annieb123's Review of Spinning and Weaving (Heritage Crafts and Skills)

by Huggins-Cooper, Lynn

This book offers a whistle-stop guide to the history of spinning and weaving. The story begins in prehistory when people first wove yarns to create clothing and blankets. The book explores the ways in which spinning and weaving has continued to be important throughout human history (or should that be herstory), in artistic, economic and functional terms.

The second part of the book brings us up to date, via interviews with modern day spinning and weaving artisans. These textiles artists generously allowed the author a window into their studios and discussed the way they use and adapt traditional methods, techniques and tools for the twenty first century. Photos of their work, and their working environment offers a unique view into the world of this ancient craft.

Finally, if you are inspired to try your hand at this fascinating and most ancient of crafts, the book also has a resources section. It includes a valuable list of suppliers of fibre, dyes, tools and yarn, as well as information about training courses, useful websites and more - everything you need to get started.

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

Spinning and Weaving is a new nonfiction historical survey of spinning and weaving in the British Isles by Lynn Huggins-Cooper. Due out 19th Dec 2019 from Pen & Sword, it's 128 pages and will be available in paperback format. The first chapters (~45% of the content) cover textile history from the prehistoric to the modern day. With such a massive timeline, the coverage is brief for each time period, but provides a lot of tantalizing glimpses to follow up later.

The following chapter (~42% of the content) has interviews with several different individual artisans and collectives. The format provides the same questions to each interviewee and it's interesting to see how they came to their craft from often disparate origins but their enthusiasm and respect is shared by them all.

The photography is black and white, but is clear and illustrative. There are no tutorials, but there are a wealth of links provided (slanted toward readers in the UK). There is also a solid bibliography and links section to stockists and teachers. This would make a superlative library selection for a guild or shop, as well as for the fibre-artist's home library.

This is a good, accessible, clearly written introduction to spinning and weaving.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Spinning and Weaving (Heritage Crafts and Skills)

by Huggins-Cooper, Lynn

Reviewed by annieb123 on Oct 10, 2019

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