A Sisterhood Threaded Through Time
- Barbara Stark-Nemon
- 1 minute ago
- 4 min read
For 30 years I have been part of a group of women who are dedicated fiber artists; we quilt, knit, crochet and embroider. We gather for connection, for support, and for sharing in the joy of creativity. We have learned new skills, and have gifted, donated, and sold our work to each other and many others and have relished the addition of fiber artists to our identities. As we age and life intervenes, and our group has gotten smaller, I treasure what we’ve created together. I love the finely crocheted angel gifted to me by one of our group who died years ago. Her mother was deaf, only communicated through signs, but was a gifted crochet artist, and each member of our group received an angel or snowflake from her. I treasure the quilts we made for ourselves and each other when we first began to gather, and the gifts we’ve made for each others’ children and grandchildren.
Until I researched my most recent novel, Isabela’s Way, about a 14-year-old embroiderer in 17th century Portugal, I never thought much about the role fiber arts played throughout history, especially for women, apart from the social pleasure of sewing circles and quilting bees, and the necessity of producing clothing and household items before the industrial revolution made those tasks more optional. I now understand how the women I know and love and share creative efforts with are part of a very rich tradition of women using their hands and hearts to communicate their intellect, their emotions, their culture, their friendships, their politics, and their social standing.
I learned to knit and sew from my mother and grandmothers. I saw them embroider and cross-stitch table cloths, knit complicated dresses and sweaters, sew and repair clothing. I inherited lace doilies made by my great grandmother. These women made clothing and tablecloths and curtains and decorative textiles as a means of creative expression, and occasionally for practical purposes, and because they enjoyed being what we now call creatives. I never understood that they were part of a rich tradition of women fiber artists as storytellers, challengers of authority, amplifiers of others’ voices, and signalers of political and social change.
A wonderful scholar of the meaning and importance of women’s textiles from medieval times to the present, Clare Hunter, led me to an understanding of how textiles allowed women to communicate elements of history, of myth, of religion and of local environments at a time when literacy was rare, most textiles were produced in monasteries, and even if women did such work, they were not recognized. At least in Europe, that changed in the 16th century when Mary Queen of Scots became famous for her embroidered work- it became a time when embroidery had value as a transmitter of intellect and emotion – “when it was a conversation between people and their God, the church and its congregation, ruler and subjects, Needlework had power and embroiderers had value.” Queen Mary was imprisoned in England for two decades during which she regularly sent embroidered messages and gifts to maintain contacts, communicate her feelings of injustice, and broadcast her belief in her sovereignty. Her work showed royal ciphers, monograms, coats of arms and emblems, fixing her power and divine right on cloth. Other women also found their voices through their hands.
Hunter describes how color choices, different stitches, symbols, fabric choices and different embroidered objects reflected personal and political statements, and signaled degrees of wealth, power and lineage. Only the wealthy could afford silk and the fine needles to use on it... the rest had to use homespun and hand hammered needles. Needles were so valuable, a woman kept them in a case at her waist.
After the Protestant Reformation, churches were stripped of their textiles, and embroidery became more secular, and officially the provenance of women. Girls were trained to sew and embroider. Samplers were often the only opportunities for girls to learn alphabets and numbers in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the American Revolution, women boycotted British textiles and produced homespun fabrics, a symbol of independence and self-sufficiency.
The use of embroidered symbols to signal secret codes existed from the Middle East to Scotland and across the ocean to the United States. Palestinians used different stitches, types of thread, garment designs, and motifs to identify their villages. Slaves in America embroidered hints on quilts to escape routes leading north during the Civil War. Suffragettes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries created banners, sashes, and embroidered protest signs to promote their cause. The feminist movement in the 1970s saw a reclaiming of fiber arts after years of focus on manufactured textiles. These hand-crafted items were used as forms of protest art and political commentary. Women in central and south America used embroidery to draw attention to acts of violence – against women, migrants, and citizens caught in the crosshairs of drug trafficking.
And of course, millions of women around the world gather as I do with their friends and like-minded creatives to join the legacy of those who bring beauty and meaning and value to themselves and others through the work of their hands.
A brief bibliography of relevant books..
Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Antebellum South, by Patricia Turner. Explores how enslaved women used quilts as a form of communication and storytelling
Women and the Material Culture of Needlework and Textiles, 1750-1950, edited by Elizabeth Ewing. A collection of essays on the social and political significance of women's needlework.
Threads of Life: A History of the World through the eye of a needle, by Clare Hunter. Discusses how textiles carry cultural and political messages across history.
Embroidering Her Truth: Mary Queen of Scots' Needlework and Political Expression, Clare Hunter
Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of quilts and the Underground Railroad, by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G.. Dobard. Investigates the theory that qu8ilts were used as signals to guide escaping slaves.
Women Weaving Their Stories, by Nicole Nehrig, explores how textile arts have historically empowered women for self-expression, economic independence, and healing
