calm; a separation from the outside world.' One summer, a mother and daughter are reunited in the small village of Betws Gwerful Goch in North Wales following the death of a father and grandfather. Ellie returned from studying at university, while Jeanette had been studying the art of indigo dyeing in Japan. In this lyrical memoir, Ellie Evelyn Orrell transports readers to their hillside garden, reflecting on a summer spent learning to work with indigo, and witnessing the power of creativity in moments of mourning and recovery. In it, she weaves together stories of resettling in a once-familiar landscape; the healing powers of art; the historical, mythological and present day properties of indigo; and the presence of this indelible colour within the Welsh landscape. An Indigo Summer is an absorbing mediation on art, rural life and roots, grief, creativity and the artistic process.

In an era of increasingly available digital resources, many textile designers and makers find themselves at an interesting juncture between traditional craft processes and newer digital technologies. Highly specialized craft/design practitioners may now elect to make use of digital processes in their work, but often choose not to abandon craft skills fundamental to their practice, and aim to balance the complex connection between craft and digital processes. The essays collected here consider this transition from the viewpoint of aesthetic opportunity arising in the textile designer's hands-on experimentation with material and digital technologies available in the present. Craft provides the foundations for thinking within the design and production of textiles, and as such may provide some clues in the transition to creative and thoughtful use of current and future digital technologies. Within the framework of current challenges relating to sustainable development, globalization, and economic constraints it is important to interrogate and question how we might go about using established and emerging technologies in textiles in a positive manner.

Invite light, warmth, and the freshness of spring into your home in time for Easter! Designer Thea Rytter, a fan favorite for her beautifully subtle color palettes and undeniable creativity, is back with a brand-new selection of decorations, ornaments, and more-including both well-known Easter classics such as colorful eggs and fluffy hares, and fun, festive springtime designs for flowers, feathers, and a sweet, soft friend or two. Welcome the season in style, with cozy, charming, characteristically Norwegian Easter knits. - Start small and work your way up: quick single-color patterns keep it simple for beginners, and wrapped-yarn projects like birds and feathers are perfect for kids - Once you've mastered the basic patterns for eggs, flowers, and miniature birds-shake things up with color changes, beads, embroidery, and more! - Step-by-step instructions, full-color photographs, and additional guidance for techniques like short-row shaping, to guide knitters who've never tackled them before.

In a museum in the small town of Bayeux in Normandy, specially devised to hold this single object, is a strip of linen nearly one thousand years old. It is 230 feet long and about 20 inches high. On it, embroidered in brightly colored wool, are figures of men, animals, buildings, and ships. In a series of vivid scenes, with a running explanatory text in Latin, it relates the invasion of England by William of Normandy and his victory at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Nothing remotely like the Bayeux Tapestry exists anywhere in the world, yet comparatively few people have been to Bayeux to see it and appreciate how totally absorbing it is. This book, first published in 1985, reproduces the Tapestry in full color and makes it accessible as never before. The story told in the Tapestry has all the ingredients of an epic poem, and a cast of characters that includes King Edward the Confessor; his liegeman, Duke Harold; and William, Duke of Normandy. When Edward dies, Harold succeeds him as king. William, who has a better dynastic claim, invades England, and at the Battle of Hastings Harold is defeated and killed. Here the Tapestry breaks off, but it probably originally concluded with William's coronation--the beginning of a sequence of monarchs that has continued virtually unbroken until today, and of the English nation as we know it. The Tapestry is reproduced in full color over 146 pages, with captions on a fold-out page for easy reference. A second reproduction of the Tapestry in black and white has a detailed accompanying commentary. Sir David Wilson, former Director of the British Museum, provides an up-to-date summary of the historical evidence, explaining each episode and coveringrelated topics such as the costumes, armor, ships, buildings, and customs. One of the primary sources for the history of the period, the Tapestry is a social document of incalculable value. It is the sole survivor of an art form that may once have been widespread, the wall-hanging commemorating the deeds of a great man.

Now available in a compact paperback edition, this book remains the most comprehensive survey of African textiles on the market today, illustrating in over 570 spectacular colour photographs the traditional, handcrafted, indigenous textiles of the whole continent. Covering, region by region, the handmade textiles of West, North, East, Central and Southern Africa, African Textiles outlines the vast array of techniques used as well as the different types of loom, materials and dyes that help to create these sumptuous textiles. With a useful glossary and map, a guide to collections open to the public, and suggestions for further reading, this book provides a wealth of information on the rich art of African textiles.

