Unfolding Cloth: Inspiration from Historical Textiles

This insightful book is a guide to finding, researching, and using historical textiles in your stitched work, to bring layers of meaning and a rich sense of emotional connection through place and time.

Renowned textile artist and tutor Hannah Lamb frequently uses and is inspired by old fabrics in her work, from age-worn cotton and linen sheets to delicate lace collars, vintage patchwork to snippets of colorful printed silk. In this book she explores many creative ways to incorporate historical textiles into your own work, from conception and initial research to the finished piece.

Chapters cover:
- "Beginnings" how to track down historical textiles in shops, markets, antiques fairs, museum collections, and online, or in your own family scrap bag, and how to conduct thorough and meaningful research into them.
- "Creative Connections" how to design and plan your work with historical textiles, starting with mood boards and sketchbooks and progressing to practical creative experimentation, including old-fashioned techniques such as the "prick and pounce" method of pattern transfer, popular in Tudor times.
- "Making with Meaning" the practicalities of using old and fragile materials in your work, and how to combine them with newer fabrics to make cohesive and beautiful pieces that tell powerful stories. This chapter also explores alternative ideas, such as digital printing, that allow you to import the fabric's essence but leave the original piece intact.
- "Heritage in Context" this chapter considers examples of contemporary artworks that respond to textile heritage and place, and studies how we tell histories and whose perspective we tell them from.
This thoughtful, imaginative book is illustrated with inspirational examples of the author's own work and that of other textile artists from around the world, and provides a valuable introduction to working with historical textiles to enhance your own pieces of textile art.

Author: Hannah Lamb
Publisher: Batsford
Published: 09/23/2025
Pages: 128
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.75lbs
Size: 11.02h x 8.78w x 0.65d
ISBN: 9781849949439

About the Author
Hannah Lamb is a textile artist, lecturer, and author, based at her home studio in West Yorkshire. She works with a range of textile processes, including stitch, print, and fabric manipulation, creating textile artworks from an intimate scale to larger installation works. Lamb has lectured in textiles at the Bradford School of Art since 2004, where she is currently Programme Leader for Textiles. She exhibits nationally and internationally and is an exhibiting member of the 62 Group of Textile Artists. Her first solo book, Poetic Cloth: Creating Meaning n Textile Art, was published by Batsford in 2019.