Non-fictional works
The Art of Modern Lace-Making, by the Butterick Publishing Co. in 1891, has been made available by the Gutenberg Project, and can be downloaded here.
The Art of Needlework, from the Earliest Ages; including some notices of the ancient historical tapestries was first published in 1840. It was edited by Mary Margaret Egerton (1801-1858), Countess of Wilton, and published by Henry Colburn.
The Dressmaker of Khair Khana is a non-fiction book. It was published in March 2011 by American foreign policy analyst and journalist, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (1973). It is the story of Kamila Sidiqi, still a teenager in 1996 when the Taliban take control of Kabul, where she is living. Sidiqi has just received a teaching certificate, but is soon banned under Taliban regulations, because she is a female, from further education or work.
The History of English Secular Embroidery was published in 1910 by the British writer on English furniture and design, Margaret A. Jourdain (1876-1951). In 1902 she had already published an updated version of Mrs. Bury Palliser's History of Lace, originally published in 1865.
The Illuminated Book of Embroidery was first published in 1847 and was bound together with the previously published The Art of Needlework (1840; now called A History of Needlework), which was published by Mary Margaret Egerton, Countess of Wilton, but authored by Mrs. Elizabeth Stone.
The Sewing Circles of Herat: a Memoir of Afghanistan is a non-fiction book published by award-winning British journalist, Christina Lamb (1966) in 2002. The book is about a group of Afghan women living in Herat, who meet together in secret to discuss books and literary criticism under the guise of learning to sew, while the city was controlled by the fundamentalist Taliban (1995-2001).
The Subversive Stitch is a book by Rozsika Parker, which explores an alternative history of embroidery. In writing this book, the author wanted to show that decorative needlework should not simply be seen as an elegant and innocent pastime for women.
TRC Needles is a digital encyclopaedia that has been set up by the Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden. It covers the enormous field of needlework, focussing in particular on appliqué, beading, darned knotting, embroidery, needle lace making, passementerie, patchwork and quilting.