Cloth 100 Artists

Contemporary and Heritage Techniques

Lena Corwin

Abrams

Background information on the author

Corwin is defined on any search as a ‘visual artist’. She works and has an interest in many mediums, this book showcases this via its multi topic contents. She has studied both design, fashion and arts practice - again this shows through this publication.

Pick-Up Bandweaving Designs

288 Charts for 13 Pattern Ends And Techniques for Arranging Color

Heather Torgenrud

Schiffer Craft

Looking at this books cover, I was reminded of bygone days, making friendship bracelets and trying to learn new patterns and colour ways for them. There was always a new combination to try or at least attempt.

Japanese Paper Yarn

Using Washi and Kami-ito to Knit, Crochet, Weave, and More

Andra F. Stanton

‘To all who are curious, brave, and compassionate’ - the opening words of this book open a question mark in my mind - why would I need to be brave to read this book?

I have heard and I am sure you have too, of the popular Sashiko, maybe even Kintugi terms, but this transition to paper yarn is new to me. Maybe that is why the author asks us to be curious.

Slojd: The Swedish Art of Wood and Textile Handicraft

Kerstin Neumuller

Batsford

A little comment about the artist and writer herself…

This is a woman of many skills. She has trained in textiles and even more exactly, men’s tailoring. Yet she teaches plant dyeing, woodcarving, weaving, textile object building, slow stitch skills….she cannot be defined. Let’s just say she does craft.

It is a technique of care. It stitches the broken, or the cast off and allows them to have a future. It is of course an embroidery technique, but it is the way it is used which is of import. The word Kantha, to give some background here, refers to both the stitch and the cloth. It is about finding beauty in the ordinary.

Bojagi

The Art Of Korean Textiles

Youngmin Lee

Herbert Press

I had to look for a definition to learn what this book was going to be about, it is a technique which had been out of my sight. The cover made me think of patchwork, so I wrongly taken its content to be about this subject. This book is totally a cultural love nest celebrating the true context of Korean textiles.

In My Nature

Sustainable Art and Autism

James Owen Thomas

Herbert Press

The worth of this book

Monty Don, a well known writer, gardener and - I hate the title but ‘personality’ in his own right (admittedly one of my own loves) had chosen to write the forward to this title.

All-New 20 To Make: One Patch Quilts

Carolyn Forster

Search Press

A tiny hardback, which on first glance looks rather disappointing. What can be learned via a book so short of pages? Wrong. This little gem contains all the full size template and simple instructions to create twenty designs.

Paper Flowers

15 Stylish Projects to Make Your Own

Almeja Space

Sine and Sara Finne Frandsen

Quadrille Publishing Ltd

As a child, I learned how to make paper flowers with my mother. Simple twists, in crepe paper (hard to come by back then for some reason) and those bendy sticks with wire in them - the name lost to the age. It was enjoyable, but not furthered, developed into an artisan skill. I always thought it a method of art for children, not adults.

RSN Stitch Bank: 200 Essential Embroidery Stitches

The Royal School of Needlework

Search Press

Is this title simply another stitch dictionary? No, it is most certainly not. Sitting rather large and thick in size (336 pages in all) it is not the size which here counts. No, it is the reason this book has been curated and throughtfully been brought together by The Royal School of Needlework. It is all about conservation, holding onto this heirloom in our midst which is Embroidery.

Contrast in Crewel Embroidery: Modern designs on light and dark

Tatiana Popova

Search Press

Within this title, Ukrainian author Tatiana Popova brings together her long lived love of Crewelwork and develops designs which are both on dark and light backgrounds.

Textiles for practicality, for projects, for cold hearted technique. What is your understanding of what Textiles should and actually is - if we make it so? Setterington here by leads us through evidence to solidify that actually, Textiles matters. Rather than a icy device, Textiles can be your, my, our vice. It can take us by the hand to mend more than a moth eaten jumper - wellness for soul.

Wild Yarn

Creating hand-spun yarn from ethnical fibres

Imogen Bright Moon

Looking at the cover of Wild Yarn, I felt underwhelmed, it seemed so alien from my own art practice. On reading though, it is the sense and the meaning behind Imogen’s practice which makes you really want to read further, no matter what your own favoured textile art method is.

The Art of Pressed Leaves

New Ideas in Pressed Leaves and Flowers

Jennie Ashmore

As a child, I was taught to document the passing of time, through foraging for items found on walks within our locality - namely leaves. I fondly remember hand in hand with my mother, coming home to open books to store these treasures.