The patchwork is an apt metaphor for the region not only because of its colourfulness and the making of something whole out of fragments but as an attempt to make coherence out of disorder. The seeking of coherence was the exact process of putting together this book and foregrounds the process of Caribbean societies forging identity and identities out of plural and at times conflicting and contested groups that came to call the region home. Within the metaphor of the patchwork however is the question, where are the vernacular needlework artists within the visual art tradition of the Caribbean? The introduction sets out to both clarify and rectify this situation, and several common themes flow through the following essays and interviews. Themes include that that the land and colonization remain baseline issues for several Caribbean artists who stage and restage the history of conquest and empire in varying ways. That artists in the region amalgamate as part of their practice and seem to prefer an open-endedness to art making as opposed to expressing fidelity to a particular medium. That artists and scholars alike are dismantling long-held perceptions of what Caribbean art is thought to be, and are challenging boundaries in Caribbean art. These are among the issues addressed in the book as it looks at ecological concerns and questions of sustainability, how the practices of the artists and their art defy the easy categorization of the region, and the placement of women in the visual art ecology of the Caribbean. The latter is one of the most contested areas of the book. Readers should come away with the sense that questions of race, colour, and class loom large within questions of gender in the Jamaican art scene and that the book, dedicated to Sane Mae Dunkley, aims to insert vernacular needleworkers into the visual art scene in both Jamaica and the larger Caribbean. Audience will include researchers and scholars of Caribbean and African diasporic art, college students, those interested in post-colonial studies, Caribbean artists, art professionals interested in a wider, globalized view of contemporary art; students curious to know about the many phases of art production throughout the Caribbean. General readers interested in the culture of the region.

A detailed study of Tudor textiles, highlighting their extravagant beauty and their impact on the royal court, fashion, and taste At the Tudor Court, textiles were ubiquitous in decor and ceremony. Tapestries, embroideries, carpets, and hangings were more highly esteemed than paintings and other forms of decorative art. In 16th-century Europe, fine textiles were so costly that they were out of reach for average citizens, and even for many nobles. This spectacularly illustrated paperback edition tells the story of textiles during the long Tudor century, from the ascendance of Henry VII in 1485 to the death of his granddaughter Elizabeth I in 1603. It places elaborate tapestries, imported carpets and lavish embroidery within the context of religious and political upheavals of the Tudor court, as well as the expanding world of global trade. Special attention is paid to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, a magnificent two-week festival held in 1520. Even half a millennium later, such extraordinary works remain Tudor society's strongest projection of wealth, taste, and ultimately power. Published in association with Historic Royal Palaces

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features a Patchwork Quilt.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a variety of angles and approaches. The essays in this volume continue the Journal's tradition of groundbreaking interdisciplinary work. The volume opens with a survey of the discipline of medieval clothing and textiles, written by founding editor Gale R. Owen-Crocker. The range of the other essays extends chronologically from the early Middle Ages through the fifteenth century and covers a variety of disciplines. Topics include the conception of the author as a "wordweaver" in the literatures of Anglo-Saxon England; intertextual literary identities established through clothing in the Nibelungenlied and the Voelsunga Saga; the historical record of clothing and textiles at the court of King John of England; medallion silks, their use in Western Europe, and their representation in art; the vestments of Beguines and other penitential movements in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and a depiction of heraldic textile weaving inlate-medieval art. Contributors: Tina Anderlini, Joanne W. Anderson, Maren Clegg Hyer, Alejandra Concha Sahli, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth M. Swedo, Hugh Thomas

Collections of textiles-historic costume, quilts, needlework samplers, and the like-have benefited greatly from the digital turn in museum and archival work. Both institutional online repositories and collections-based social media sites have fostered unprecedented access to textile collections that have traditionally been marginalized in museums. How can curators, interpreters, and collections managers make best use of these new opportunities? To answer this question, the author worked with sites including the Great Lakes Quilt Center at the Michigan State University Museum, the Design Center at Philadelphia University, the International Quilt Study Center and Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and the WGBH Boston Media Library and Archives, as well as user-curated social sites online such as Tumblr and Polyvore, to create four compelling case studies on the preservation, access, curation, and interpretation of textile objects. The book explores: *The nature of digital material culture. *The role of audience participation versus curatorial authority online. *Audience-friendly collections metadata and tagging. *Visual, rather than text-based, searching and cataloging. *The legality of ownership and access of museum collections online. *Gender equity in museums and archives. This book is essential reading for anyone who cares for, collects, exhibits, or interprets historic costume or textile collections, but its broad implications for the future of museum work make it relevant for anyone with an interest in museum work online. And because the focus of this volume is theory and praxis, rather than specific technologies that are likely to become obsolete, it will be staple on your bookshelf for years to come.

Winner of the Best Books on Devon's History: Academic Award from the Devon History Society A richly illustrated exploration of the national and international importance of the early modern Exeter cloth trade. This book reproduces a newly discovered manuscript detailing the exports of Claude Passavant, a Swiss emigre merchant. Passavant's dispatch book comprises the most extensive surviving collection of Devon cloth with 2,475 surviving cloth samples. Thirteen chapters discuss the local and wider contexts of eighteenth-century cloth making. This study explores the quality, range, and vibrancy of cloth that lead to Exeter becoming an internationally renowned centre for the manufacture and trade of woollen cloth.

A practical and inspirational book to learn how to develop a variety of textile techniques from personal visual sources. This book teaches you how to develop a diverse range of textile surface design techniques from personal visual inspiration sources, and apply them to your projects. Discover an assortment of traditional and unconventional methods, from smocking to soldering, through projects such as fashion and interiors items and textile art. The book encourages you to explore visual sources to discover their potential for imagery, texture, structure and manipulation, supporting you in the development and creation of your own unique pieces. Learn how to explore alternative possibilities, manipulate existing textile surfaces or create new ones. Whether you are a student, experienced artist or maker looking for new inspiration and techniques, this is an essential practical book.

