From the pleasures of mending to the problems of fast fashion, an intimate look at the creativity, community, and deep meaning sewed into every stitch.
 
Tens of millions of people sew for necessity or pleasure every day, yet the craft is surprisingly under-appreciated. The Point of the Needle redresses the balance: this is a book that argues for sewing’s place in our lives. It celebrates not only sewing’s recent resurgence but sewists’ creativity, well-being, and community. Barbara Burman chronicles new voices of people who sew today, by hand or machine, to explore what they sew, what motivates them, what they value, and why they mend things, revealing insights into sewing’s more intimate stories. In our age of superfast fashion with its environmental and social injustices, this eloquent book makes a passionate case for identity, diversity, resilience, and memory—what people create for themselves as they stitch and make.

Barbara Burman is a writer and former academic at the University of Southampton and the University of the Arts, London. She is coauthor of The Pocket: A Hidden History of Women’s Lives, 1660-1900 and the editor of The Culture of Sewing. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and lives near Cambridge.