With her series of embroidered table cloths textile artist Elvis Robertson transforms linen stains into marks of beauty and delicate refinement.

Here’s a close-up from Bo Hamsa, a new carpet company from Germany featured in an exhibition by Cover magazine last week in Milan. The fringe is a playful illusion woven into the carpet itself.

Taking a moment to contemplate a truly old man-made object is a bit like looking up at a star-filled sky; it’s a reminder of how fleeting and insignificant the near constant distractions of daily life really are.  The Metropolitan Museum’s current exhibition, Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition is full of such pinpoints for a larger perspective. Case in point: the Egyptian fragment pictured above, dating from the 8th-10th century.

Stocked with finds from her far-flung travels, Kira Wickstrom Pollack’s online bazaar is full of scintillating stripes (of every variety) for the bed, table and floor.

Via House Digs.

The new book Artists’ Textiles 1940-1976 comes out next month — and with 304 pages and 200 color images it looks like a must-have. The fabric pictured above is among the publisher’s preview highlights; in a play on Gertrude Stein it’s called “A Fish is a Fish is a Fish”.

Christie’s is having a large decorative arts auction in New York this week, with 71 carpets ready for the gavel. Among them is this French Art Deco carpet (shown cropped above). At or near its centenary mark, the piece still looks convincingly “contemporary” but now has historical gravitas as well. For the size and price estimate, who can compete with that?

Boxed is without doubt the first design website I’ve encountered with a “contact us” address in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The world is shrinking fast. Above, their Maharaja pillow cover.

Liya Kebede founded the company Lemlem to reinvigorate traditional weaving in her Ethiopian homeland. The result is a colorful mix of clothing and accessories that includes beautiful multipurpose scarves. Click here for an intimate look at the company’s handmade production process.

Via Elle Decor.

While it’s not very often the words “prison” and “needlepoint” come up in the same sentence, the British charity Fine Cell Work has put this unlikely pairing at the core of their mission:

Fine Cell Work trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework undertaken in the long hours spent in their cells to foster hope, discipline and self esteem. This helps them to connect to society and to leave prison with the confidence and financial means to stop offending.

Their Prison Calendar pillow is pictured above.

Via The World of Interiors.

Despite the enormous range of textile-related products on the market, simple high quality bedding still seems like an elusive category. Area, with its clean Scandinavian aesthetic and focus on natural fibers,  goes a long way toward filling this important niche.