Stitching Together the Novel Research, an essay by Barbara Stark-Nemon, author of Isabela's Way

I love how Barbara Stark-Nemon's essay about historical research incorporates embroidery, both thematically and literally.  Her new novel, Isabela's Way, is published tomorrow.

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Stitching Together the Novel Research

Barbara Stark-Nemon

Anyone who knows me well has learned that I love novel research, and in the course of ten years of doing author talks and interviews, one of the most frequent questions I’m asked is how and where I conduct my book research. My new novel, Isabela’s Way, takes place in early 17th-century Portugal, Spain, France, and Germany, and required extensive research involving travel, reading and experiential learning.

Isabela, my main character, is a young embroideress in Portugal, and her embroidery becomes crucial to the novel’s plot. A dear friend gifted me with a book that grabbed my attention and informed the embroidery elements in the novel. Its title alone intrigued me —Threads of Life: A History of the World Through the Eye of a Needle, by Clare Hunter. 

Hunter’s book tells the story of embroidery in Europe, and traces the development of stitchery entwined over centuries with the history of the people and places where embroidery was cultivated. It also tells of the plants that found their way into fabrics, dyes, thread and decoration starting in the 10th century. Inevitably the history of embroiderers became the history of the women who embroidered, the perfect background information I needed to move forward with Isabela’s Way.

Women used needlework to claim their place in the world, “stitching down political comment or feminist complaint, documenting their experience through domestic sewing.” During the 16th and 17th centuries, “embroidery was one of the most precious forms of …communication, valued as a transmitter of intellect and emotion - when it was a conversation between people and their God, the church and its congregation, ruler and subjects. Needlework had power and embroiderers had value.”

A writer knows when she’s found a deep source of material when every page requires notes! I was particularly interested, in Threads of Life, in the story of Mary Queen of Scots, whose complicated life between Scotland and France and her sovereignty fight with Elizabeth I of England is a colorful part of history. Mary’s son James became king of England during the time my novel takes place. Hunter tells us that Mary was an expert embroideress, an art she learned in France where embroidery had moved from monasteries to castles and into home production. For all the years that Mary was kept captive because of her threat to the English crown, she embroidered coded messages in gifts of clothing, in her own ensembles and in banners displayed in royal and public settings. These beautifully stitched items subtly reflected her demands to be freed, her devout Catholic faith, her political rivalry with Elizabeth and her romantic interests. I borrowed this concept and adapted it to Isabela’s refugee story.

Another form of research I used heavily for Isabela’s Way involved trips to museums on three continents to view early 17th-century paintings and textiles. I wanted to see what clothing and other embroidered textiles were represented, and when possible, to see the textiles themselves. I also wanted a sense of rooms in 17th-century homes, furnishings, cooking and eating implements and landscapes. I haunted the old historic parts of the European cities and countryside where my story took place, imagining Isabela stitching her way with the sights and smells of the local landscapes.

Because I like many forms of fiber art—I quilt, knit, crochet and sew—I was drawn to the study of embroidery personally, and decided to “try my hand” at it! My wonderful book cover designer incorporated embroidery-like images into the cover for Isabela’s Way and (perhaps unwisely) I determined to recreate that cover as an embroidered piece. That decision opened up a whole new world of local embroiderers, international organizations with vast stitch banks and textile history over hundreds of years.

Stitching the book cover has been a challenge, a joy, and a meditation on slow art. I newly appreciate the skill required to do embroidery well, the complexity of the design process, and the exacting patience embroiderers must embrace. I have experienced (along with occasional frustration!) the quiet thrill of bringing color and texture to an outlined design. Finally, it’s been a delightful way to deepen my understanding of my main character, Isabela!

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Barbara Stark-Nemon is the award-winning author of short stories, essays, the historical novel Even in Darkness, and the contemporary novel Hard Cider. Her historical novel Isabela’s Way is published in September 2025. Barbara lives, writes, swims, cycles, and does fiber art in Ann Arbor and Northport, MI.