The American cotton feed sack is the stuff of legend. From the 1850s onwards it was skilfully repurposed by women across America into all kinds of garments and household goods. By the late 1930s when it became highly patterned, it's estimated that more than 3 million Americans were wearing feed sack clothing. Out of necessity, it was made into dresses and shirts, quilts and curtains, sheets, mattress covers, pyjamas, and even undergarments.

Today feed sacks are valued by collectors and makers in America, and there is a lively market in them. But these soft cotton sacks have a much wider story to tell us than that. They have played a role in creating one of the world’s legendary cricket teams, they have saved a nation from the brink of starvation and in this episode of Haptic & Hue, we tell the incredible story of how a flour sack re-united a family with the something created by the grandmother they lost in in the Holocaust.

For pictures of the feedsacks talked out in this episode and more information about the contributors please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-6/

An extraordinary quilt handstitched by convict women on board ship as they were transported from Britain to Australia in 1841 has just gone on display in a new exhibition at Australia’s National Gallery. Many of those who made the quilt were illiterate and led tough and impoverished lives. And yet these social outcasts and exiles - working in desperate circumstances - created one of the most important cultural artifacts in the colonial history of Australia.

The Rajah Quilt – named after the ship the women were transported on - has nearly 3,000 individual pieces. It is one of the only items made by convicts that survives from this part of Australia’s past, which was buried in shame for so long. The quilt gives us a rare chance to re-assess what it meant to be transported and to see how it has become an important part of Australia’s history and a powerful symbol of how many people first came to this country.

For more information, a full transcript and further links: https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-6/

From the grandest palace to the poorest cottage, so-called ‘stained’ cloths brought colour and joy to everyday life in England for hundreds of years. These specially painted and stamped fabrics formed the backdrop to funerals, ceremonies, processions, masques, and tournaments that required banners, flags, pennants or scenery from 1300 onwards.

But this world of dazzling medieval colour and pattern has been mostly lost to history because so much of the cloth has perished, and the craft of the stainers has been so little understood. Now Haptic & Hue re-discovers the secrets of making stained cloth and looks at how it was used.

This episode uncovers the secrets of the 14th century fabric stainers which lie in a pocket-sized book, transcribed more than six hundred years ago, by monks at Gloucester Cathedral. It contains 30 recipes for preparing cloth and special water-based colours to permanently paint and block print wool and linen. Haptic & Hue took a trip to Gloucester Cathedral to explore the lost world of medieval textiles.

For more information, a full transcript and further links, see https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-6/