My Favorite Embroidery Books

Not only was I able to buy some embroidery floss as stated in my post yesterday, I was also able to get two more all purpose embroidery books. Why does someone need more than one? Well why not. Also since I review books I look at them in regards to completeness and which one might be the best to reccommend. In this instance, if you have the money, buy all three. If you don't have the money and are a new embroiderer and just learning stitches, then I recommend The Embroiderer's Handbook. It contains several photos of how to make the different stitches and so whould be easier to learn from. The other two books, (my new ones) are Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Needlework and Mary Thomas's Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches. Both these books would be a good choice although they do have their differences. Donna's book has a lot of embroidery history, a large bibliography of other embroidery works, several lovely projects and a stitch index. Mary's book has a bit more detail when it comes to the stitches and also something I didn't see in the other books. Her books have what they call composite band stitches. This is the same as what machine embroiderer's call stitch stacking or building. They show combinations of the different stitches that are used to make fancy bands which either can take some of the thinking off of you or inspire you to try bigger and better stitch bands. Each of these books are unique and would be good references for you.

My kind of paint box!

I did a project about a month ago that rewarded me with a very large Amazon.com gift certificate. Let's just say I was in my glory. I have been going through my wish list, checking out the latest needlework books and magazines and also threads that Amazon.com now carries. They have come a long way from just being a media/book store.

I was very happy to find this set of DMC Stitcher's Palette Color Variations - 36 different embroidery floss colors. I had run into these types of floss before at Michael's but couldn't afford at the time to buy more than a few. I was very happy to find them for sale on Amazon.com.

The picture of these threads doesn't even begin to do them justice. They are gorgeous. They contain the colors of a wonderful Lake Erie sunset, the color of sand on the beach, flowers and water, trees and sky. I am of two mindsets. I can hardly wait to use them. Or I don't want to use them but just look at them as they are so pretty! Whichever I choose, I know I will have them for awhile as my hand embroidery has to relegated to small segments of time currently as my hands have been hurting a lot lately.

While my box of floss came sealed, it was missing one instruction/graph booklet. It also had a pack of needles and a piece of mottled sand colored fabric to sew on. I had been so excited about finding the floss that I didn't even pay attention to the other parts of the set.