Talk:Embroidery

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 September 2019 and 9 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Allison OSU.

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Quilting, embroidery, needlework

Quilting isn't a form of embroidery, but they are both forms of needlework. PKM 02:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

With respect Quilting is an embroidery technique it was commenced orginally to protect from cold and damage caused while wearing armour and embellished as a means to enable the wearer status when removing the armour after battle. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.141.126.22 (talk) 09:30, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Move Indian embroidery

Can someone with more expertise on south Asian needlework than I have pull out the two paragraphs on Indian embroidery into their own article?

There are many other forms of embroidery that have their own articles.

And "

Is this page on hand embroidery?

I think a decision needs to be made about whether this article is about hand embroidery or machine embroidery or both. Not all readers will understand, for example, that people don't do counted thread work on a sewing machine. The existing 'types of embroidery' section is a |Justinep]] 12:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the high-level embroidery page needs to include a list of types of embroidery, but you are right, in that we don't properly discuss hand vs. machine embroidery. I also think your suggestion below for an article on [[Ecclesiatical embroidery

What was wrong with the link to a page on ecclesiastical embroidery?

habdjdnud-->nvdtr

I've done what I can to fix. The text is now right, but one of the pictures is broken. Its better then it was, anyway.

I'm fair to tired to fix it now, will try to do later, after I've slept.

Nb - yes, I forgot to sign the first post. Sorry.

24.67.68.118 (talk) 07:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Structuring this article

I have no strong feeling one way or the other about the format of the Gallery, but I do feel strongly that this article needs major, major expansion. I think it should be a survey of embroidery styles and techniques with a world-wide view and historical sweep. One of our challenges in textile arts articles has been blending the needs/interests of contemporary needleworkers with an anthropological/scholarly perspective. I'd also like to see the gallery contain both whole garments/textiles and close-ups of the stitching used to deliver the effect. This would require a team effort; do we have enough editors to make a formal collaboration? - PKM (talk) 18:26, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree it needs expansion -- as do many textile topics here at WP, but I can't be of much help, except maybe on historic topics & illos. People might look at Marla Mallett's site [1] -- except I see she doesn't really cover embroidery. All the other Central Asian techniques are here, though. Great photos, too. Must get her book... Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:48, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Gallery

From Wikipedia:Image_use_policy#Photo_galleries:

In general, galleries are discouraged in main article namespace; historically, such galleries are more often deleted than kept. As a result, there are relatively few namespace galleries in the encyclopedia and good reasons must be given for creating them. The determination of whether a gallery should be incorporated into an article or created at the Commons should be discussed on the article's talk page. Consider instead linking to a gallery on Wikimedia Commons – see this page for more details.

Since a gallery already exists on Wikimedia Commons, the gallery in this article is not needed. Please expand the article by adding sourced text; with more informative text then perhaps some of the images from the gallery would be useful in specific sections. Regards, Durova^Charge! 16:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the Commons gallery is a good substitute for this one. As to policy, this is currently being debated, and seems overly-restrictive to me. Agree it would be better to expand the article.... Best for 2009, Pete Tillman (talk) 02:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, I happen to do a lot of image work and don't see adequate justification here for the gallery--especially at oversized proportions. Durova^Charge! 02:54, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Request for comment

Should this article include a gallery?

Reasons for:

A gallery is particularly valuable for visual arts and crafts like embroidery. I agree that the existing gallery is inadequate and needs improvement, but at least it's a start. I'm baffled at the calls for deleting it -- we don't delete articles because they need improvement. Perhaps some of you could help out here. There are a lot of embroidery images in Commons, so perhaps there are some that could be substituted in our gallery here.

