Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle (Omnibus)

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Factual: History

Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle (Omnibus)

Textile artist Clare Hunter’s illuminating history of sewing and embroidery.

Clare Hunter uncovers lives of those in history who told their stories through sewing and embroidery. Read by Siobhan Redmond.

Clare Hunter travels through the centuries and across continents uncovering the lives of women and men who have used sewing and embroidery to tell their stories - sometimes in the most unlikely and hardest of circumstances.

This is a treasure trove, featuring: 

*    The political storytelling of the Bayeux tapestry's anonymous embroiderers
*    Prisoners of War memorializing their lives in the harshest of conditions during the Second World War,
*    The marches celebrating 100 years’ of women's suffrage. 

Textile artist and curator, Clare reveals how sewing and embroidery are as much about identity, politics and memory as they are about craft and art.

Threads of Life is also peppered throughout with moments from Clare's own life as a textile artist, for instance, her first adventures with needle and thread, or the discovery of a beautifully worked patchwork quilt in an aunt's attic decades later. 

This is a delightful celebration of sewing as an intimate and powerful medium for telling stories.

Omnibus of five parts abridged by Julian Wilkinson.

Read by Siobhan Redmond.  

Producer:  Elizabeth Allard

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2019.

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