Czech-born Jacqueline Groag (1903-1985) was an incredibly adept textile designer who trained at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna during the 1920s under Franz Cisek and Josef Hoffmann. She produced textile designs for the Wiener Werkstatte and some of the Parisian fashion houses while she lived in Vienna. She married the architect and interior designer Jacques Groag - they made a successful team. However, in 1939 they were compelled to emigrate to the UK. Jacqueline Groag continued to produce textile design work for the British market, and after the war her designs could be seen at numerous outlets such as David Whitehead, Grafton, John Lewis and Liberty. For more than 20 years she worked as a freelance designer, supplying designs for carpets, greetings cards, laminates, plastics, textiles, wallpapers and wrapping papers to many firms including Bond-Worth Carpets, British European Airways, the British Overseas Airways Corporation, Dunlop, ICI and London Transport. In 1984 she became a Fellow of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. She was a prodigious and successful designer to the end of her life. Along with Lucienne Day and Marian Mahler she is seen as central to a new and exciting development in textile design in the 1950s. Together their work is featured in a major exhibition 'Designing Women' which begins in Colorado Springs in September 2008. This is a ground breaking publication on the work of this highly important and influential designer.

This book follows the creative process of designing and printing textile patterns, from the initial sourcing of ideas to the final high-quality creation. It provides ideas and practical information at a level easily accessible to textile students and designers, but also to novices who would like to learn more. Throughout, the text is enhanced by an exciting range of images, from historical surface-pattern designs and textiles to the work of contemporary designers. Topics include advice on generating ideas and expressing them visually; a cultural and historical background to surface-pattern design; experimental methods of working from paper onto fabric; and practical details on fabrics, equipment, and techniques for dying and printing. June Fish teaches at London's Central St. Martins College for Art and Design.

One of the most distinctive features of Islamic design is the evolution of an increasingly abstract and repetitive repertoire of motifs, which are shared among all media - metalwork, woodwork, ceramics, tilework and textiles. In textiles the main themes are based on angular and geometric shapes - vertical and horizontal striped bands; hexagons and octagons, which can be linked and infinitely extended; stylized and rhythmic scrolls of foliage and flowers; and Arabic calligraphy, of which the letters can be formed into continuous borders, panels and medallions. These motifs can be used separately or combined into complex patterns, of which the repetitive and two-dimensional features are ideal for textile production, especially where varying lengths are required - for hangings, curtains, robes and shawls. Valued for their role in the subtleties of court ceremonial and fashion, these textiles were also much admired beyond the Islamic lands. The exceptional collection published here ranges widely in region, material and technique. There are textiles and garments from North Africa, Syria, Arabia, Iran, Turkey and the Indian subcontinent linked by a shared vocabulary of ornament - evidence of the international nature of Islamic design. Materials represented are silk - the most prestigious of fibres, requiring highly respected weavers - wool, cotton and linen. Decoration is based on variations of weave and colour and embellishment through embroidery, printing and applique and illustrates the work of both professional and domestic workers. The strengths of the collection are concentrated in the textile production of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which, thanks to the basically conservative nature of textile technique and design, preserve and continue the traditions established in the medieval Islamic world. They are important in an assessment of Islamic textiles both for their quality and as illustrations of survival and adaptation in a major industry. Their heritage reaches back well over a thousand years, even though their very high perishability means that for the earlier part of the tradition our knowledge is reliant very largely on written sources. These, however, attest to the superb quality and quantity of textiles at the courts of the period.

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.

Over the last four decades, the fashion modeling industry has become a lightning rod for debates about Western beauty ideals, the sexual objectification of women, and consumer desire. Yet, fashion models still captivate, embodying all that is cool, glam, hip, and desirable. They are a fixture in tabloids, magazines, fashion blogs, and television. Why exactly are models so appealing? And how do these women succeed in so soundly holding our attention? In This Year's Model, Elizabeth Wissinger weaves together in-depth interviews and research at model castings, photo shoots, and runway shows to offer a glimpse into the life of the model throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Once an ad hoc occupation, the "model life" now involves a great deal of physical and virtual management of the body, or what Wissinger terms "glamour labor." Wissinger argues that glamour labor-the specialized modeling work of self-styling, crafting a 'look,' and building an image-has been amplified by the rise of digital media, as new technologies make tinkering with the body's form and image easy. Models can now present self-fashioning, self-surveillance, and self-branding as essential behaviors for anyone who is truly in the know and 'in fashion.' Countless regular people make it their mission to achieve this ideal, not realizing that technology is key to creating the unattainable standard of beauty the model upholds-and as Wissinger argues, this has been the case for decades, before Photoshop even existed. Both a vividly illustrated historical survey and an incisive critique of fashion media, This Year's Model demonstrates the lasting cultural influence of this unique form of embodied labor.