As to the size of images in the gallery, we're limited by existing Wiki software to two choices: the default is fixed, 180px thumbs, which to my eye are so small as to be almost useless for a topic such as this. The other choice is user-selected frame sizes, which end up looking clunky since you can only pick one size for the entire gallery. It would be nice if the image size could be linked to the user's size-preference file, but sfaik no such choice presently exists. Perhaps we could compromise on a size in between the present and the default? Again, I'm baffled that people complain about gallery images the same size as main-article images -- it's not like we're running out of space.... Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:46, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, include a gallery, but reduce the size. You may not realize it, but thousands of people all over the world (like me) have only dial-up access, and it takes FOREVER to load these big images. Be sure to indicate to the untutored that they can get a larger image by clicking on the thumbnails. Perhaps there are too many images; I certainly could not wait for all of them to load. Sincerely, your dial-up friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 06:23, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I just trimmed them -- how's that? I'm definitely sympathetic to dialup users, having been one myself until about a year ago. But it will only get worse, I'm afraid...

My suggestion above re tying the gallery image size to user prefs has been tried, but didn't work: see [2]. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that tthe gallery images should be limited to three, as i have seen many an article be derailed and lose the original thought because of too many pictures. I also think they should be low def, but that is simply for fast networking, I am not sire whether or not low def pic would enhace this page --Cat131623 (talk) 00:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Reasons against:

Per the image use policy quoted above, galleries are rarely appropriate in articles that have links to Commons categories. One editor has placed an oversized gallery in this article, and restored it twice despite two other editors deleting it. Policy places the burden upon the editor who wishes to include this gallery to persuade others of its usefulness, and no one has been persuaded.

Textile arts is an undermanned area where reversion of vandalism and linkspam already takes up too much time that would otherwise go into building content. Would like to clear this gallery issue up and move on. Durova^Charge! 16:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

The gallery long predates the current controversy. Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:48, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Coming to this RfC from outside, it seems to me that the reasons against are pretty good, although a compromise that occurs to me would be to keep the gallery but make the images smaller. They are awfully big. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:38, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

There has been much discussion of the wholesale policy against galleries, and in general the visual arts projects are supportive of galleries. I am not opposed to galleries and in fact use them frequently to showcase and categorize changes in fashions over time, or works by artists in different media, or—relevant to this discussion—to illustrate variants of weaves or stitches (see Chainstitch). However, as an active member of the Textile Arts project, I don't find the galleries in this article useful. The images are of varying quality, not organized, not arranged by culture or technique or time period, not of similar resolution, and in general not very encyclopedic. And I think the oversized galleries are particularly distracting. Galleries are useful to support text, but are not useful in the absence of text which they can illustrate, and I would vote to remove the galleries from this article in its current state. - PKM (talk) 17:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be better to tag the gallery for improvement, or seek a consensus as to which images should be removed -- or, better, pick substitute images from Commons or personal files? Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm not categorically opposed to galleries either, but agree with PKM's assessment. Bear in mind, Pete, that policy places the burden upon the advocate for the gallery to argue why it needs to be included at all. It appears you're assuming the gallery ought to be there and the only question is how it would be composed. No, I am challenging its existence. Please persuade us why you think this is better than expanding the text and selecting relevant illustrations, which is what I've advised. Durova^Charge! 18:59, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that idea, too -- in fact, that would likely be the best solution, if we can find someone to do it. I can help some, but really I'm not that knowledgeable about embroidery. I had the impression people just wanted to delete the gallery and walk away, which would leave the article poorer.

Again, I didn't start the gallery -- I added one image (with an educational caption), deleted another, and reformatted it. The gallery is a long-standing feature of this article. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 19:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

This is a delicate question because I don't want to appear heavy-handed, but Pete I'd like to know what your dedication is to either the textile arts or to image use. It appears you misunderstand project scope: I am an administrator on Wikimedia Commons. I've put a lot of work into organizing its textile arts categories including creating several of the categories and handcrafting most or all the actual textile items within those new categories. I've contributed a good share of the textile arts DYKs, half of its GAs, co-created its featured portal, and contributed most of its featured pictures. Overall I've contributed 127 Wikipedia featured pictures, 28 Commons featured pictures, and I think the image use at this article--which was weak enough already--was substantially worsened by your changes. Now it appears you propose the only way to get rid of those changes is to drop the preparation I've been putting into turning ply-splitting into a bluelink (which would become another textile arts DYK) and also put on hold a half-finished restoration of a historic Confederate battlefield map (ink on cloth), in order to chase down sources for this article. If you're willing to fully carry your end of it then I'll do it, but you should be aware that this comes at the price of other content work. Durova^Charge! 19:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

(reply to Durova): My interest in textiles is primarily in ethnographic stuff -- Indonesian, central Asian, old Andean -- and that's where I've made my (few) textile contribs to WP. I plan to continue, but not as a primary emphasis. Nor was I suggesting you drop everything to work on this. We all agree it's a weak article, and unfortunately no one has yet come forth to substantially improve it -- which would be a substantial job.

