Textile Visionaries: Book Review and Giveaway

Ladies and gentlemen, Laurence King Publishing is back at it again.  They’ve got another great sewing book coming out at the end of this month called Textile Visionaries:  Innovation and Sustainability in Textile Design by Bradley Quinn.  You’d think publishing books was their job…  Oh, wait, I guess it is!

Textile Visionaries isn’t like most of the others I’ve written about.  It doesn’t have patterns, and it likely won’t help you improve your sewing skills or sewing vocabulary.  But, it will inspire.  It’s probably my favorite of all of the sewing books they’ve sent me, which is saying a lot because I really like working my way around the patterns in the Drape Drape series (here, here, here, and here), and I also like learning new words (really, I’m the kind of person who stops to look up a word in a dictionary when I don’t quite know the meaning).

This book is focused on individuals, the aptly named “textile visionaries”, and how they are using technology to drive fabric design forward through their own innovation with a focus on sustainability.  I could write and write and write about this book, but I really feel that you’ll get the best feeling of what it’s like (and why it’s worth having in your sewing room or even displayed on your coffee table!) by being able to see a few of its pages.  The photography in the book and the subjects being photographed are just jaw dropping.  I have to warn you that this is a very photo heavy post because I just couldn’t stop taking my own photos of their photos!  Nearly every page in the book had something I wanted to show off, from dresses with lightning flashes that really glow to unbelievable fabrics to locally sourced materials to shock-worthy garments (literally!) to true chemistry in fabric.  This book has 300 some pages, so what I’m showing here is just a tiny fraction of what you’ll find inside.

Okay, so here goes.  The big photo dump.  Prepare to feast your eyes.

Okay, now wasn’t that impressive?  To think I dream about the fabric I can buy, and these people dream about fabric they can invent.  Then I take the fabric that I’ve bought and turn it into a pattern someone else has made, while they mold it into the stuff of imagination.  It’s like science fiction come to life in the form of fabric.  And, even though I could be down on myself, instead there’s something about the awe that I feel that inspires my own creativity and imagination, even if I’m not designing my own fabric (yet! – ha! – I am a chemist after all!).  Truly, I’ve been sewing and sketching and dreaming up a storm since getting this book.  It’s just awesome.

Now for the best part – the giveaway. Laurence King Publishing has agreed to give away an additional copy of Textile Visionaries to one of my readers.  It’s not even out yet in stores!  If you’d like to be entered into the drawing, just leave a comment below letting me know. I’ll pick a winner at random next Friday, August 23rd at 7 am PDT. Good luck!