Psychologist and knitter Nicole Nehrig delves into the myriad ways that art forms such as knitting, sewing and embroidery are liberating for women. Spanning continents and centuries, Nehrig brings together remarkable stories of women, from an eighteenth-century Quaker boarding school that used embroidered samplers to teach girls maths and geography to the Quechua weavers working to preserve and revive Incan traditions today, and from the Miao women of southern China who pass down their histories in elaborate “story cloths” to a mid-century British women’s postal art exchange. Throughout history, textiles have been a way for women to explore their intellectual capacities, seek economic independence, create community, process traumas and convey powerful messages of self-expression and political protest.

With Her Own Hands is a celebration of women who have woven their own stories and created objects of beauty and significance.