I'm baffled that you could say that "the image use at this article--which was weak enough already--was substantially (emphasis added) worsened by your changes." My only changes (as I mentioned just above) were: add one image, subtract another, and reformat the gallery. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's acknowledge that this article is pretty inadequate. Lines like "Hand embroidery is a traditional art form passed from generation to generation in many cultures, including northern Vietnam, Mexico, and eastern Europe" are meaningless. (Does the mention of northern Vietnam mean that this isn't characteristic of China, Japan, and India? Hardly!) There is no mention of professional embroidery, sources of designs, etc. I'd like to see this article address folk embroidery in various cultures, the persistence of traditional motifs, the development of hand embroidery and other forms of "fancy work" in the 19th century women's magazines, the rise of machine embroidery, hand embroidery as a part of haute couture (Lesage), and embroidery of various non-European cultures. I've struggled with expanding this survey article (1) because the scope is so huge and (2) because I know next to nothing about embroidery outside of Europe and North America. - PKM (talk) 19:54, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, very much so. It's hard to work on high level textile arts articles because potential sources are overpopulated with how-to books that supply very little context. That's one reason it would mean setting existing work on the back burner in order to roll up the sleeves and make any serious changes here. Durova^Charge! 20:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Massive rewrite

I have completely restructured this article and eliminated the gallery entirely. I have added some new and some existing images in context, and tried to find good representative pictures of various styles.

My goal was to maintain an equal depth of detail across all areas in this survey article, rather than deep-diving on specific narrow areas of focus (the section on English embroidery is dispersed, ribbon work is much shorter, and so on).

I have also added citations throughout. - PKM (talk) 21:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort. It's definitely an improvement!

We seem a bit short on historic and regional examples. One approach might be to go through the "Embroidery" template and write short introductory summaries for the major articles -- which is a pretty common approach for introductory articles to major topics elsewhere on WP. Hmmm (puts on to-do list).

Cheers -- Pete Tillman (talk) 19:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Galleries

This article no longer has galleries, but since there was discussion here, I thought I'd mention that we have an updated image use policy on galleries. - PKM (talk) 04:17, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Adding organizations

Hi am new to editing on wiki and would like to add organizations but cant work out how to do it

Would be nice to see some links from the southern hemisphere...

Association of New Zealand Embroiderers Guilds http://www.anzeg.org.nz/

Embroiderers Guild of ACT http://www.embroiderersact.org.au/

Embroiderers Guild of NSW http://www.embgdnsw.org.au/

Embroiderers Guild of Queensland http://www.embroiderersguildqld.org.au/

Embroiderers Guild of South Australia http://www.embguildsa.org.au/

Embroidereres Guild of Victoria http://www.embroiderersguildvic.org/

Embroiderers Guild of Western Australia http://www.embroiderersguildwa.org.au/

Hobart Embroiderers Guild http://www.embroideryhobart.com/

Many thanks Patientlymade (talk) 23:47, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Not a directory. We could add something for balance, but the aim isn't to represent every major guild. Durova^Charge! 00:02, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

-- but feel free to write articles for any of these you feel are WP:notable! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 05:07, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Adding a link

I would like to add this link to the Victoria and Albert Museum website http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/features/embroidery/index.html It covers a variety of areas of embroidery. VAwebteam (talk) 13:06, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, seems a good link. Johnbod (talk) 19:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Questionable or Vague Information

In the first paragraph of this section, the third sentence, I changed "is recommended for" to "is used on", but, looking at the list of items that follows this, I wonder why this sentence is here at all. I don't understand why items such as stockings and golf shirts is here while items such as skirts and headbands are not. I wonder if someone could come up with a more accurate, more informative sentence here, or whether it should be deleted.CorinneSD (talk) 18:34, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Removed CopyVio section on China

