Unfolding Cloth

A practical and inspirational guide to finding, researching and using historical textiles in your textile art work, designed to bring layers of meaning and a rich sense of emotional connection through place and time. Written by renowned textile artist and tutor Hannah Lamb, the book explores how old fabrics—from age-worn cotton and linen to delicate lace and vintage patchwork—can inform and enrich your own stitched pieces. It covers the journey from initial idea to finished work, with practical advice on researching, designing, and making, while embracing both traditional techniques and modern approaches. The book is illustrated with inspirational examples from the author’s own work and those of other leading textile artists, offering a thoughtful introduction to working with textile heritage to enhance your art.

The guide is structured to help you engage with historical textiles in a thoughtful, creative way, whether you are starting from a single scrap or a broader research project. It emphasises practical planning, careful material handling, and storytelling through textiles, inviting you to explore place, time and perspective in your practice.

• Guide to finding, researching historical textiles
• Designed for textile artists and makers
• Techniques include prick and pounce
• Also explores digital printing as an option
• Chapters: Unfolding, Connecting, Making, Gathering

1. Unfolding: how to track down historical textiles in shops, markets, antiques fairs, museum collections and online, or in your own family scrap bag, and how to conduct thorough and meaningful research into them.
2. Connecting: how to design and plan your work with historical textiles, starting with mood boards and sketchbooks and progressing to practical creative experimentation, including old-fashioned techniques such as the ‘prick and pounce’ method of pattern transfer, popular in Tudor times.
3. Making: the practicalities of using old and fragile materials in your work, and how to combine them with newer fabrics to make cohesive and beautiful pieces that tell powerful stories. This chapter also explores alternative ideas, such as digital printing, that allow you to import the fabric’s essence but leave the original piece intact.
4. Gathering: this chapter considers examples of contemporary artworks that respond to textile heritage and place, and studies how we tell histories and whose perspective we tell them from.