Threads of Life Quotes

“Sewing is a way to mark our existence on cloth: patterning our place in the world, voicing our identity, sharing something of ourselves with others and leaving the indelible evidence of our presence in stitches held fast by our touch.”
― Clare Hunter, Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle

“Back then, needlework had power and its embroiderers had value. Back then, sewing mattered.”
― Clare Hunter, Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle

“Sewing is a visual language. It has a voice. It has been used by people to communicate something of themselves — their history, beliefs, prayers and protests. For some, it is the only means to tell of what matters to them: those who are imprisoned or censored; those who do not know how or are not allowed to write of their lives. For them needlework can carry their autobiographies and testimonies, registering their origin and fate. Using patterns as syntax, symbols and motifs as its vocabulary, the arrangement of both as its grammar, sewing is a graphic way to add information and meaning. But is not a monologue, it is part of a conversation, a dialogue, a correspondence only fully realised once it is seen and its messages are read. It connects the maker to the viewer across time, cultures, generations and geographies. As a shared language, needlework transmits — through techniques, coded symbols, fabrics and colour — the unedited stories, not just of women, but often of those marginalised by oppression and prejudice.”
― Clare Hunter, Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle

“For no matter where we were born or where we grew up, for most of us there are other places, ancestral lands, that somehow still resonate deep in our unconscious.”
― Clare Hunter, Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle

“For centuries, this was the fate of women embroiderers. They were robbed of their power. This is the history of needlework.”
― Clare Hunter, Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle