Embroiderers' Guild Bookshop - History

5000 Years of Textiles now in paperback
Harris, J
Pub. British Museum Press
Price £16.99 paperback
New in handy paperback format, this comprehensive survey covers the development of textiles worldwide from Egyptian artefacts of 3000 BC to contemporary crafts and furnishings. Invaluable for anyone interested in the history of textiles.

Art Deco Textiles NEW!
Charlotte Samuels
Pub. V&A Publications
Price £19.95 paperback
This book presents a stunning selection of the fabrics which clothed the smart women and furnished the stylish interiors of Europe and America during the age of th Ballets Russes and jazz. The Paris 1925 Exhibition brought the richly exotic designs of Paul Poiret and Raoul Duffy to worldwide attention and the fabrics pictured here trace the Art Deco style as it evolves from the initial vibrant blossoming to a more geometric, avant-garde look. This book is full of stunning full page images of the most inspirational textiles.

Art Deco Textiles : The french designers NEW!
Hard, A
Pub. Thames & Hudson
Price £18.95 paperback

Art Of Embroidery
Synge, L
Pub. Antique Collectors' Club
Price £45.00 hardback

Baby Wore White, Robes for Special Occasions 1800-1910
Toomer, H
Pub. Heather Toomer
Price £17.50 paperback
A fascinating and charming, well-researched, informed and illustrated book that reviews the history of christening and other decorative baby robes through the 19th century. Recommended for collectors, designers, dressmakers and social historians, it also includes 4 patterns taken from illustrated robes, and 1 original 19th-century pattern.

Corsets NEW!
Jill Salen
Pub. Batsford
Price £20.00 paperback
Available now! A fascinating book that shows the historical patterns and techniques of corset making between 1750 and 1917.

Emblems for a Queen - The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots NEW!
Michael Bath
Pub. Archetype Publications
Price £29.50 paperback
The embroidereis produced by Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick) are amongst the best-known and most fascinating examples of historical embroidery left to us today. Michael Bath not only describes and illustrates the surviving embroideries but, using early records, documents a large number of those that have disappeared, creating the first full catalogue of all the known embroideries created by these two remarkable women.

Embroidered with White NEW!
Heather Toomer
Pub. Heather Toomer
Price £19.75 paperback
Available now! The 18th century fashion for Dresden lace and other whiteworked accessories. This is a must read! Heather Toomer has also written "Baby Wore White, Robes for Special Occasions 1800-1910" which is another excellent book worth reading.

English Church Embroidery 1833-1953
Schoeser, M
Pub. Watts & Co
Price £22.95 paperback

In Praise of the Needlewoman
Gail Carolyn Sirna
Pub. Merrell Publishers
Price £19.95 hardback
In this beautiful collection of paintings that spans five centuries, the author explores artists' depictions of women engaged in the timeless pursuit of needlework.

Jane Austen Fashion : Fashion and Needlework in the Works of Jane Austen
Byrde, Penelope
Pub. Excellent Press
Price £12.95 hardback

Needlework and Embroidery Tools
Johnson, E
Pub. Shire Publications
Price £4.99 paperback

Needlework Tools & Accessories, a Dutch Tradition
Sullivan, R
Pub. Antique Collectors' Club
Price £17.50 hardback
The first published history of the tools and accessories produced in Holland and used by needlewomen worldwide from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century. With nearly 500 illustrations, all types of sewing tools are represented within their historical context. This fascinating and beautiful book contains many photographs and information never previously published.

Old Sewing Machines
Head, C
Pub. Shire Publications
Price £3.50 paperback

Ottoman Embroidery
Ellis, M & Wearden, J
Pub. V&A Publications
Price £18.95 paperback

Quaker School Girl Samplers from Ackworth
Carol Humphrey
Pub. Needleprint & Ackworth School Estates Ltd
Price £32.00 hardback
Telling the story of the makers and their samplers from the historic Quaker School at Ackworth.

Rigmaroles & Ragamuffins NEW!
Elinor Kapp
Pub. word4word
Price £9.99 paperback
This book offers a collection of textile-related words and phrases that have entered into our everyday conciousness through spoken and written English. An ideal book for those who love textiles as well as those who love words and stories.

Samplers
Clabburn, P
Pub. Shire Publications
Price £4.50 paperback

Stitching for Victory NEW!
Suzanne Griffith
Pub. Marston Books
Price £16.99 paperback
When the Second World War broke out, stitched items suddenly became absolutely vital. A massive production of uniforms and stitched equipment took over factories and raw materials while in the home every scrap of thread was utilised. The stories in these pages are of weddings - most brides had to be content with getting married in their uniform, parachute drops in the dead of night into enemy territory; lice and mud in the trenches; and, regimental insignia embroidered onto pyjamas until the men came home and secret stitches hidden from brutal guards. The book also shows what an important role the Embroiderers' Guild played during the Second World War, and what happend to the Guild during the war. It contains previously unpublished colour illustrations one of which is a piece of work by Queen Mary.

