Presents step-by-step instructions for creating surface designs on fabric using textile paints and printing ink, and includes tips on such techniques as stamping, silkscreen, image transfer, marbling, and Japanese shibori.

Babies, family, and friends will delight in these fun and washable themed novelty books. Easily made in a day, fabric picture books take advantage of fabric motifs, conversational prints, and I Spy fabrics.* Make a floral applique gift book for a gardener. *Make a foundation-pieced bird book for a friend. *Use photo transfer techniques and stitch up a family photo memory book.

To call what Janet Bolton makes with fabric ‘patchwork’ doesn’t do justice to her creations – hers are images, pictures that capture fragments of an imagination that can strike anywhere, at any time. In this stunning and original book, Janet shows you how to create beautiful pictures on fabric. Taking you through her personal method, she will guide you to find the inspiration around you and teach you how to turn your creativity into a textile project and develop your personal ‘voice’. With friendly, reassuring and inspiring guidance, Janet shows you first how to find inspiration and then how to put your ideas into practice, complete with a step by step example that will show you every stage of construction from beginning to end. Once you finish your first project you won’t be able to wait to start the next!

From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, explore the global history of textiles and the world they weave together in this enthralling and educational guide. The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world's most influential commodity.

A mother stitches a few lines of prayer into a bedcover for her son serving in the Union army during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved African American woman creates a quilt populated by Biblical figures alongside celestial events. A Diné women weaves a blanket for a U.S. Army soldier stationed in the Southwest. A quilted Lady Liberty, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln mark the resignation of Richard Nixon. These are just a few of the diverse and sometimes hidden stories of the American experience told by quilts and bedcovers from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Spanning more than four hundred years, the fifty-six works of textile art in this book express the personal narratives of their makers and owners and connect to broader stories of global trade, immigration, industry, marginalization, and territorial and cultural expansion. Made by Americans of European, African, Native, and Hispanic heritage, these engaging works of art range from family heirlooms to acts of political protest, each with its own story to tell.