The Woolly Way is a comprehensive resource site for Textiles in Ireland. For practitioners, designers, hobbyists, groups, for the people at home and for visiting tourists.
The Jane Austen Book Club cover by Helen Musselwhite
We recently came across this article on 'Creative Review', about a series of Penguin books that are being re-published, with re-designed covers. Naturally enough, we love them!!
Six of Penguin's most popular recent fiction titles have been
redesigned as a set with new craft-inspired covers. The Penguin By Hand
series makes use of embroidery, crochet and quilting, with each
technique further evoked on paper through the use of some serious
embossing...
A fabulous exhibition is running in the Ashmolean Museum at the moment.
Threads of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles from Meiji
Japan
9 November 2012–27 January 2013
This autumn, the Ashmolean Museum presents the first
exhibition devoted to the art of Meiji textiles ever to be held outside Japan.
Many of us are aware of the beauty of the traditional Japanese kimono; Threads
of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles from Meiji Japan will introduce the less
well known but equally spectacular ornamental textiles that were made for the Western
market during Japan’s Meiji era (1868–1912). This was the famous period of
‘Japonisme’, which saw the European Impressionist painters exploring themes and
styles taken from Japanese art, and Victorian rooms filled with Japanese
decorative arts and crafts.
Tickets: £6/£4 concessions
Events: A programme of events including a study day,
lectures, workshops and family activities are programmed throughout the
exhibition
On Saturday 1 Dec 2012, the Ashmolean held a
celebration of all things embroidered with events and activities taking place
around the Museum. They are also hoping to set a new world record and make the world’s longest embroidery. We look forward to seeing if they do!
We're quite fond of a bit of subversive stitchery here on the blog, so we wanted to celebrate International Yarnbombing Day, which falls on the 9th of June this year. But due to bad weather (which means bad internet) and a dodgy wrist, I'm not able to do up the big article I wanted. So heres lots of links, reading material, a few books to get, and even a yarn graffiti documentary!! I'll edit it over the next week to add in more stuff.
Any of you yarnbombers out there, send us your pics/links!As we'll do a follow up to this next week after International Yarnbombing Day.
According to wikipedia Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarnstorming, guerrilla knitting, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk.
While yarn installations – called yarn bombs or yarnstorms – may last for years, they are considered non-permanent, and, unlike other forms of graffiti, can be easily removed if necessary. Nonetheless, the practice is still technically illegal, though it is not often prosecuted vigorously.
While other forms of graffiti may be expressive, decorative, territorial, socio-political commentary, advertising or vandalism, yarn bombing was initially almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places. It has since developed with groups graffiti knitting and crocheting worldwide, each with their own agendas and public graffiti knitting projects being run.
In The Subversive Stitch, artist Kate Walker is quoted as saying that she has "never worried that embroidery's association with femininity, sweetness, passivity and obedience may subvert my work's feminist intention. Femininity and sweetness are part of women's strength. Passitivity and obedience, moreover, are the very opposite of the qualities necessary to make a sustained effort in needlework. What's required are physical and mental skills, fine aesthetic judgement in colour, texture and composition; patience during long training; and assertive individuality of design (and consequent disobedience of aesthetic convention). Quiet strength need not be mistaken for useless vulnerability."
Protest stitching is not new, it has been used for a long time as symbols of subversive activity. Here are some books, and lots of links to very interesting articles we have gathered...
Books:
Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain
New Embroidery, Old Fabric,Changing Values by Annin Barrett
The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine by Rozsika Parker
Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting,
The following was posted by Jill on the BQTHL Yahoo Group (BritishQuilt and Textile History List) and I thought it well worth a mention.
"A poignant, and fascinating, exhibition, 'Threads of Feeling', will be starting on October 14th and running until 6th March 2011, at the Foundling Museum in London. The exhibition was curated by John Styles. The exhibition will be showing, for the first time, textiles from the largest collection of everyday textiles surviving in Britain from the 18th century". They are tokens left by mothers who handed their babies into the care of the Foundling hospital, items which were meant to identify children, whose names were wiped from existence. Often the token merely consisted of a scrap of the mothers clothing, a ribbon, or snippet cut from the child's own clothing. These bits form an archive of textiles from everyday people."
"The Foundling Museum tells the story of the Foundling Hospital, London's first home for abandoned children and of three major figures in British history: its campaigning founder the philanthropist Thomas Coram, the artist William Hogarth and the composer George Frideric Handel. This remarkable collection of art, period interiors and social history is now housed in a restored and refurbished building adjacent to the original site of the Hospital, demolished in 1928."
"....A truly heart-wrenching theft was reported on the American Quilt History List this week..." This was posted on BQTHL (British Quilt and Textile History List) Yahoo Group by Sally Ward, and I would also like to pass the information on. Please blog it, tweet it, facebook it, talk about it, anyway you can pass the information on.
The World War II Quilts were at the Asheville quilt show the first weekend of August. I am pained to report 4 of them have been stolen. The empty trunk was delivered to FedEx in New Jersey and there it sits. Despite all of the precautions I take at sending quilts, they were not properly returned in a secure manner. Three of the four trunks fortunately returned safely but none were taped and garbage bag ties were used instead of the locking plastic ties. The trunks did have tracking numbers and were sent second day delivery but it still took me nearly one week to finally determine the status of the missing trunk. The quilts disappeared somewhere between Charlotte and New Jersey.
Here is a list of the missing quilts:
1. Navy Insignia quilt in the Winter blue. It's condition was excellent. Pg. 122 of World War II Quilts.
2. The wholecloth Canadian Red Cross Quilt. Slightly faded. Pg. 145 of World War II Quilts.
3. The Night Shift Workers Quilt. It's condition was excellent. Pg. 15 of World War II Quilts.
4. The Hazleton Fund Raising summer quilt. (This is the quilt I recently wrote about from the Vermont Quilt Festival.) It's condition was excellent. Pg. 135 of World War II Quilts.
5. Lastly was the sweet Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt, I use as a table cover.
These quilts are very distinctive and recognizable. Hopefully, the thief will not be very smart and will get them to the open market and soon. Please know that I will appreciate any and all help in getting the quilts returned. My address and telephone number were on the sleeves of each quilt but they are easily removed. I plan to send an alert on Stolen quilts, also.
