Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Embroidered Landscapes
Judy Wilford

Milnre Craft Series (distributed in the UK by Search Press)
31 January 2016/ ISBN 9781863514743
How-To Books/Embroidery

Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde

 

Have you ever wanted to capture the beauty of a place in fabric and thread? This book will tell you everything you need to know about building up a picture using, as the subtitle states "hand embroidery, layering and surface stitching" so you can create a masterpiece.

This is a big book with sturdy board covers and it gives a pretty exhaustive account of certainly everything I can think of on the topic. It is the sort of book you need to read through a bit at a time as you work, and is a most impressive feat of writing. The author lives in Australia and the pictures she works through depict this country in all its beauty, although everything in here can be applied to whatever landscape you want to show. Ms. Wilford takes you from choosing materials and setting up a workspace to drawing out your sketch, layering up fabric for the background and deciding on stitches right through to mounting and framing. This is not a book for beginners, more for the confident hand embroiderer who wants a challenge and to go beyond commercial patterns and kits to their own choice of picture. Helpful drawn diagrams and staged photos are backed up with a lot of print for some foolproof projects to work through, or read through and create your own pictures. There are many pages of surface elements, namely grasses, trees and other plants, as well as tips for building up different landscapes. These are of course mostly plants that are found in Australia, but the simple rules for building up the shapes again apply to any - a wise idea that gives this book a lot of international appeal. This is not the only book on the market that deals with this subject, but it is by far the most in-depth. One for the keeper shelf.

UK Reviewer: Rachel Hyde's work can be found in Sewing World, Sew Hip, Popular Crafts and other magazines.
Reviewed 2016
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