Needlework serves functional purposes, such as providing warmth, but has also communicated individual and social identity, spiritual beliefs, and aesthetic ideals throughout time and geography. Needlework traditions are often associated with rituals and celebrations of life events. Often-overlooked by historians, practicing needlework and creating needlework objects provides insights to the history of everyday life. Needlework techniques traveled with merchants and explorers, creating a legacy of cross-cultural exchange. Some techniques are virtually universal and others are limited to a small geographical area. Settlers brought traditions which were sometimes re-invented as indigenous arts. This volume of approximately 75 entries is a comprehensive resource on techniques and cultural traditions for students, information professionals, and collectors.

Rejecting traditional notions of what constitutes art, this book brings together essays on a variety of fiber arts to recoup women's artistic practices by redefining what counts as art. Although scholars over the last twenty years have turned their attention to fiber arts, redefining the conditions, practices, and products as art, there is still much work to be done to deconstruct the stubborn patriarchal art/craft binary. With essays on a range of fiber art practices, including embroidery, knitting, crocheting, machine stitching, rug making, weaving, and quilting, this collection contributes to the ongoing scholarly redefinition of women's relationship to creative activity. Focusing on women as producers of cultural products and creators of social value, the contributors treat women as active subjects and problematize their material practices and artifacts in the complex world of textiles. Each essay also examines the ways in which needlework both performs gender and, in turn, constructs gender. Moreover, in concentrating on and theorizing material practices of textiles, these essays reorient the study of fiber arts towards a focus on process?the making of the object, including the conditions under which it was made, by whom, and for what purpose?as a way to rethink the fiber arts as social praxis.

In gold-rush Australia, social identity was in flux: gold promised access to fashionable new clothes, a grand home, and the goods to furnish it, but could not buy gentility. Needlework and Women's Identity in Colonial Australia explores how the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters who migrated to the newly formed colony of Victoria used their needle skills as a powerful claim to social standing. Focusing on one of women's most common daily tasks, the book examines how needlework's practice and products were vital in the contest for social position in the turmoil of the first two decades of the Victorian rush from 1851. Placing women firmly at the center of colonial history, it explores how the needle became a tool for stitching together identity. From decorative needlework to household making and mending, women's sewing was a vehicle for establishing, asserting, and maintaining social status. Interdisciplinary in scope, Needlework and Women's Identity in Colonial Australia draws on material culture, written primary sources, and pictorial evidence, to create a rich portrait of the objects and manners that defined genteel goldfields living. Giving voice to women's experiences and positioning them as key players in the fabric of gold-rush society, this volume offers a fresh critical perspective on gender and textile history.

Molly Proctor, notable collector of historical needlework and author of Needlework Tools and Accessories: A Collectors' Guide and Victorian Canvas Work: Berlin Wool Work has now turned her attention to the hitherto neglected field of needlework stitched from printed transfers. Proctor interviewed workers (many of whom are now dead) connected with the transfer print industry and reveals a history of patent disputes, Victorian patterns, Art Deco and Art Nouveau artists, needle etchings, occupational therapy for wounded soldiers, even a soldier stitching at Dunkirk while waiting for rescue. Illustrated throughout with beautiful colour photographs, this is a book both to inform the historian and inspire the needlewoman.

The needle arts are traditionally associated with the decorative, domestic, and feminine. Stitching the Self sets out to expand this narrow view, demonstrating how needlework has emerged as an art form through which both objects and identities – social, political, and often non-conformist – are crafted. Bringing together the work of ten art and craft historians, this illustrated collection focuses on the interplay between craft and artistry, amateurism and professionalism, and re-evaluates ideas of gendered production between 1850 and the present. From quilting in settler Canada to the embroidery of suffragist banners and the needlework of the Bloomsbury Group, it reveals how needlework is a transformative process – one which is used to express political ideas, forge professional relationships, and document shifting identities. With a range of methodological approaches, including object-based, feminist, and historical analyses, Stitching the Self examines individual and communal involvement in a range of textile practices. Exploring how stitching shapes both self and world, the book recognizes the needle as a powerful tool in the fight for self-expression.

This guide is for anyone who is interested in learning or re-learning the art of embroidery or needlepoint. Containing a history of needlecrafts, as well as an updated look at its uses for your home and wardrobe, it explains how to deal with such concepts as color, balance, scale, and texture, and how to incorporate your own personal syle. Everything you need to know about the art of embroidery, including needle and thread types, materials, stitch types, frames, techniques, enlarging or reducing designs, monogramming, and project ideas, is in this book.

This vintage book contains a complete guide to needlework and crafting, with information on plain sewing, embroidery, dressmaking, and a variety of other home crafts. Profusely illustrated and full of simple instructions and handy tips, this volume is highly recommended for the novice crafter, and would make for a fantastic addition to any home collection. “Contents Include: “Plain Sewing”, “Fastenings”, “Plain-Sewing Trimmings”, “Your Sewing Machine”, “Hand Embroidery”, “How to Work your Gift Transfers”, “Home Dressmaking”, “Mending”, “Crochet”, “Raffia Work”, “Stencilling”, “Barbola”, “Simple Ways of Weaving”, “Gesso-Work”, “Various Ways of Making and Decorating Lamp-Shades”, “Poker Work”, “Artistic Leather Work”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. We are republishing “Needlework and Crafts” now in an affordable, high-quality edition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on sewing and needlework.

Each plate accompanied by guard sheet with descriptive letterpress.

Winner of the Connecticut Book Award (2011) Winner of the Connecticut League of History Organizations Award of Merit (2012) Connecticut women have long been noted for their creation of colorful and distinctive needlework, including samplers and family registers, bed rugs and memorial pictures, crewel-embroidered bed hangings and garments, silk-embroidered pictures of classical or religious scenes, quilted petticoats and bedcovers, and whitework dresses and linens. This volume offers the first regional study, encompassing the full range of needle arts produced prior to 1840. Seventy entries showcase more than one hundred fascinating examples—many never before published—from the Connecticut Historical Society's extensive collection of this early American art form. Produced almost exclusively by women and girls, the needle arts provide an illuminating vantage point for exploring early American women's history and education, including family-based traditions predating the establishment of formal academies after the American Revolution. Extensive genealogical research reveals unseen family connections linking various types of needlework, similar to the multi-generational male workshops documented for other artisan trades, such as woodworking or metalsmithing. Photographs of stitches, reverse sides, sketches, design sources, and related works enhance our understanding and appreciation of this fragile art form and the talented women who created it. An exhibition of needlework in this book will be held at the Connecticut Historical Society in late fall, 2010. Funding for this project has been provided by the Coby Foundation, Ltd., and the National Endowment for the Arts.