The recently added section on China began with the curious preface "(The article reprinted from The history of embroidery, Spring Flower, http://www.lace8.com/new/embroidery-history.html)". The original article is not accompanied by a CC-by-SA license, so I have removed it from the Wikipedia article. It is also unclear where the original may have come from, and whether it may be relied upon, as it is in English, unsigned, from a Chinese commercial company. If better sources can be found, a properly paraphrased and referenced account may be added to the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:34, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Canvas Work/Berlin Work

I think the material on Berlin work should be moved or deleted. The section is on classification and the information on Berlin wool work just talks about what it is, as opposed to how it relates to the families of embroidery. However, as you see in my previous edit, it could be used as a foundation for speaking about types of embroidery in regards to coverage of material (bargello, silk pictures vs spot motifs).Ehgarrick (talk) 12:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

By all means move it to a different section, new if need be. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:50, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually, in the article by Mary Corbet I found, in which she muses about this very article, she agrees there are three broad classifications: free, counted and canvas. However, I think the information on Berlin may be a little more detailed than needed. The other option is to pad out the sections on free and counted.Ehgarrick (talk) 21:58, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

File:Cover, silk embroidery on cotton. Iran, Caucasus; 1st half of 18th century. Stored at The David Collection, inventarnummer 37-1969.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Cover, silk embroidery on cotton. Iran, Caucasus; 1st half of 18th century. Stored at The David Collection, inventarnummer 37-1969.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on August 15, 2017. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2017-08-15. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:12, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A work of embroidery from the Caucasus region, dating back to the 18th century. Embroidery refers to the handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials using a needle to apply thread or yarn, and sometimes other materials such as pearls, beads, quills, and sequins. Here, the embroidery consists of a series of designs formed within and around nested polygons, depicting a stylized assortment of plants and animals.Textile: Unknown

suggestion

I think it could be better to talk more history about this and also how this technique improve the society at that time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 8.41.197.222 (talk) 20:43, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I would also love to see a section on embroidery and its history with feminism. Women have long used embroidery as a form of protest art and to elevate their voices. Allison OSU (talk) 13:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

If you can find a reliable source which asserts this you are welcome to add it Lyndaship (talk) 16:24, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to add the following to the History section, along with the relevant citations to the citation section

While historically viewed as a pastime, activity, or hobby, intended just for women, embroidery has often been used as a form of biography. Women who were unable to access a formal education or, at times, writing implements, were often taught embroidery and utilized it as a means of documenting their lives. [1] In terms of documenting the histories of marginalized groups, especially women of color both within the United States and around the world, embroidery is a means of studying the every day lives of those whose lives largely went unstudied throughout much of history. [2]

Murphy, A. Mary (July 2003). "The Theory and Practice of Counting Stitches as Stories: Material Evidences of Autobiography in Needlework". Women's Studies. 32: 641 – via EBSCOhost.

van der Merwe, Ria (November 2017). "From a silent past to a spoken future. Black women's voices in the archival process". Archives and Records. 40: 239–258.

Allison OSU (talk) 19:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

You should try to globalize the USA-centric language here, or specify the US. Johnbod (talk) 02:23, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. Please see edits above and let me know what you think. Allison OSU (talk) 20:05, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Better, thanks. Johnbod (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I really appreciate your feedback and assistance! Allison OSU (talk) 05:26, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Embroidery

Embroidery can be done easily without stress just if you know how 102.89.0.145 (talk) 19:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Qualification section

This Qualifications section is odd—it mentions just one type of qualification, which appears to be available in only one country? 2603:7000:9300:4273:CD6F:8BC8:EE56:EFDA (talk) 04:23, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

That was added in 2015 by an editor whose purpose seems to have been to insert Sage's name. At the time, City and Guilds of London Institute may have offered a qualification in embroidery, however right now it's merely one technique mentioned in the Textiles qualification. But even if it were offered, I don't see the relevance. I've removed that section. Schazjmd (talk) 14:34, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: College Composition II

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