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On the Trail of a Textile Legend
In the late 1800s, Candace Wheeler was a textile designer, a business partner of Louis Comfort Tiffany, owner of her own design business, a writer, a founder of a rural artists’ colony and of...
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Reading About Red
Long winter nights are a perfect time for armchair travel – reading my way around the world and through the centuries, and learning a little more about textiles. Madder red? I think so. This is a scrap...
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Immersed in the Impressionists
I had big plans for April – I was going to focus on Art with a capital A. I was going to read about art, watch movies about art, go to art museums and galleries, arrange flowers artistically, sketch;...
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Immersed in the Impressionists – Part Two
In my last post I related how Dancing for Degas started me down the path of trying to find out how the Impressionists were affected by war. After reading that novel, my next venture into the world of...
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Immersed in the Impressionists – Part Three
If ever you mention books from the 1800s to people, what is their most likely response? “You know they were paid by the word, that’s why there’s so much description.” Well, that’s not really true. I...
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Women Are Here to Stay!
We wrapped up our recent visit to Big Bend with a short stay in Marfa, Texas. Marfa is famous for its mystery lights, (written about even before cars were invented), for its reputation as an art town,...
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Textile Time Travel – the Middle Ages
It’s not often that we get the kind of bleak rainy weather we’ve had lately, so I’ve been glad for the excuse to stay inside and lose myself in some wonderful books and websites. My experiments with...
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Cozy Week
I love the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Years ago, I read an article in Southern Living magazine, about a family that set aside this week just to read, and I have tried to do the same...
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Bayeux Tapestry – Books, Part One
The Bayeux Tapestry seems so modern in its objectivity. It presents what happened, but you can never tell what side it’s on. No individual stands out as looking more handsome and heroic than any...
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Bayeux Tapestry – Books, Part Two
Reading about the Bayeux Tapestry made me want to know more background information on the Normans – where did they come from? Why did they want to expand into England? I mean, the north of France is...
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Hollywood Sketchbook
Wouldn’t you love to be rummaging around at an auction or thrift store, and discover a box crammed full of costume swatches and sketches? Hollywood Sketchbook: A Century of Costume Illustration is the...
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What Clothes Reveal
You know the image of our industrious forebears — #51789982 / gettyimages.com After studying textile history for the last 20 years, I had a hazy idea that that image casts our ancestors in a glorified...
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Six Books on Sustainability and Some Things I Learned
Try not to think of this as a really long post, try to think of it as a quick way to sample six books on sustainability, and see if any of them intrigue you. I have linked to their pages at Google...
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Creativity Triumphs – Theatre de la Mode
In the closing days of WWII in France, couturiers in Paris created an exhibit which would both “show the continuing vitality of the fashion industries” and raise money for war relief. After the...
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Having just read about the couturiers and milliners of WWII Paris, I was excited to find a novel set in that era. I was hoping that maybe more information about Théâtre de la Mode would be included in...
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Basting, Bingeing, and Books
A while ago Kerry at Love Those Hands At Home mentioned in a post that she had tried this quilt-basting method from Sharon Schamber. The main idea is that you roll the quilt top around one board, and...
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Locked Down in History — Venetian Convents
We’re all tired of the new restrictions on our lives, but of course, it could be worse! Lately I have read three books about people experiencing lock-ups they were powerless to escape, and I want to...
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Locked Down in History — Unraveling “The Queen’s Embroiderer”
I came across a book excerpt that described a French embroiderer in the court of Louis XIV – his techniques, materials, and customers¹. I quickly bought the book, The Queen’s Embroiderer by Joan...
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Locked Down in History — Beauty from Harsh Surroundings
A man is sentenced to prison for an indeterminate time, condemned to stay there until he can produce what he has promised, gold from lead. Even after four years in prison, with absolutely no results,...
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Why Do Models Look So Bored?
Last week I spent a delightful morning watching videos from this spring’s fashion shows, picking out the styles I would be happy to wear if I were young, rich, and attending a gala in Monte Carlo, or...
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