Leanne Prain 
Strange Material 
Storytelling through Textiles

Strange Material explores the relationship between handmade textiles and storytelling.


Through text, the act of weaving a tale or dropping a thread takes on new meaning for those who previously have seen textiles—quilts, blankets, articles of clothing, and more—only as functional objects. This book showcases crafters who take storytelling off the page and into the mediums of batik, stitching, dyeing, fabric painting, knitting, crochet, and weaving, creating objects that bear their messages proudly, from personal memoir and cultural fables to pictorial histories and wearable fictions.


Full-color throughout, the book includes chapters on various aspects of textile storytelling, from ‚Textiles of Protest, Politics, and Power‘ to ‚The Fabric of Remembrance‘; it also includes specific projects, such as the well-known and profoundly moving Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, as well as poetry mittens, button blankets, and stitched travel diaries. Offbeat, poetic, and subversive,
Strange Material will inspire readers to re-imagine the possibilities of creating through needle and fabric.


Leanne Prain is the co-author (with Mandy Moore) of
Yarn Bombing, now in its third printing, and the author of
Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery. A professional graphic designer, Leanne holds degrees in creative writing, art history, and publishing.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1: Making Meaning

1. The Safe Space of Textiles

2. Stitching Overlooked Stories

3. Freddie Robins on Craft Kills

4. Binding Cloths: An Interview with Tamar Stone

5. Designing Your Own Narrative Textiles

6. Transcription Through Cloth: An Interview with Eleanor Hannan

7. Creativity Exercise: The Button Jar

8. You Don’t Have to Stitch It

9. Little Tokens: An Interview with Maria Damon


Chapter 2: The Stories that We Wear

1. Dressing to Defy the Usual Story

2. Clothing in the Asylum

3. Altering What They Wore

4. Clothing as Cultural Vocabulary: Rosalind Wyatt

5. Stories to Rattle Your Bones: An Interview with Teresa Burrows

6. Confessional Couture: An Interview with Noel Paloma-Lovinski

7. Project: Close to the Heart by brifrischu


Chapter 3: Poetic Textiles

1. Surviving Through Stitch

2. The Poetry Blanket

3. The Troublesome Poetry Mittens

4. Sleeping with Poetry: An Interview with Kerry Larkin of Comma Workshop

5. Public Interventions with Poetry Bombing: An Interview with Agustina Woodgate

6. Project: Wear Your Words by Leanne Prain featuring ‘Day’ a poem by Laura Farina


Chapter 4: Textiles of Protest, Politics, and Power

1. Rugs of Resistance

2. Safe Passage: The Legend of the Underground Railway Quilts

3. Telling Stories under Dictatorship: The Chilean Arpillera

4. Imbleachments and Public Satire: An Interview with Diane Bush

5. Sweaters of Revolution: The Work of Ellen Lesperance

6. Prompt: Make Your Voice Heard

7. Telling Essential Stories through S.T.I.T.C.H.E.D., An interview with Climbing Poetree

8. Project: Craftivist Resistance Mask by Sarah Corbett


Chapter 5: The Fabric of Remembrance

1. Bereavement Quilts

2. An Overlooked History

3. Stitched Travel Diaries

4. Exploring Family Genealogy Through Stitching

5. Crocheting Joy: An Interview with Sayraphim Lothian

6. Prompt: Try Your Hand at Memoir

7. Story Quilts: An Interview with Marion Coleman

8. Project: I Love My City Tote bag by Lindsay Zier-Vogel


Chapter 6: Illustrative Storytelling

1. Embroidered Illustration

2. Button Blankets

3. Consuelo Jimenez Underwood

4. Prompt: Approach a Story through Imagery

5. Truth is Stranger than Fiction: An Interview with Freddie Robins

6. The Changing Story of the Tartan

7. Internal and External Geographies: An Interview with Bettina Matzkuhn


Chapter 7: Fictional Characters

1. Knit the City: Telling Stories with Soft Sculpture

2. Fiber & Fairytales: An Interview with Stephanie Dosen of Tiny Owl Knits

3. Superhero Stories: An Interview with Mark Newport

4. Prompt: Bring Fictional Characters into your Textiles

5. Knitting Nightmares: An Interview with Tracey Widdess

6. Project: The Amelia Mobile by Susan Kendal


Chapter 8: Humorous Textiles

1. Embroidering a Year of Unemployment: An Interview with Melissa A. Calderon

2. Woo Work: An Interview with Howie Woo

3. Tips for Making Your Work Funny

4. Stitched Rejection: An Interview with Gina Dawson

5. Project: #Dad Knows Best by Iviva Olenick


Chapter 9: Storytelling with Textiles and New Technology

1. Open Source Embroidery

2. Phillip Stearn’s Beautiful Faults

3. The Social Knitwork

4. @Embroidered Poems

5. Mixing Media: An Interview with Kristy Whitlock

6. Prompt: Think Outside the Sewing Box

7. Fuzzy Logic: An Interview with Carlyn Yandle

8. Project: “Hello World” Blinky Light Lilypad Arduino Patch by Emily Smith


Chapter 10: Community Storytelling Through Textiles

1. Names Project Aids Memorial Quilt

2. Circles of Stitching

3. Start a Stitching Circle

4. Putting A Community In Stitches

5. Creating An Urban Tapestry

6. Stitching for Our Oceans

7. Dyeing for Your Community

8. Community Building, One Bridge at a Time

9. Amanda Browder’s Future Phenomena

10. Harnessing the Power of Textile Community: An Interview with Lee Bowser

11. Designing A Community Textile Project

12. Community Confessions: An Interview with Jessica Vellenga

13. Spinning Stories: Participatory Art with Robyn Love

Über den Autor

Leanne Prain: Leanne Prain is a knitter and the author of
Yarn Bombing: The Art of Knit & Crochet Graffiti (with Mandy Moore) and
Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery. A professional graphic designer, Leanne holds degrees in creative writing, art history, and publishing. She lives and crafts in Vancouver, BC.