Table of contents for Fall 2025 in PieceWork

You might hear parents in art museums around the world whisper this phrase to their children when they get too close to a painting (or a statue, or something in the gift shop). In this issue of PieceWork, we are delighted to say, Touch all you like. Here is your chance to get close to prized artworks and even explore them with your own fingertips. Needlework wears out and disintegrates more quickly than other historical items, and we have no idea what fine and fascinating textiles have disappeared in time. Fine art, though, can tell us about these crafts. For example, Susan Holloway Scott finds knotting, a largely forgotten needlecraft, preserved in paintings of eighteenth-century royalty. Carol J. Sulcoski follows the history of knitting through paintings in three different eras.…

I designed this cowl, inspired by Hokusai’s iconic ukiyo-e, based on the clouds seen through a paper shoji screen from inside a house. In addition to the kumiko (fine wooden lattice used in shoji screen) geometric pattern and the different shapes of the clouds, I added a technique that is part of Japanese culture: hiding vivid-color things on the inside or showing them only a little. I used traveling stitches to add texture to the paper screen and stranded colorwork for the clouds. MATERIALS ◆ Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok Light (100% fine Highland wool), 218 yd (200 m)/50 g: 1 skein each of #2300 Cast Iron (C1), #2321 Loon Lake (C2), #2303 Highland Fleece (C3), and #2315 Red Rock (C4) ◆ Needles: size 2 (2.75 mm) and size 3 (3.25…

Readers of PieceWork may have heard of Mary Linwood (1755–1845), one of the most skilled needlewomen of her age. Famous for her stitched replicas of paintings by the likes of Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, and George Stubbs, she is widely considered one of the first embroidery artists. She opened a gallery in London to show her work, and by attracting a large audience, she persuaded at least some of her viewers that needlework was art. But Linwood was an exception. In the hands of her contemporaries, needlework—including embroidery—was understood as craft, not art. And if this was true of the work of the professional embroiderers who decorated the gowns and waistcoats worn at court and in elite society, it was even more true of domestic embroiderers who, in addition to…

I enjoy embroidery of all sorts, crochet, knitting, and needle lace in various techniques. I have noticed that motifs and patterns such as hearts, diamonds, crosses, zigzag lines, and checkerboards are represented often in handwork designs and are found across cultures. This prompted me to spend a year exploring an idea: Could I create one design and work it using a variety of handwork techniques? THE DESIGN: NYZYNKA My exploration began when I created a motif for nyzynka, or vertical weaving stitch, often used on clothing and household and religious items in western Ukraine. Done mainly in running stitch on evenweave fabric, the first layer of stitching is worked on the wrong side of the fabric in black or a rich dark red thread. The running stitches vary in length…

1 Make It Bigger Magnify your work with a set of readers from Flutter Eyewear. The glasses are available in various styles and colors (style Barrett, color Serenity shown) with magnification levels from 1.25 to 2.5. fluttereyewear.com 2 A Helping Hook Catch dropped stitches in style with an emergency crochet hook from Indigo Lane Jewelry that can be worn as a pendant. Handcrafted in sterling silver, the hooks are available in two sizes (small shown) and measure 2 inches long. indigolanejewelry.com 3 Mark the Spot Keep your place with this Moon Phases Stitch Marker Set from Katrinkles. The markers have closed rings that fit up to size 11 needles and a smooth finish to keep from snagging your project. katrinkles.com 4 A Magnetic Personality Give your needles a safe space…

“When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a field, or whatever it is. Think only this: here is a little square of blue, of pink, a green oval, a yellow streak, and paint exactly how it looks to you, the exact colors and shapes, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene before you.” —Claude Monet Impressionism is about emotions and sensations, capturing the changing light from the passage of time or a cloud casting shadows, the natural movement of the body and nature. An Impressionist painting pulls at our hearts rather than our heads. Monet created about 250 paintings of his garden. We can guess what time of day he’s painting, what the weather must…

Mildred “Milly” Thomas Johnstone (1900–1988) was an original. Independent and bohemian, she openly resisted the elite business culture of Bethlehem Steel into which she married. In the late 1940s, she anticipated the fiber art movement, using feminine-signifying needlepoint to portray the masculine world of steelmaking. While predominantly Modernist in aesthetic and temperament, Johnstone drew upon eclectic sources, including the Bayeux Tapestry, The Unicorn Tapestries, and South American Indigenous motifs. Milly Thomas was born in Philadelphia, studied at a Quaker school in New Jersey, then attended a finishing school in New York. A spiritual seeker after a traumatic event in 1927, she incorporated Quakerism, Zen Buddhism, the Japanese tea ceremony, and traditional Judeo-Christianity into her life and needlepoints. Her life was transformed when her little boy Tommy, aged 2½, was mauled…

