Today we went to the Whitworth Art Gallery. They have a fabulous textile collection and today were launching both the family guide to the new permanent display of textiles and the exhibition of early (and I mean pre-1000AD - amazing!) clothing.

The new textile gallery is great. It's got some downsides (no object labels yet, tee hee; the children's activities in such subtle housing you miss them), but the displays are simple and engaging (and, nicely, the lighting increases as you go up to them). And once we found them, DD loved the dressing up in costumes from around the world and the drawing with stencils.


I was most inspired by this lino block printed fabric from 1938. It was designed by EQ Nicholson, who, poor thing, is more famous for being Ben Nicholson's sister-in-law. The Whitworth also display her original sketch and lino block. The block's only about 8" x 10" (and she obviously used another underneath in blue for the sky), but the unusually small print sections look great.