For the Incas finely worked and highly decorative textiles came to symbolize both wealth and status, fine cloth could be used as both a tax and currency, and the very best textiles became amongst the...
The metadata below describe the original scanning. Follow the All Files: HTTP link in the View the book box to the left to find XML files that contain more...
Lowell's American Textile History Museum Has Closed for financial reasons. The Museum was founded in 1960. For about sixty years they have been a primary source for ----well---American Textile History, particularly about the New England mills that printed so much of the fabric that found its way into quilts. Read the sad news here: (It's not breaking news---they decided in June.) http://www.athm.org/news/athm-seeks-to-close/ A few things we will miss: Exhibitions Homefront and Battlefield: Quilts & Context in the Civil War Programming: See a great day at this blog post: http://fileunderfiber.blogspot.com/2011_10_01_archive.html Collections: http://chace.athm.org/singleDisplay.php?kv=70515 Mill books I would guess they had more dated sample books than any library---at least any library that was free and open to the public by appointment. Other swatch libraries might charge you $500 to access them. Fabric diaries Photographs and documents about the American mills.
Foto P. Montopoli da "Le Vie d'Italia", rivista mensile del Touring Club Italiano - anno 1934
Just this week we have been watching again the 1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II from the news archives in this the Diamond Jubilee ...
Recent research into plant bast fibre technology points to a Neolithic European tradition of working fibres into threads by splicing, rather than draft spinning. The major issue now is the ability of textile specialists and archaeobotanists to distinguish the technology of splicing from draft-spun fibres. This paper defines the major types of splicing and proposes an explicit method to observe, identify and interpret spliced thread technology. The identification of spliced yarns is evaluated through the examination of textiles from Europe, Egypt and the Near East. Through the application of this method, we propose that the switch from splicing to draft spinning plant fibres occurred much later than previously thought. The ramifications of this shift in plant processing have profound implications for understanding the chaîne opératoire of this ubiquitous and time-consuming technology, which will have to be factored into social and economic reconstructions of the past.
Interesting article about the importance of textiles in history, and one woman's deep knowledge of the past and its connection to fabric... http://www.stuff.co.
The new exhibition shows all the highlights of the Abegg-Stiftung’s world-class collection including several new acquisitions on show for the first time.
Curtain Fragment, 6th to 7th century
Considered the first art form in the region, cloth has possessed unparalleled importance in the Andes since the second millennium BC.
For as long as women have been sewing, they've been using embroidery to tell their own stories—often in societies that refuse to hear them otherwise.
A square panel of tapestry woven wool and linen. Egyptian, ca. AD 300-500.
These textiles laughed in the face of entropy.
Community and Textile Art
Using tools leftover from ancient spindles and looms, textile archaeologists are starting to understand the fabrics of the past.
Date: ca. 1600. Culture: British. Medium: Leather, satin worked with silk and metal thread, seed pearls; satin, couching, and darning stitches; metal bobbin...
Appliqued crocheted piece by Kate Clayton Donaldson Sold at Case Antiques I've long been intrigued by this photograph in the Library of Congress, which has been posted for several years without any identification. Lately, though, the artist is identified as Kate Clayton Donaldson who did the piece above. The photograph was taken by Doris Ulmann about 1934 for a series she did with Allen Eaton for the 1937 book Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands. Just what was in that cardboard box? And is the woman making a quilt? I now realize that the box is full of crocheted figures. She is not making a quilt but rather an appliqued picture. John C. Campbell Folk School,Hunter Library Digital Collections, Western Carolina University Catharen Clayton of Cherokee County was born in Kentucky on April 19,1870 and died on August 1, 1960 according to her tombstone and death certificate. Collection of the American Museum of Folk Art Her method seems to be chain-stitching motifs and then assembling them onto a small piece of coarsely woven wool or linen. A prominent tree and some free-form animals link the work to traditional Indo-European imagery. UPDATE: Dot commented: "The figures look to be made with a double crochet stitch, not chain stitch. Some of the wider vines are also one row of double crochet; others may be chain stitch." This piece in