Sew What?

In the last episode of Sew What? season 1, Isabella talks with Dr Edward Town about Marking Time: Objects, People, and Their Lives, 1500-1800 , released by Yale University Press. The book is "an engaging, encyclopaedic account of the material world of early modern Britain as told through a unique collection of dated objects." Ed and Isabella discuss four objects from the book, including...

In this episode, Isabella interviews Victorian hairwork researcher and fan, Avery Curran. Just in time for the spooky season that is October! The two talk about the development of hairwork jewellery and how it got to be so popular in the mid-19th century, as well as Avery's own love for knitting.  

In this episode, Isabella discusses knitting for victory in the US during WWI and WWII. This episode has everything from sock trivia to knitting propaganda songs.

In this episode, Isabella interviews Daniel Fountain, a queer contemporary artist, researcher, and writer whose work lies at the intersection of textiles and the LGBTQ+ community. The two discuss Daniel's art making practice, the AIDS quilt, the Museum of Transology, and favourite needleworked objects.

In this episode, Isabella discusses the history of the art and craft debate, as well as examples of needleworkers who have bridged that gap historically and in the 21st century. Expect discussions about art historians Giorgio Vasari and Rozsika Parker and artists ranging from Mary Linwood to Bisa Butler.

In this episode, Isabella discusses 18th- and 19th-century English and American history, math, and geography samplers. These objects allowed those who stitched them to learn needlework alongside other facts, including the population sizes of England's counties and how to predict what dates Sundays would fall on for the next 50 years. 

In this episode, Isabella interviews Dr Freya Gowrley, historian of material and visual culture focusing on the home, the body, and collage. The two discuss Freya's recent article and upcoming book, as well as patchwork and the intersection of needlework and emotions.

This episode is all about beadwork. Isabella begins the episode discussing 17th-century English beadwork before moving on to discuss Native American beadwork techniques. 

In this episode, Isabella interviews Laura Beltrán-Rubio, a PhD student who focuses on the consumption, dissemination, and representation of dress and practices of self-fashioning in 18th-century colonial Spanish America (specifically modern-day Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela). The two discuss surviving South American costume and textiles, the presence of needlework in the Spanish colonies, and lea...

In this episode, Isabella discusses needlework created by suffragettes and a woman with an alias of "Myrllen," as well as the British charity Fine Cell Work. As always, images and resources discussed in this episode are available on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @sewwhatpodcast.

In this episode, Isabella discusses needlework created by imprisoned women, focusing specifically on the embroidery of Mary Queen of Scots, Agnes Richter, and Lorina Bulwer.  As always, images and resources discussed in this episode are available on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at @sewwhatpodcast.

In this episode, Isabella interviews Dr Serena Dyer, historian of dress, consumption, and material culture. The two discuss Serena's two upcoming books, Material Lives: Women Makers and Consumer Culture in the 18th Century and Material Literacy in Eighteenth-Century Britain: A Nation of Makers. They also talk about Serena's favourite needleworked objects and her passion for making histor...

In this episode, Isabella interviews Dr Alison Mayne, a textile researcher and practitioner who wrote her PhD about knitting and crocheting Facebook groups and wellbeing. The two discuss the intersection of needlework and social media, new Soviet dress, fashions from the feminist magazine Spare Rib, and the continued fight for inclusivity in the world of needlework and textiles more generally.  As...

In this episode, Isabella discusses one of her greatest loves, embroidered cabinets and caskets made in the 17th century. She explains the differences between cabinets and caskets, how they were made, some exceptional surviving examples, and what these boxes can tell us about the relationship between early modern women and privacy. 

In this episode, Isabella talks with Kelli Coles, a PhD student who researches Black American schoolgirl samplers. The two discuss Black samplers made by girls across America's East Coast in the late eighteenth through mid-nineteenth centuries.

In this episode, Isabella examines a group of mid-19th-century samplers made by South Indian girls in a missionary school run by a British woman. She discusses the intersection of these samplers and colonialism, focusing on evidence of colonialism in the samplers' threads, inscriptions, and compositions. 

In this episode, Isabella interviews Elena Kanagy-Loux, a lace maker, lace historian, and Collections Specialist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Antonio Ratti Textile Center. The two discuss the importance of making in order to understand historic textiles, favourite museum objects, and all things lace. 

In this episode, Isabella discusses the needlework of the Brontë sisters. She focuses on their childhood samplers, an unfinished quilt Charlotte, Emily, and Anne made, and Charlotte's many collar and cuff designs.

In this episode, Isabella discusses Jane Austen's needlework. She focuses on a sampler supposedly made by Jane Austen, as well as a quilt Jane made with her mother and sister.

In this episode, Isabella interviews Rose Sinclair, lecturer in Textiles in the Design Department at Goldsmiths, University of London and design practitioner and researcher. The two discuss Dorcas clubs (specifically those used by Caribbean women when they arrived in the UK in the 1950s and 60s, the topic of Rose's PhD), the intersection of textiles and race, and the power cloth has to tell s...

In this episode, Isabella interviews Dr Susan Kay-Williams, Chief Executive, Archivist, and Curator of the Royal School of Needlework. The two discuss the history of the RSN, special objects in the collection, and favourite types of needlework.

In this episode, Isabella discusses how samplers from Spanish colonies are the intersections of needlework from around the world and across centuries. The first half of the episode focuses on a Guatemalan sampler at LACMA, while the latter covers motifs in Mexican samplers. At the beginning of the episode is a discussion about the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement. Here are just a few...

In this episode, Isabella explores one of her favourite needlework trends, 17th-century frog pouches. These cuties were teeny tiny bags, made of thread, wire, beads, and silk, that probably held sweet fragrances. They were made and worn in early modern England, but scholars disagree on when and why they were made. "Sew What?" attempts to answer these questions. Listen to find out all abo...

In this episode, Isabella discusses two 19th-century pieces of needlework from opposite sides of the Atlantic, bound together by their tales of woe. The makers are Hannah Powell and Elizabeth Parker and they illustrate that needlework has always been personal and political. 

Welcome to "Sew What?" In this episode, Isabella introduces herself and what this podcast will be about. Woohoo! Music is Kevin MacLeod's "Monkeys Spinning Monkeys."