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.