the collection of the Southern Highlands Craft Guild is 31 inches wide. Collection of the Asheville Art Museum She may have dyed the yarns in the figures and the backgrounds herself. Because it is "folk art" the thought is she was using "natural dyes" but the way the colors are fading looks more like the synthetics in the packaged dyes that were readily available in North Carolina in the 1930s. From a Brunk Auction Kate and her story illustrate a point about our attitudes towards the makers and the work. She is considered a folk artist but she was also a commercial artist. There are several origin stories about how she began creating her small compositions. John C. Campbell Folk School today. It was founded to teach marketable craft skills to local residents. The probable truth is that in the early 1930s she was working in the kitchen of the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, 10 miles from her home in Marble. Her grandson Hayden Hensley was a student at the school in the late 1920s, learning woodcarving. She had stitched crocheted figures to an old baby blanket and liked the results well enough to show it to the people in charge of the adult education center. They were impressed, saw the commercial viability of the small piece and encouraged her to make more to sell. Donaldson & Allen Eaton Eaton's mission was to link crafts and rural traditions to provide an income for Southerners. She met Allen Eaton of the Southern Mountain Handicraft Guild, a cooperative marketing crafts. He and Doris Ulmann interviewed and photographed mountain artists for their survey in 1933 & 1934. That may be Eaton in the Doris Ulmann photo of Donaldson showing him how she works. The alternative, folky version of the story is that her work was inspired by "cow blankets" created by women in Italy. The caption at the Asheville Art Museum: "Many parallels have been made between the cow blankets of Granny Donaldson and the Po Valley fashion blankets made by women in Italy. In Italy, the blankets are used to proclaim the spirit of life and are worn by cows during festivals. Donaldson never heard of the Italian cow blankets and says that she didn't own a cow when she began her first blanket, although rumors still remain that she copied the Italian blankets for her cow, Bessie." http://www.ashevilleart.org/gallery/gallery-piece/cow-blanket-1308/ Another version is that she made an appliqued blanket to keep her cow warm. This piece of functional art was noticed by a passing art lover. The culprit in the cow blanket story may be a feature writer named Bill Sharpe, "Steeped in the Lore of North Carolina," who published an article in the Washington Star on March 2, 1946 with a few paragraphs on Donaldson and her cow blankets. In this story a passerby noticed Bessie the cow clad in a Donaldson blanket and the rest was history---or folklore---or what people wanted to hear about North Carolinians at the time. Do note another folky touch in that she is known as Granny Donaldson. How come men artists are never known as Grampy Bill Traylor? The textiles are fun to look at and there are a lot of them in the folkart market over the past years. Here's one from a Slotin Folk Art Auction in 2011 And the caption: "Farm Animal Pictorial Wall Hanging. c. 1980's. Knitted and hooked yarn on cotton backing. A few minor holes, otherwise great condition. 27" x 34"h. Provenance: Sally Cathey's Blue Ridge Weavers, NC, a copy of the envelope that Granny Donaldson used to send the work to Sally Cathey accompanies the piece. Est. $500-800." Didn't "Granny" die in 1960? https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/10128111_383-granny-donaldson-pictorial-wall-hanging Little Brasstown Baptist Cemetery Donaldson at work with a crazy quilt on her chair. Source? Don't call them cow blankets and don't call her Granny, unless, of course you want to set my teeth on edge. Read about Allen Eaton and his influence on the ideas of folk art and the arts and crafts movement: https://www.wcu.edu/library/DigitalCollections/CraftRevival/people/alleneaton.html
Noted tapestry artist Unn Sønju provides an overview of Norwegian tapestry since Viking times.
1- Gunta Stölzl(1897-1983). Esquema para Textil,curso en Bauhaus Dessau, 1927 2- Stephen Wolfram. A New Kind of Science, 2002 En una épo...
If the mere thought of clothes moths fluttering out of your closet strikes terror into your heart, imagine if your...
I discovered Ainu Textiles on my trip to Hokkaido. Here's a bit more about these powerful, bold fabrics and the people that made them.
Antique Uzbek Silk Wool Suzani Textile Embroidery 7 ft 3 in x 5 ft 4 in...
History of Knitting - Who Invented Knitting & we take a look at Knits through the ages - Knitting History & How knitting first began until now.
As the Safavids set up their capital cities of Tabriz, Qazvin, and finally Isfahan, the textile industry became centralized and was swiftly incorporated into the national economy, creating an expansive revenue stream.
