PieceWork Fall 2025

Artisans throughout time have created art with thread and yarn, but given the materials, their works haven’t always survived to tell their stories. Paintings, especially, from the past often have endured, and they can give us insight into historical textile techniques that might otherwise have been lost. They can tell us much about needlework as well as the culture at the time it was created.

In our fall issue, discover:

• What paintings can teach us about historical knitting
• An Icelandic Bayeux-style embroidered tapestry project
• An embroidered Spanish kerchief inspired by the paintings of Joaquín Sorolla
• The hidden art of knotting in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings
• A personal glimpse of restoration work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Get stitching with projects inspired by Van Gogh, Hokusai, Matisse, Monet, and more. Join PieceWork as we travel around the world to discover the intersection of fine art and needle art without having to leave home!

ARTICLES

• Stitches from Paintings Past: What Art Can Tell Us About Historical Knitting by Carol J. Sulcoski
• Knotting: The Unnoticed Favorite in Royal Portraits by Susan Holloway Scott
• The Empty Purse: Art, Needlework, and Early Women’s “Craftivism” by Karin J. Bohleke
• A Bayeux-Style Tapestry Unfolds in Iceland: Many Hands Stitch a Saga in a Small Village by Claudia Pétursson
• Celebration and Resistance: The Innovative Needlepoint Art of Mildred T. Johnstone by Carol Shiner Wilson, PhD
• Behind the Scenes at The Met: How America’s Largest Museum Conserves Its Textile Treasures by Antonia L. Capasso
• The Art of Georgian Embroidery Design by Jennie Batchelor
• Exploring Needle Art: One Design in Four Methods by Hanka Robertson
• A Beautiful Needlepoint the First Time You Try

PROJECTS

• Hokusai Cowl by Mari Tobita
• A Bookmark à la Matisse to Embroider by Mary Polityka Bush
• Water Lilies Tote by Sarah Kelly
• Saint-Rémy Irises: Punch Needle Pillow by Simone Vojvodin
• Lagarteran Kerchief: Stitches of Spain by Sarah Pedlow