The Textile Blog

I love looking at blogs associated with textiles and I thought you might like to share what I come across. John Hopper's Textile Blog is a wonderful caravanserai of delights, unwrapping almost daily some dim or little known corner of textiles and textile history. Here you can see an example from John's Blog which illustrates a posting on Early North Rusian Embroidery. John is based in St Austell, Cornwall (the bit of England that appears to be dipping its toe in the Gulf Stream). John says he has always been interested in design. He studied for a degree in constructed textiles (weave, tapestry, knit) in Scotland, but also studied printed textiles, basketry and collage. John shares with me a particular interest in both the historical social context, and the world wide distribution of embroidery. It was the Arts & Crafts movement, particularly through the Scottish connection of Ann Macbeth and Jessie Newbery, and also that of May and William Morris that attracted him to stitched textiles. He confesses that he doesn't know know nearly as much as he would like to about the subject, and many more textile based subjects in fact, but is constantly learning and adding to what he knows, and all that is eventually added to The Textile Blog. Initially, The Textile Blog was going to be concerned with a fairly narrow remit concerning the history of printed/woven textiles and carpet/tapestry. However, John has now expanded that remit to include as many aspects of textiles as he can. This means that The Textile Blog now includes: printed/woven, carpet/rug, tapestry, knit, quilting, embroidery, lace, basketry and general design. He believes that we are all adding a valuable contribution towards the documentation of all aspects of textiles, much of the skills base of which is disappearing at an alarming rate. Keep blogging, John, let's not loose any precious thread of this wonderful subject and its history.