Embroidering the Everyday: Found, Stitch, Paint

by Cas Holmes

Inspiration and practical tips on incorporating the everyday into textile art.

In Embroidering the Everyday, acclaimed textile artist Cas Holmes explores the ‘everyday’ and the ‘domestic’, generating a wealth of inspiration and raw material to create textile work that resonates with time and place.

Cas invites us to re-examine the world and use the limitations sometimes imposed by geographic area or individual circumstances as a rich resource to develop ideas for mixed media textiles in a more thoughtful way. With techniques and projects throughout, the book

How to be more resourceful with what we have to hand, including working with vintage scraps, homemade dyes and papers, and even teabags and biscuits.Rediscovering family history and how photographs and objects can provide inspiration, including Cas’s own exploration of her Romani heritage.Drawing inspiration from our local landscape and how it changes through the seasons.How to transform materials with mark-making, printing, image transfer, collage and stitch.Packed with inspirational work from the author, and other leading practitioners who place the everyday at the heart of their work, this treasure trove of ideas, techniques and practical projects is an essential guide for our times.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Fashion, Crafts

97 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 2, 2021

Reviews

[Heather]

Some beautiful and inspiring ideas. Love that work from different artists was shared.

First lines:
My fraternal grandmother talks about her everyday life on the road as a Romani child. The places where her family stopped and worked are part of my history. The fields where she once picked fruit and hops are part of my regular cycle route in Kent. I often walk along the North Norfolk coast paths and the broad estuary of the Wash when visiting family, and have visited the back lanes and markets of Norwich where my great-grandmother once touted crocheted table mats and lace ware, as part of my route home from school. I live in a small house on the outskirts of Maidstone, and by any description may be perceived as a ‘settled’ member of the community. However, my art practice and lifestyle choice contradicts this. I travel in pursuit of my work, drawing, stitching, collecting and collating things as I go. I don’t own a car; you could say I ‘walk the world’. My main mode of transport is on foot or by bicycle. This immediately connects me to the places I travel through, taking in the stories of people, culture and place along the way. My way of thinking and my approach to my work is constantly in motion and being challenged by this daily exchange with the ‘world outside’.

[~Anita~]

This is the third Cas Holmes book I’ve read. This time I’m making samplers using some of her processes.

[Rebecca Goldthorpe]

Absolutely fantastic!