The art of storytelling through textiles, exploring the many ways in which narrative can be expressed through cloth and needle.
Strange Material explores the relationship between handmade textiles and storytelling. Through text, the act of weaving a tale or dropping a thread takes on new meaning for those who previously have seen textiles--quilts, blankets, articles of clothing, and more--only as functional objects. This book showcases crafters who take storytelling off the page and into the mediums of batik, stitching, dyeing, fabric painting, knitting, crochet, and weaving, creating objects that bear their messages proudly, from personal memoir and cultural fables to pictorial histories and wearable fictions.
Full-colour throughout, the book includes chapters on various aspects of textile storytelling, from "Textiles of Protest, Politics, and Power" to "The Fabric of Remembrance"; it spotlights well-known projects, such as the profoundly moving Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, as well as unique undertakings such as Climbing PoeTree's S.T.I.T.C.H.E.D, Mark Newport's Knitted Superheroes, Tracy Widdess's Knitted Monsters, as well as poetry blankets and stitched travel diaries. Offbeat, poetic, and subversive, Strange Material will inspire readers to re-imagine the possibilities of creating through needle and fabric.
