With Her Own Hands by Nicole Nehrig ISBN 9781324074854, 132407485X instant download

With Her Own Hands by Nicole Nehrig ISBN 9781324074854, 132407485X instant download

A rich and intimate exploration of how women have used textile work to create meaningful lives, from ancient mythology to our current moment.

Knitting, sewing, embroidery, quilting—throughout history, these and other forms of textile work have often been dismissed as merely "women's work" and attached to ideas of domesticity and obedience. Yet, as psychologist and avid knitter Nicole Nehrig wonderfully explores in this captivating book, textile work has often been a way for women to exercise power. When their voices were silenced and other avenues were closed off to them, women used the tools they had—often a needle and thread—to seek freedom within the restrictive societies they lived in.

Spanning continents and centuries, With Her Own Hands brings together remarkable stories of women who have used textiles as a means of liberation, from an eighteenth-century Quaker boarding school that used embroidered samplers to teach girls...