Text & Textiles Online

Image credit: Miranda Mills, www.mirandasnotebook.com.

Although it feels like much longer ago, we held a Selvedge Social at the end of February. 100 textile lovers joined us at the Artworker’s Guild in Bloomsbury, London, for Text and Textiles: presentations and a panel discussion with authors Tracy Chevalier, Nicola Beauman and textile artist and author Clare Hunter. All three writers have explored, in one way or another, how textiles are interwoven into women's lives; now you can hear their discussion and join us again online, by watching our free video of the event.

We are selling Tracy Chevalier’s latest novel, A Single Thread, in our book shop, and are pleased to be able to offer it as a free gift with every order over £100. Tracy discusses the novel during the talk; it is the story of Violet Speedwell, a ‘surplus woman’ in 1930s society, unlikely to marry. Violet resolves to escape her suffocating mother and strike out alone. A new life awaits her in Winchester where Violet falls in with the broderers, a disparate group of women charged with embroidering kneelers for the Cathedral. She soon becomes entwined in their lives and their secrets.

Clare Hunter has been a banner maker, community textile artist and textile curator for over twenty years and established the community sewing enterprise NeedleWorks in Glasgow in the 1980s. Clare discusses her first book, Threads of Life a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. Nicola Beauman founded Persephone Books in 1998. It was set up to reprint (mostly) women writers, (mostly) of the inter-war period and now has over a hundred titles in print. Nicola talks about the design of Persephone books, and a special personal design planned for their next title.

Visit our Talks page for information about our upcoming socials.