Laura Wasilowski loves fabric. Her first love was a sweet pink gingham fabric selected for a 4-H sewing project. As a college student, she discovered more exotic fabrics. And while she earned a degree in costume design, she found a new thrill - dyeing. For many years Laura created hand-dyed fabrics for garments that she sold in boutiques across the country. It was a friendly neighbour who introduced Laura to her current flame, the art quilt. This latest love is a marriage of fabric, colour, and whimsy that she truly enjoys. Laura lives in Elgin, IL, where she hand dyes fabric and thread for her business, Artfabrik.
Joyful Stitching, a very apt title as the cover of the book makes
you smile and want to look further. The book is nice to handle and
is full of colour photos that show every stage of creating the many
sample illustrated. As it says on the cover with this book you can
learn how to 'transform fabric with improvisational embroidery' and
have a lot of fun in the process. The detail given about the
materials, threads and stitches is very clear, excellent for a
beginner but not too distracting for the more experienced
embroiderer. Stitch on wool, felt, or silk and enjoy the
simple pleasure of stitching. The author also uses a lot of
variegated skeins which adds a lot of the liveliness. I really felt
that I wanted to have a go at creating something so colourful and
'joyful' either following one of the authors designs - A Rare
Songbird, A Tasty Bite of Apple, Yellow Landscape - or even making
up one of my own.
*Sew Region Magazine*
This latest title from textile artist Laura is a feast of colour.
Useful advice on materials and tools is followed by detailed
instructions for twenty-one popular stitches, each illustrated in
full colour. There are six gorgeous projects to stitch, all
very compact and achievable, using a wide variety of different
threads in delicious bright colours. Full sized templates are
included where required with helpful suggestions for further
projects. A delightful book suitable for all abilities.
*Embroiderers Guild*
Joyful Stitching offers a bright and colorful, simple approach to
embroidery combined with wool felt and appliqué. If you love
wool felt, appliqué, a folksy look, embroidery, texture, and color,
Laura’s projects will be right up your stitching alley! Lovely
presentation in color, good instruction, fun projects, very
accessible to beginners and terrific even for advanced embroiderers
who want to simplify and rev things up with a lot of color!
*Needle 'n Thread*
This is the ideal book for anybody who thinks that embroidery is
too “quiet” for them. Perhaps it conjures up images of
florals and practical items such as tea towels? As it says on
the cover with this book you can learn how to “transform fabric
with improvisational embroidery” and have a lot of fun in the
process. As soon as I saw the bright, folk art inspired image of a
bird on the cover it made me want to start stitching. As the
author says in her introduction you can really bring fabric to life
with embroidery and the projects in here all demonstrate
this. Most books on freestyle embroidery use 6-strand floss
on cotton or linen, but this one uses perle thread on silk, wool
and felt. The author also uses a lot of variegated skeins
which adds a lot of the liveliness and also omits having to buy a
very large number of shades of each color. The book starts
with a brief overview as well as a section on what you need and how
to use it. This includes how to use perle thread, methods of
transferring designs to silk, wool and felt and buying the right
needles and fabric. Each stitch is then shown in several good
sized captioned photographs; these are easy to follow and I like
the contrast between thread and fabric. Stitches are listed
alphabetically and comprise all the basic freestyle stitches plus a
few useful extras. The rest of the book contains the six
projects which are wonderfully bright depictions of an apple, bird,
heart filled with flowers, stylized plants, hand of fortune and a
landscape with a house and lake. Each project covers several
pages and contains a fair number of captioned photographs, list of
what you need complete with a photograph of the threads plus
instructions on finishing. The projects are pictures rather
than functional items to be enjoyed as they are. US
embroiderers can buy the variegated threads, hand dyed fabrics and
even kits of the projects in the author’s online store; those in
other countries will need to look elsewhere. This aside I
found this to be a beautiful and inspiring book, ideal for anybody
of any level who wants to see where freestyle embroidery can take
them.
*myshelf.com*
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