Improve Quilts

Building Confidence In Color and Technique

Laura Loewen

Search Press

Some of us work well by rules, the rest of us love to rebel. I at heart, hate straight lines, I do not enjoy measuring and calculating. That is why I write about Textiles rather than be a tailor. So the title of this book have my curious nature a nudge

Embroidery Encyclopedia: Stitches and Techniques for Every Embroiderer

Martine Biessy

Schiffer Craft Press

Are you a teacher, someone who needs to guide others in Embroidery techniques? Or are you simply a lone Embroiderer, who wants to reunite with stitches long forgotten. Whoever you are, this look will support you.

Vintage French Needlework

300 Authentic Cross Stitch Patterns

Flowers, Borders, and Alphabets from Antique Textiles

Veronique Mallard

Schiffer Craft

Cross-stitch embroidery is a part of our history. We might ignore it, but we will come across it. Likely, we will even unknowingly be storing it within our very homes.

Textile Travels Paris

Rebecca Devaney & Jo Andrews

As we sit in the dark patchy space between winter and spring, we nest, yet feel comfort derived from a dual sense of a plan - a future adventure, something to “look forward” to. If you are of the arty type as I am, you will feel a need to include this within your list when choosing where you go. Devaney and Andrews have used their own experiences traveling such cities as Paris, New York, London…

Imagine fairytale weddings, instagram worthy floral displays and food to make you want to cook - all the simplistic pleasures in life, which we may sacrifice due to professed need - i.e. other things get in the way and suddenly we lack ourselves joy, be being allowed to be happy. Personally I see this book as a visual and textural life lesson.

Styling Beyond Instagram

Take your Prop styling skills from the Square to the Street

Robin Zachary

Schiffer Publishing

As an artist, I seem to battle so many forks. Those who follow this path with me, know that yes a 9-5 career would have been so much more restful - but fulfilling? No. We cannot hope to be good at everything - we have to be our business start ups, funding, artist, writer, promoter…..do we teach within the arts? Do we write? Something is bound to be neglected.

Marking Time with Fabric and Thread: Calendars, Diaries And Journals Within You Fiber Art

Tommye McClure Scanlin

I opened this book, expecting it to be an easy scan and review - you see, I have a pile of jobs to do and although I love a cover to cover submergence into the finer detail of the text, aesthetics and placement - I just havent the time. Well, I said. That was the plan.

I realise that on doing so, I would actually be being disrespectful to the author and publishing house. Naturally some art books are easier read than others. There are those where we get the expected, yet there will also always be the displacement from this rule. I am please to tell you that this book hits that nail.

Whitework Embroidery with Colour: Ten stunning projects with reusable iron-on transfers

Trish Burr

Search Press

This paperback guide, uses the traditional method of Whitework in a compemporary way.

The usual method of Whitework is of course, seen in white, usually with a coloured background so the thread and pattern stitched takes key view. But this can seem boring, a look best left for the historical or familial samplers of a bye-gone age. Burr here pledges to bring this method up to date.

Sew Your Own Nursery Rhyme Old MacDonald

SARAH SIMI

Search Press

I am always honest within my reviews, yet I hope this never presses on too negative a thought. I said yes to my lovely contact at Search Press to review this title; however inside I had pre-judged it. Already it was twee, stupid and for those who were more “tacky”. I silently apologise to anyone this ever in my mind resembled, because I have well and truly been bitten by the farm bug, one which was inside of me in truth all along.

A Year of Quilting

A Block For Every Week

Debbie Shore and Melissa Nayler

Search Press

As a child, my mother began making me a crochet blanket….thirty years on, the pile of not-enough-yet squares lies in our families wooden chest. I live in hope that one day it will be finished….but when….what for? What will be the push? That is why this title appealed to me.

Cardigans

Twenty Knitting Patterns for Every Season

Maja Karlsson

Batsford

When we think of knitting something, we generally will fixate first on one of two objects, a scarf or a cardigan. They are the objects of desire for anyone who wants comfort, reassurance and yes - warmth.

Explorations with collage

Merging Photographs, Paper, and Fiber

Wen Redmond

Schiffer Publishing

We live in a digital world, which can spoil so much traditionalism. However used correctly, it can flourish our lives and actually bring our art to another level visually.

There are so many illustrations throughout this book. That is the highlight for me. I am a reader, so I am looking at this from a teaching point of view. I want to read about a method, but I also want to visualise it. This book does both.

Embroidery and stitch can often be viewed as the practical, done for a reason, especially in by-gone times. However what if a stitch was for more than a stitch’s sake? For example, a stitch in time, saves nine….what about altering that well turned phrase to ‘a stitch in time, saves a mind?