Embellish
the seams on your crazy quilt (or any other sewing project)
with the ideas in this beautiful book. There are 480 seam
designs to choose from and 36 stitch-template designs for
getting the placement exactly right. If you are new to freestyle
hand embroidery it doesn’t matter as not only are there
clear diagrams for all the stitches used, there are only a
few of the simpler ones to learn.
Part
of the appeal of this book is not merely that it contains
page after page of stunning seam designs, but that none is
too difficult to create even for novice embroiderers. Any
book with “quilt” on the front page is going to
be aimed primarily at quilters, a craft that mostly makes
use of a sewing machine and/or ordinary hand sewing stitches.
Crazy quilting is rather different, and a brief history of
it is given along with a list of what you will need. The stitches
are the usual basic hand embroidery staples such as blanket
stitch, herringbone, bullion knots, feather stitch, etc plus
several variations to make a seam look prettier. The large
colored diagrams are easy to follow and include how to do
several stitches using ribbon and how to make several small
repeat designs. These include flowers, insects and “prongs”
as well as how to add beads and buttons. At the front is also
a short section on how to use the book including building
layered seams and using templates. There are 36 of these ready
to scan/photocopy/trace onto vellum and use to get your seams
perfectly spaced. The rest of the book contains first a gallery
of photographs of the seams, and then the patterns. These
are organized by the base seam stitch and are drawn in several
colors for ease of use. Under the diagram is a list of the
stitches and any other information. For example the template
number is given first, followed by the stitches used first
in thread, then in ribbon (if applicable) and lastly if there
are any “beads and baubles” to add. The finished
result looks gorgeous, and the cover shows several of them
to whet your appetite. A lovely and very user friendly book
that will appeal to quilters, hand embroiderers and anybody
else who wants to embellish something.
If
you cannot find a good range of embroidery and quilting materials
locally try www.searchpress.com for a list of suppliers.
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