Cloth Stories

A textile artist's guide to creating exquisite, intimate and nostalgic work inspired by the home. Ali Ferguson's work takes inspiration from domestic life and the objects that surround and comfort us in our homes. Vintage fabric and hand-embroidered text are beautifully paired to create evocative pieces that are imbued with the magic of everyday existence. In this wonderful book Ali reveals the secrets of her work and shares her ingenious methods for finding inspiration at home to create stunning work that uses embroidery, quilting, collage and found objects. Chapter One explains how to create 'threads of thought' that stem from the tiniest details within the rooms of your home, resulting in extensive mind maps you can use to inspire your finished work. Chapter Two shows how to translate these ideas into stitch and select the perfect materials for the mood you want to convey in your work. The rest of the chapters take you through the different rooms in a typical home, from kitchen to bedroom, giving a wealth of ideas for finding inspiration from each of these spaces in your own household, accessing memories, stories and emotions to help you create intensely personal and meaningful textile art pieces. Beautifully illustrated with the author's own work and that of other leading textile artists who draw inspiration from home life, this book revels in cloth and the joy that it brings to every textile artist. It is the ideal book for any artist or embroiderer who wants to explore new sources of inspiration on their very doorstep.

Ali Ferguson is an embroiderer and textile artist who is renowned for her exquisitely beautiful and nostalgic work focused on the home. She works from The Purple Thread Shed, a cosy garden studio that also lends its name to Ali's popular Instagram profile @thepurplethreadshed. She is a member of The Society for Embroidered Work and has written for Textileartist.org. Cloth Stories is her first book. She lives in Roslin, Midlothian.