Inspirations Inspirations Issue 105

CHOICE CAN BE A WONDERFUL THING; a meal in a restaurant, a lipstick colour or an ice-cream flavour – choosing one can be lots of fun. But what do you do when you just can’t make a choice or there are too many irresistible options available? Luckily, choosing an embroidery project does not require the immediate response expected in other situations and you can spend as long as you like deciding which of the projects in this issue you would like to tackle first. If a little bit of glitter catches your eye, you will find four projects that utilise metal threads in very different ways. An elegant study of a flowering pea plant borrows unusual and exciting techniques from the 16th century, combining colourful silk and gold threads: traditional…

In 2020, French thread company Au Ver A Soie will celebrate 200 years of manufacturing their range of superb silk embroidery threads. To share in the celebration of this anniversary, you can enter our competition to win an A.V.A.S Discovery Pack XXL, a collection of the different silk threads produced by the company in one colour. To enter the competition, go to the website, www.silk-thread.com and find the answer to this question: In what year was the trademark, featuring a silkworm on a leaf beneath the company name, registered?…

After completing her studies, WIDAD KAWAR settled in Amman, Jordan with her family, where she established the Tiraz Centre, a home for Palestinian, Jordanian and Arab heritage. Traditional Palestinian embroidery is known for its rich colours and stylised motifs but even scholars are unsure about its true origin. The oldest existing piece dates from the first half of the 19th century. Most of its recorded history covers the era between then and the mid-20th century, with the establishment of the State of Israel and the large-scale disruption of the Palestinian way of life. “I saw and felt the influence of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 on the people. The beautiful picture I had of the village women dressed up in their best costumes and coming in groups to the market in Bethlehem…

Widad Kamel Kawar | Rimal Publications Soft Cover 449 pages ISBN: 978-9963-610-41-9 | RRP €45.00 As the title suggests, this is a book about identity. It is filled with personal stories, anecdotes, history and textiles. It is a visual feast with most spreads featuring more photos than text, perfectly illustrating the personal stories and descriptions of Palestinian textiles and lifestyles. The book is divided into two sections. Part 1 is the story of Widad Kawar, the author and collector, the story of the collection itself and its place within the wider environment of textile conservation, museum studies and heritage preservation. Part 2 is all about the origin of the collection. It starts with a map of Palestine, marking all the villages and towns where the items originated. Eleven chapters look at different regions in detail,…

NIKI MCDONALD, also known as Tapestry Girl, is a contemporary needlepoint artist based in Sydney, Australia. She has a degree in creative arts majoring in textiles but creating with wool has been a part of her life since her mother gave her a small weaving loom as a seven-year-old. Textile art is her passion and Niki walks, talks and dreams about her art practice while she parents her two sons and works as a high school teacher. “It is better for me to have a day job because I continually battle with the duality of creating and selling.” “I’m inspired by the ephemeral and drawn to the mechanical nature of my textile art practice. I feel my spirit pulsating as the piece unfolds and takes shape. Wool, like spirit, absorbs light and…

The Goldwork Masterclass Alison Cole | Self-published 2019 | Soft-cover 192pg ISBN 978-0-9943923-2-9 | RRP $54.95 GOLDWORK HAS A LONG AND FASCINATING HISTORY and examples of this technique include some of the most spectacular pieces of embroidery ever worked. For centuries the cost of working with gold threads limited its use to ecclesiastical, military and royal applications but the availability and more moderate pricing of contemporary threads makes them accessible to anyone interested in this beautiful technique. Alison has long been enamored with the seductive allure of metal threads and in this wonderful book she shares all the knowledge she has gathered over many years with the reader – and there is a lot of it. This book is based on a masterclass taught at the Embroiderers’ Guild of Victoria, Australia and…