The healing art

In this unusual book, part memoir, part history, Clare Hunter offers a personal meditation on the textile arts. Sewing and its associated skills have been coded as female, and the expertise required to master them has been trivialised. Hunter describes how when women demonstrate intricate embroidery or stitching, a man can be guaranteed to crack a joke about how his trousers need hemming or a button needs sewing on.

But embroidery was not always so devalued. Royal families commissioned it for clothing and wall hangings to demonstrate their wealth and power. During the high point of medieval English embroidery (Opus Anglicanum), it was desired all over Europe. Gold thread created shimmering effects, and meant that each piece was worth a fortune. The greatest cathedrals in Europe featured the work of English craftswomen. Today, many examples only survive because they were taken abroad: the Reformation and English Civil War destroyed most of them at home.