Embroidery: Traditional Techniques & Contemporary Applications for Hand and Machine Embroidery

Needlecrafts are currently enjoying a healthy revival as a whole new generation of crafters pick up their needles and get involved. With a plethora of social groups, blogs, and websites such as Etsy and Design Sponge now targeted specifically at a younger, hipper demographic, embroidery has cast off its image as an old fashioned hobby to become more popular than ever before.

Embroidery taps into this growing trend, encompassing both handwork and machine embroidery styles in an authoritative ‘category killer’ approach, combined with a fresh, contemporary aesthetic that is guaranteed to appeal to this burgeoning new generation of crafters. With its combination of step-by-step tutorials, practitioner profiles, and inspirational galleries full of bang up-to-date modern pieces, Embroidery introduces an authoritative new style of reference that is guaranteed to appeal to a new generation of embroidery enthusiasts, sewers, and needlecrafters of all levels. In contrast to other, largely project-orientated titles, Embroidery places the emphasis on the techniques themselves, and also offers a more comprehensive breadth of embroidery styles, providing an insight into a wide variety of innovative and exciting contemporary applications.

Covering everything from smocking and stumpwork to beading and blackwork, the book explores an extensive variety of handwork techniques, as well as looking at machine embroidery styles. Specially commissioned illustrations accompany detailed step-by-step tutorials, while interviews with contemporary practitioners provide an understanding of the range of different working methods, materials, and developing techniques.