Tapestry in the Renaissance - Art and Magnificence NEW!
The Metroplitan Museum of Art
Pub. Yale University Press
Price £40.00 hardback
Tapestries were a principal aspect of the ostentatious 'magnificence' used during the Renaissance by powerful religious and secular rulers to broadcast their wealth and might. This sumptuously illustrated book presents the first major survey of tapestry production between 1460 and 1560 and it catalogues the first monographic loan exhibition of tapestries in the United States in twenty-five years. It highlights the finest tapestry cycles of the age as one of the greatest achievements of Renaissance Art. Examples from many of the most important surviving sets - which still dazzle today as they did 500 years ago in the palaces and cathedrals of Europe - illustrate the contribution that the medium made of the Art, liturgy and propaganda of the time. This study focuses on the stylistic evolution of the tapestry design in the Netherlands beginning with the development by Netherlandish designers in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries of an aesthetic that emphasised narrative and decorative qualities. During the 1510s, 1520s and 1530s, commissions by Pope Leo X and other Italian patrons resulted in the despatch of tapestry cartoons by Italian artists - notably Raphael and his assistants - to Brussels, the main center of high-quality production, thus introducing Roman High Renaissance asthetics to Northern Tapestry design. Therafter Netherlands artists like Bernaert van Orley and his followers melded this Italian influence with their local traditions of tapestry design to produce a rich aesthetic that was ideally suited to the medium.

Textile Treasures at the Glasgow School of Art
Liz Arthur
Pub. A&C Black
Price £19.99 paperback
The archives of the Glasgow School of Art contain a collection of textiles that range from medieval stumpwork up through the designs of recent students. This book highlights the history of the collection and some of the wonderful examples that are in it.

Textiles of the Arts & Crafts Movement
Parry, L
Pub. Thames & Hudson
Price £14.95 paperback
A comprehensive survey of English textiles from 1880-1920, this is a new edition with many new colour illustrations. Published to coincide with the major exhibition at the V&A.

The Arts and Crafts Movement NEW!
Rosalind P Blakesley
Pub. Phaidon
Price £39.95 hardback
A book for makers, historians and anyone interesed in beautiful objects.

The Bayeux Tapestry Embroiderers' Story NEW!
Jan Messent
Pub. Search Press
Price £15.00 paperback
Who were the embroiderers of the Bayeux Tapestry? What were their tools, their materials, and how could such a massive project have been designed and organised? These questions and many others have been avoided for so long due to a lack of hard facts, but in this book the author has drawn upon her own experience as an embroiderer and artist to piece together all the clues she could find in the tapestry itself. After extensive research, Jan Messent has compiled a fascinating and colourful account which will help to place this famous embroidery in a plausible context. This new study is essential reading for anyone wishing to know more about The Bayeux Tapestry Embroiderers.

The Fabric of Myth NEW!
Comton Verney
Pub. Compton Verney
Price £15.95 paperback
Available now! This is a stunning book bound in fabric and was published on the occasion of the exhibition "The Fabric of Myth" at Compton Verney. In an age when textiles have become part of a throwaway culture, this exhibition uncovers the sometimes long forgotten language of fabric and highlights the currency which the medium retains. The themes from these myths are explored in work from 400BC to the present day by artists as diverse as William Morris, Henry Moore, Bispo Do Rosario and Louise Bourgeois. We love this one in the Guild Bookshop!

The History of Beads from 30,000 BC to the Present now in paperback
Lois Sherr Dubin
Pub. Thames & Hudson
Price £19.95 paperback
A book for anyone capitivated by beads. Bead styles and uses are investigated from prehistoric times to the 20th century.

The Modernist Textile NEW!
Gardner Troy, V
Pub. Lund Humphries
Price £35.00 hardback

The Needlework of Mary Queen of Scots
Swain, M
Pub. Ruth Bean
Price £10.95 paperback

The Story of Antique Needlework Tools
McConnell
Pub. Bushwood
Price £49.95 hardback

The Tudor Tailor
Ninya Mikhaila & Jane Malcolm-Davies
Pub. Batsford
Price £19.99 paperback
Create historically accurate Tudor costumes from hats to doublets. Patterns and practical instructions included, this book is a must for anyone involved in heritage projects, education and costumes for the stage.

Thimbles and Thimble Cases
Johnson, E
Pub. Shire Publications
Price £4.99 paperback

Wearing Propaganda : Textiles on the Home front in Japan, Britain, and the United States NEW!
Pub. Yale
Price £25.00 hardback