This pillow draws inspiration from Vincent van Gogh’s painting Irises, capturing the vibrancy of the flowers in loops of tactile wool yarns. Beautiful blues that lean toward violet, accented with golden yellows, set against rusty oranges and a riot of glorious greens reflect Van Gogh’s palette. Van Gogh painted this masterpiece in 1889 in the iris-filled spring garden of an asylum in Saint-Rémy, France, where he was institutionalized. I decided to include one white iris in the pattern as in the original. As I punched it, I wondered whether this had a deeper meaning for Van Gogh. Was he portraying feelings of otherness, did it symbolize healing and renewal, or was there simply a white iris among the blue in the gardens that surrounded him? I love the versatility of…

Colors sing and botanicals dance in The Dessert: Harmony in Red (The Red Room) painted in 1908–1909 by Henri Matisse (1869–1954). Perhaps the epitome of Fauvist art, Matisse’s oil-on-canvas work is considered by some to be his masterpiece. It hangs today in The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, although a trip to the museum is not required to experience its visual power. I designed this embroidered bookmark to echo the energy and electric effect of the bold palette and lively composition in Matisse’s painting—and the genius of the artist. Simple stitches—stem, chain, and French knot—in crewel wool on linen make up the pas de deux of stylized leaves. If the Matisse-inspired palette of colors shown here seems a trifle tame, opt for raucous, free-wheeling brights—swimming-pool blue, salmon pink, lime,…

The Bayeux Tapestry is an important part of my family’s story, woven into our daily life. My father, a military historian, would talk about the events that were told in the tapestry and the 10,000 French- and Latin-derived words that arrived in the English language with the Norman invasion of 1066 CE. My father referred to the tapestry, with its bright colors and energetic images, as “the world’s first comic strip.” As fate would have it, I married a “Norman,” a man from the north, specifically Iceland. In marrying me, my husband married someone who works with her hands, as my mother did before me. This quality fit right into my husband’s culture. Iceland was the poorest country in western Europe at the turn of the twentieth century, and Icelanders…

Tucked away on the ground floor of the largest museum in the United States sits the laboratory of the Department of Textile Conservation, where 13 conservators care for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s extensive collection of more than 36,000 textiles. It is a team composed of all women, many hailing from countries around the globe, with extensive skills and expertise in this specialized field. Despite the department’s existence for more than 50 years, few members of the public are aware of the work that goes on behind the scenes just below Fifth Avenue. The department was established in 1973 to address the growing needs of The Met’s large collection of textiles. It is responsible for the care and preservation of tapestries, carpets, quilts, embroideries, three-dimensional accessories, fiber sculpture, and global…

Blending Naturalism and Impressionism, Joaquín Sorolla chronicled life in Spain in the early 1900s. His work is characterized by its vibrant palette, fluid brushwork, and a mastery of capturing sunlight, particularly in his seascapes and outdoor scenes depicting people unposed. In 1911, Archer Milton Huntington, son of railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington, commissioned Sorolla to paint a series of murals depicting national identity and life in the regions of Spain for the museum and library he founded, the Hispanic Society of America, dedicated to the cultures of Spain, Portugal, and the countries they colonized. In 1912, the artist painted Typical Lagarterans or Lagarteran Bride as a study for the Bread Festival mural dedicated to the Castile region. The casual group of life-size figures rendered in loose brushstrokes looks at the…

In the 1950s, the Palmer Show Card Paint Company began offering an art experience that took the world by storm: Paint-by-Numbers. Including the numbered canvas, corresponding pots of paint, and even a brush, the kits offered the experience of participating in a work of art. Adding colors to the canvas, dipping the brush in paint, and seeing the project take shape gave painters a hands-on opportunity to create a lovely finished piece with guaranteed success. For needleworkers, the opportunity to stitch a work of art can also come from a painted canvas. Needlepoint and embroidery kits generally include the design, yarns, and even a needle to get started. Painted canvases depict old masterworks, contemporary pictures, and everything in between. One contemporary artist who has embraced this collaboration is Kaffe Fassett,…