Looking at Textiles : A Guide to Technical Terms

This is a concise yet detailed guide to the fundamental terms, materials, and techniques used to create textiles. Textiles have been made and used by every culture throughout history. However diverse - whether an Egyptian mummy wrapping, a Turkish carpet, Italian velvet, American quilt, or a Scottish kilt - all textiles have basic elements in common. They are made of fibres, constructed into forms, and patterned and coloured in ways that follow certain principles. "Looking at Textiles" serves as a guide to the fundamentals of the materials and techniques used to create textiles. The selected technical terms explain what textiles are, how they are made, and what they are made of, and include definitions of terms relating to fibres, dyes, looms and weaving, and patterning processes. The many illustrations, including macro- and micro-scale photographs of a range of ancient and historic museum textiles, demonstrate the features described in the text.

Elena Phipps was a textile conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for over thirty years. She has published numerous scholarly works on textile materials, techniques, and culture.