I really, really enjoyed this look at embroidery and the making of the feminine throughout (mostly English) history. I give it 4 stars only because it would have really been improved by colour photos at a higher resolution...but this re-issue is very fine otherwise. This book is a fascinating look at the changing motifs in embroidery and the role needlework played in reflecting, reinforcing, and serving the shifting ideologies of femininity and sex roles in Britain. Sometimes her analysis seemed oversimplified or conjectured; and the chapters were a bit meandering at times, with misleading chapter titles. For example, one chapter is called 'Femininity as Feeling', but only had one paragraph related to that idea, whereas the uniting theme of the chapter was the 19th century. All the chapters are basically organized by century and delve into each period's changes in embroidery motifs and shifting societal norms. I noticed a problem with that running throughout the book - she notes it herself at one point: Also, this books made me feel much more respect towards the history of embroidery and the work of modern women in it and how they work towards a new conception of the art. Woah! I find it very worrying that the head of a degree subject area can make a statement about academic writing which will negatively influence all the students doing a Textile degree! Rambles a bit but this is an interesting (if currently dated) look at Embroidery and how in many ways it has come to define a certain level of femininity. How it went from being a career to being an acceptable way for women to pass their time and how it has been diminished by both men and women.

The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then the needle itself wields its own visual power. Now in her eighties, Olga Frantskevich’s hand-woven tapestries recall scenes from her childhood in Belarus under German occupation. They tell vivid stories of friends and neighbours, widows and soldiers lost to war, her brightly coloured child-like scenes punctuated with traumatic memories. The main focus is on embroidery in the UK, although from time to time references are made to other countries. The information that is part of the descriptions of the images comes up again in the main text and that I didn't like. I skipped most of the long quotes in the book, as I think they were not always necessarily significant. I had read this many years ago, but had decided it would be timely to reread this since I have been reading books like Craftivism, Bibliocraft, Strange material and the Bayeaux Tapestry. This one really did come first, and those other titles follow very worthily. It is a bit dated, but still a very strong book to read, and much of the anger over historical depictions is still very valid. It is still necessary reading (well, at least very strongly suggested reading) after reading some of the titles listed earlier in the review.It's also interesting how many women subverted this and used it for their own uses, particuarly in the 20th Century. I would love to see the Dinner Party exhibition and I was very interested by the table cloth in Sweden sewn by survivors of Nazi concentration camps. Post-Victorian era, the book seems to fizzle a little bit. There's some discussion of the Women's Suffrage Movement in Britain, but I felt like the use of embroidery in protest could have been explored in more depth. The book also glosses over embroidery for the whole mid-20th century, leaping from Suffrage to the 1970s and it just felt a little off when compared to the level of detail given in the earlier chapters. McBrinn's book marks an urgent intervention in the field of craft studies and it will be an essential text for those interested in the history of needlework and masculinity ... it will also become an important starting point for scholars looking to explore much wider, more diverse and inclusive approaches to investigations of queerness and craft in the future. UR - https://pure.ulster.ac.uk/en/publications/queering-the-subversive-stitch-men-and-the-culture-of-needlework

Subversive Stitch - Exhibition at TJ Boulting in London Subversive Stitch - Exhibition at TJ Boulting in London

This book gives an historical perspective on the way embroidery changed from being a profitable business for women to a method of oppressing and exploiting women and their emotions. Only in the final two chapters do we begin to hear about how women have reclaimed embroidery to use it in subversive ways, such as the use of embroidery by suffragettes in their banners, and by more recent feminist artists. Marianne Thoermer’s jumbo threads spill out of the knotted field like a stream of colour bridging the boundaries of installation, sculpture and painting. At times the shaggy surface connotes a bacterial outgrowth colonizing the expanse. It reminds us of the contents of a petri dish - a microscopic world amplified to extended proportions, spilling and leaking out. Entangled – Threads and Meaning’ was an exhibition held at Turner Contemporary in 2017 and curated by Karen Wright. Featuring all women artists, two of them are also included here. Judith Scott (1943 -2005) had an incredible intuition for working with threads and fibres in her sculptures. Born with Down’s Syndrome at a time when little was understood about care, she was institutionalised for thirty five years until she was rescued by her twin sister Joyce and enrolled in an art centre in California to support those with disabilities. There her innate talent for thread and sculpture was discovered, and she continued to create art prolifically until her death in 2005 age 62. Here we see one of her trademark woven and wrapped found objects cocooned in brightly coloured threads. Icelandic artist Hrafnhildur Arnardottir / Shoplifter works with the brightly coloured fibres of synthetic hair to create sculptures and wall-pieces that incorporate a playful and often humorous narrative (like her bright yellow ‘Smiley’) using traditional handcraft techniques like knitting, weaving, and braiding to create new forms of textiles, while referring to established methods in art. She is attracted to the playfulness found in folk art, naïvism, and handicraft which all have a strong influence on her organic process of creating work.Since I am new in the world of embroidery, I was eager to read such an interesting looking work as this and I must say I was not disappointed.