United States Folk Costumes

A treasury of ethnic dress, this book ranges from the Amish of Pennsylvania to the Zulu of South Africa. Alphabetical entries cover more than 150 countries and regions, each represented by six or more illustrations. The survey covers not only all countries in which native dress is still worn but also those in which traditional garb appears only on festive occasions.Six hundred drawings by the author include images of men, women, and children and show details of characteristic decorative motifs a... [Read More]

All around the world there are festivals that reach back through the sands of time to medieval carnival traditions, and beyond. The festivals in this book are often little known outside their locale and they are all characterised by spectacular costumes and compellingly bizarre rituals. The Jarramplas of Piornal, Spain is a spooky devil character dressed in rags, who is pelted by two tons of turnips every year. In Japan, the Kasedori wear a suit of straw and run barefoot through the snow as vill... [Read More]

Siwa is a remote oasis deep in the heart of the Egyptian desert near the border with Libya. Until an asphalt road was built to the Mediterranean coast in the 1980s, its only links to the outside world were by arduous camel tracks. As a result of this isolation, Siwa developed a unique culture manifested in its crafts of basketry, pottery, and embroidery and in its styles of costume and silverwork. The most visible and celebrated example of this was the silver jewelery that was worn by women in a... [Read More]

"See the blazing Yule before us..." This is just one of the many ancient British folk songs we all know and love. Other tunes and symbols that tug on our memories have similar historical roots, hearkening back to a shared Pagan past. These dances, songs, and theatrical plays in the English folk tradition are now little known to most of the modern Pagan community. Reviving these vital traditions can bring new life to Renaissance festivals, neopagan rituals, and community events. Introducing the l... [Read More]

From America’s preeminent museum collection, this definitive volume places the quilt firmly in the realm of art. Combining economy with artistry and everyday craftsmanship with extraordinary beauty, quilts hold a unique place in American culture. Each quilt tells a story about its maker and her community; seen together, these monumental textiles paint a broad picture of the development of a national character and uncover the hidden history of women’s contribution to art. This volume brings t... [Read More]

In 1974 Joel and Kate Kopp were guest curators for the ground-breaking and very popular exhibition of hooked rugs held at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York. In that exhibition and in this book, first published in 1975, then expanded and reissued in 1985, the Kopps brought a new eye to the field and showed how the primitive imagery that appears in these rugs often parallels other categories of folk art. With over 230 illustrations, over half of them in color, the authors trace the devel... [Read More]

Beautiful antique quilts and a workbook of patterns come together in this lavish photography book for quilters. The 25 featured quilts from the Wisconsin State Historical Society collection are displayed in period rooms at Old World Wisconsin, the Society's outdoor museum of German and Scandinavian farm houses. Patterns and block layouts are provided for replicating each of the original quilts, and after seeing each of them in a true historical context, home sewers will be inspired to create the... [Read More]

For fans of Descendants, this spell book, which formerly belonged to Maleficent before she passed it on to Mal, is full of comments, notes, and inside jokes between Mal and the other villains' kids. Laugh and cry along with Mal, Evie, Jay and Carlos as they find their way in the world of Auradon Prep.

This significant catalog is a highly detailed look at the world’s most celebrated collection of red and white quilts. Like the Log Cabin or Baltimore-style, the red and white quilt is a hugely popular genre of quilting. Colorfast Turkey red dye became readily available in the mid-nineteenth century, so red and white quilts became extremely popular, due not only to the newness of the color but also because of the extremely vibrant and punchy contrasting color scheme. Featuring over 650 qui... [Read More]

Departing from an ethnographic collection in London, From Storeroom to Stage traces the journey of its artefacts back to the Romanian villages where they were made 70 years ago, and to other places where similar objects are still in use. The book explores the role that material culture plays in the production of value and meaning by examining how folk objects are mobilized in national ideologies, transmissions of personal and family memory, museological discourses, and artistic acts.