Category: Textiles

  • Mississippi Valley Textile Museum

    This week a group of Canadian visitors mentioned Mississippi Valley Textile Museum. This museum in Ontario focuses on the textile industry, labour practices and labourers and the history of production in the valley. Its collections, research centre, biographies and changing exhibitions offer a lively and engaging breadth for any textile enthusiast who is interested in…

  • Rethinking textile printing

    Most of us will be familiar with pigments and dyes derived from rocks – ochre, lapis lazuli… – but maybe textile printing can help rescue polluted water. This project, Crushing the Rocks, by Petra Vicianová, a textile designer and doctoral candidate in the textile department at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava,…

  • Around the world in 80 fabrics

    When marine biologist, Tierney Thys, found that her research sites were being contaminated by microplastic she decided to do something about it. The result is “Around the World in 80 Fabrics“, a non-profit initiative that started out with a quilt. The quilt was created with a group of Californian middle-schoolers who responded to a National…

  • Online learning

    There are plenty of online resources that bring together lots of different subjects to learn about. Most of us like to learn something new and sometimes it seems like there isn’t enough time to go to a regular class. This is where websites like Coursera or Domestika can help. You can sign up to lots…

  • Woolscours of New Zealand

    From the earliest days of the woollen industry in New Zealand there has been a demand for scouring the clip. Scouring is the name for washing the shorn wool, getting rid of lanolin and ensuring that the fleece is clean. Before the advent of industrial processes, wool was sent “in the grease” to London to…

  • Rya rugs

    Rya rugs are floor coverings from the Nordic countries but Finland has made them into an art form. The traditions of rya rugs dates to the pre-Viking age and it is believed that these coverings were originally made for fishing boats, keeping fishermen warm in the harsh climate of the North. Later they became part…

  • Cranbrook Art Museum

    The magic power that art has to bring people together was in evidence this week in the studio in Greymouth. The textile studio in Māwhera Greymouth might seem to be a little incongruous. After all, the West Coast of Aotearoa New Zealand is not particularly noted for its textiles, relying instead on the beautiful scenery…

  • Cary Wolinsky – photographer

    Cary Wolinksy was a photographer, well-known for his images that featured in publications like National Geographic and Smithsonian. In 1972 while in India on assignment, Wolinksy met a man in a hotel bar who persuaded the photographer to accompany him to his town, Bhadohi, where carpets are woven. This fortuitous encounter started him on a…

  • Ancient textiles of Peru

    Peruvian textiles have a long and rich history, one that continues today. This article from 1920 comes from The Museum Journal, a publication that was produced by Penn Museum from 1910 to 1935, and it reveals the understanding of Peruvian textiles in the early Twentieth Century. Anni Albers, the famous Bauhaus weaver and artist, credited…

  • Fun with fashion

    Here is a fun thing to do if you are in Dunedin in mid-March. Opening for two hours at a time and presented by the Fashion Department at Otago Polytechnic, you are invited to try on fashion that challenges what it means to dress-up. Any thoughts you might have about trying on these items can…