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cantwelljr 's review for:
ARC provided by publisher through Netgalley for review
I think this is book for 2 types of embroiderers: 1) people who are already into mysticism and who want to combine this with their embroidery hobby and 2) people who are already into embroidery and are looking to try freehand designs. Note that both of those groups are people who have already done some embroidery. This book isn't really designed for beginners. It does include a chapter at the beginning describing basic stitches and how to do them, but it's fairly cursory and I think most novices will need to go to other resources for learning the basic stitches.
The High Points: There's some really great tips in here on how to embroider clothing and what areas of clothing are best suited for embellishment. It also includes some guidance on color theory and composition for design. All of which is great for someone who is moving past the design transfer phase and is looking to start coming up with their own designs.
The Bad: I really wish this book was organized differently. Johnson starts with some New Age mysticism / meditation stuff, but the book starts in earnest with the stitching tutorials (which are honestly too limited for true beginners) and then immediately moves into a long chapter of 'symbols'. These are pages of grouped icons that each have an embroidered example and a paragraph explaining their symbolic meaning(s). For example, one of the symbols under the Animalia heading is a swan, and there's an embroidered swan and a paragraph talking about the various things swans symbolize. There is nothing about the stitches used in the example or how to go about it yourself. That won't come for much later. Then we get the chapter on design theories. After that we get a chapter with larger designs that have (loose) instructions on how to stitch them. (No patterns.) We get another chapter on mysticism. Then we finally get a guide where each of the symbols from the earlier chapter has a stitch guide.
It would have been much easier to have the flow go from teaching the stitches, to here's some designs with instructions, to here some smaller items to use in your designs along with guides to stitching them, here's design theory to how to use these smaller items to create your own larger designs, and now we'll circle back to mysticism and how to incorporate embroidery into your practice.
Ultimately I think this is a pretty good book for an intermediate embroiderer with a New Age aesthetic/lifestyle but if you're a beginner, you might be better off picking up something else first.
I think this is book for 2 types of embroiderers: 1) people who are already into mysticism and who want to combine this with their embroidery hobby and 2) people who are already into embroidery and are looking to try freehand designs. Note that both of those groups are people who have already done some embroidery. This book isn't really designed for beginners. It does include a chapter at the beginning describing basic stitches and how to do them, but it's fairly cursory and I think most novices will need to go to other resources for learning the basic stitches.
The High Points: There's some really great tips in here on how to embroider clothing and what areas of clothing are best suited for embellishment. It also includes some guidance on color theory and composition for design. All of which is great for someone who is moving past the design transfer phase and is looking to start coming up with their own designs.
The Bad: I really wish this book was organized differently. Johnson starts with some New Age mysticism / meditation stuff, but the book starts in earnest with the stitching tutorials (which are honestly too limited for true beginners) and then immediately moves into a long chapter of 'symbols'. These are pages of grouped icons that each have an embroidered example and a paragraph explaining their symbolic meaning(s). For example, one of the symbols under the Animalia heading is a swan, and there's an embroidered swan and a paragraph talking about the various things swans symbolize. There is nothing about the stitches used in the example or how to go about it yourself. That won't come for much later. Then we get the chapter on design theories. After that we get a chapter with larger designs that have (loose) instructions on how to stitch them. (No patterns.) We get another chapter on mysticism. Then we finally get a guide where each of the symbols from the earlier chapter has a stitch guide.
It would have been much easier to have the flow go from teaching the stitches, to here's some designs with instructions, to here some smaller items to use in your designs along with guides to stitching them, here's design theory to how to use these smaller items to create your own larger designs, and now we'll circle back to mysticism and how to incorporate embroidery into your practice.
Ultimately I think this is a pretty good book for an intermediate embroiderer with a New Age aesthetic/lifestyle but if you're a beginner, you might be better off picking up something else first.