Painted with Thread is the catalogue accompaniment to the exhibition of the same name at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. This richly illustrated book emphasizes the art inherent in embroidery and contextualizes the examples within aesthetic movements. The objects and designs are myriad: “pictoral embroidery,” wool and cotton sailor’s pants embroidered with a running whorl stitch resembling tattoo art. Winding vines of flowers in full-bloom rendered to near botanical precision. Samplers sewn by schoolgirls, table covers, fire screens, valances as domestic artifacts with a resonance far beyond the home and the homespun. Painted with Thread presents a breathtaking array of historic American needlework.
