The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine

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I can't remember how I came across this book, but I couldn't resist putting it on the list for our feminist book club, and was very happy when it got voted in for discussion. McBrinn's book marks an urgent intervention in the field of craft studies and it will be an essential text for those interested in the history of needlework and masculinity . They tell vivid stories of friends and neighbours, widows and soldiers lost to war, her brightly coloured child-like scenes punctuated with traumatic memories. The book includes examples and throughout it certain topics are covered, including how and why embroidery became a woman-only activity.

The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the

Rozsika Parker is a psychotherapist and commentator which it probably the reason why the many images in the book are disappointingly in black and white. I’ve always been fascinated by samplers since it was often the only place that ordinary women and female children could actually sign their name to something they had made themselves. Pennina Barnett and Jennifer Harris [1] summarized Parker’s contribution to the art and craft canon: “In this ground-breaking study she mapped the decline in the status of embroidery from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century: from a high art form practised by both men and women, particularly in England, to one that was seen as lowly and feminine—and from an admired professional art to a marginalised domestic craft.

Embroidery, and I suppose textile art in general, has a history of being seen as "lesser" in comparison to the male-dominated fine arts such as painting or sculpture, but this wasn't always the case. For example, we learn that Queen Mary, the Duke of Windsor’s mother, insisted on teaching her five sons and one daughter the skills of crochet and knitting (48).

The Subversive Stitch Revisited - A Companion to Textile The Subversive Stitch Revisited - A Companion to Textile

Nothing much has changed, except what men blame on women's 'demise' (by not doing embroidery will lead to abandon of morals).The book is definitely an ode to (British) embroidery and it exemplifies quite well the attractiveness of it as a field of study. I have to say that one of the most striking things I have read in it so far - and I am not too far into it - is a section on a woman who was suspicious of her daughter's needlework.