Tag Archive: textiles

Thread Stories

So far this year I have read three textile books.  Two of them even have the same title! but they are very different in tone and topic.  Most of the time, my reading… Continue reading

Pattern Books from the 1970s and 1980s

We have reached the end of the great collection of pattern books that I picked up in an online auction.  Handwritten notes clipped into these books show that the original owners, Minnie and… Continue reading

Virtual Visits

During this period of isolation, my sister and I have been taking virtual trips together.  Every day one of us picks a destination, then we get on our phones and chat while we… Continue reading

TextileTopia

Let’s say I had enough money to buy one of those abandoned malls, and even more money to fix it up the way I wanted.  What would I do with it?  Why, turn… Continue reading

There’s Still a Place in the World for a Textile Writer

Last week I read a funny article, “Send a Baby to Mars!”  Kelsey Piper wrote in Vox about petitions generated by Artificial Intelligence (AI), based on the language of actual petitions submitted to… Continue reading

Textile Glimpses of Nova Scotia

Last week our Cherished Neighbor Liz and I spent the week in Nova Scotia, someplace both of us have always wanted to go.  Most of our time was spent taking in the scenery… Continue reading

Mystery Textile

In my last few posts, I have told about some great textiles I came across at a local antique show.  The nice lady in the booth with the quilt top told me she… Continue reading

Design Advice from the Dress Doctors

I cannot adequately express how much I love this book — The Lost Art of Dress: The Women Who Once Made America Stylish. Author Linda Przybyszewski tells the story of the early 20th… Continue reading

What Clothes Reveal

You know the image of our industrious forebears — After studying textile history for the last 20 years, I had a hazy idea that that image casts our ancestors in a glorified light,… Continue reading

Dress Diary 1855-1917

A few days ago, when I was looking at the Hollywood costume sketches at the Brooklyn Museum, I noticed this wonderful dress diary in their archives. The diary’s owner, Ida Jackson, was born… Continue reading