Elegant Stitches An Illustrated Stitch Guide

and Source Book of Inspiration   

By  Judith Baker Montano

 

This book has a metal coil binding which makes it lie flat to read, very nice. If you read this book, be prepared to be moved.  There is a story about "Grandpa was a big, big man". There's a photo (printed onto fabric) of a little boy leaning against his Grandpa's legs, as if Grandpa was a big sturdy tree and the picture is included in a "crazy" quilt. The little boy in the picture, is the author's uncle, and the Grandpa was the author's Grandpa.  He died when this little boy was little, and the author's mother was 14.  She says, "Remember when we were all little and the grownups looked so big to us, almost like giants.  Now I'm a grownup, but I don't feel very "big"!"

 

There are fabulous illustrations of embroidery stitches and colour photos of projects and watercolours and sketches, walking the reader through many projects.  A project called "Garden Memories" combines quilting and needlework to collage techniques to make an original art form. She outlines how she made a sense of distance in this piece and her thought process as she moved along.

Judith's students were always asking her to recommend an embroidery book that covers basic stitches for all types of needlework, one that a left hander can use, and one that has some arty ideas..... as a result she wrote this book. It's worth picking up.