patchwork society

The archive

Work worth
looking into.

Close studies of repair, structure, and the things kept in use.

Darning sampler, 1711. Maker unrecorded.Image: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum · Gift of Mrs. Montgomery Hare · 1937-75-1 · CC0

Field Guide No. 001

Maker unrecorded
Netherlands, 1711

Missing cloth. Visible repair.

Fifteen darning crosses. Two corner mends. A 1711 study in putting cloth back together.

Pattern darning, running stitch and cross stitch

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From the archive. Collection, image licence and source accompany this entry.

Reverse of an indigo-dyed Japanese boro quilt with sashiko stitching.Image: Karl Zetterström, Statens museer för världskultur · Statens museer för världskultur · OM-2009-0009 · CC BY 4.0

Field Guide No. 002

Maker unrecorded
Japan

A reverse, held in view.

The reverse of this indigo-dyed Japanese quilt shows sashiko stitching used for both function and decoration.

Sashiko is identified in the source as functional and decorative.

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From the archive. Collection, image licence and source accompany this entry.

Child's sleeping mat (boro shikimono), late 19th century.Image: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum · Museum purchase from General Acquisitions Endowment Fund · 2017-15-1 · CC0

Field Guide No. 003

Maker unrecorded
Japan, late 19th century

Layers made to rest on.

Layers of indigo-dyed cotton scraps are pieced together and secured with dense stitching in this late-19th-century Japanese sleeping mat.

Pieced and stitched.

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From the archive. Collection, image licence and source accompany this entry.

Reverse of Treijntje van der Kamp's darning sampler, 1797 (Met image DP363100).Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art · From the Collection of Mrs. Lathrop Colgate Harper, Bequest of Mabel Herbert Harper, 1957 · 57.122.150 · CC0

Field Guide No. 004

Treijntje van der Kamp
Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1797

Practice, made exact.

Treijntje van der Kamp's 1797 darning sampler turns repair practice into an intricate record of colourful needlework.

Darning sampler with stitched crosses and geometric patterns.

View the repair

From the archive. Collection, image licence and source accompany this entry.