Stitch, Fabric & Thread


Book Description

Experiment with stitch, fabric and thread to create your own unique textiles. This inventive book is a treasure trove of over 40 inspiring practical exercises, a rich and creative exploration of fabric and stitch, and a fascinating all-round read. Elizabeth Healey's approach to sewing is that it should be fun, and not like a chore or an exam we need to excel in. Her aim is to simply encourage you to pick up a needle and thread and get sewing! The exercises draw inspiration from around the world: create corded works of art inspired by Milton Glaser's iconic Bob Dylan poster; create bold embroidered African masks; layer up and cut away to create Mola applique; use bleach and fabric paint to create Aboriginal dreamtime lizards; create knotted works of art inspired by ancient Mayan counting systems; embroider varsity cross-stitch letters or try out decorative Japanese book binding. Alternatively, try a host of other techniques such as quilting, printing, dyeing, couching tumbled crockery, creating pleats and puckers and needlelace. Packed with stitch galleries and bursting with slow sewing ideas, the book also contains 'behind the stitches' features: illuminating insights into sewing movements such as Boro textiles, Gee's Bend quilting and Dorset buttons.




Creative Thread Sketching


Book Description

Begin an exhilarating journey into the world of drawing and painting with thread and your sewing machine. Thread sketching is a fascinating craft - but where do you begin? This fully revised and illustrated Second Edition of 'Creative Thread Sketching' guides you through everything you need to know. From equipment and tools, fabric selection and setting up your sewing machine, to free motion stitching techniques and problem-solving, this friendly guide shows you how to put all the pieces together. Learn how to create a wide variety of stunning stitched textile art for your home or friends. Popular textile artist, author and blogger Deborah Wirsu includes six free, illustrated projects to help get you started with this comprehensive introduction to creating stunning textile art using fabric, thread, and a domestic sewing machine.




Knot Thread Stitch


Book Description

Knot Thread Stitch presents a modern, experimental, and creative approach to thread and embroidery projects. You'll find fun and surprising project ideas, a unique artistic approach, and uncoventional mixed-media materials such as stamps, paint, sequins, paper, and shrinky dinks. These projects are designed to be quick, fun, abstract, and creative, and many offer clever ideas for personal customization. With easy-to-follow steps and project variations, this book also includes project contributions and embroidery patterns from a long and stellar list of renowned artists and bloggers, including Lisa Congdon, Camilla Engman, Heather Smith Jones, and Amy Karol, just to name a few.




Creative Stitches for Contemporary Embroidery


Book Description

Find endless inspiration with this photo guide to embroidery stitches. Discover the 120 hand-embroidery stitches that every embroiderer should have in their stitching arsenal, with clear, step-by-step photos you can come back to time and again! Contemporary needlework teacher Sharon Boggon’s forward-thinking ideas will help you view hand embroidery through a vibrant new lens. Beginners and seasoned embroiderers will gain the confidence to create new patterns by playing with the stitches—manipulating the height and width, making asymmetrical loops, stacking up designs, or filling multiple rows with the same stitch. With so many creative variations and the author’s gorgeous samplers, you’ll be inspired to incorporate new techniques in your own crazy quilts and modern projects. Essential guide to surface embroidery! 120 contemporary stitches, including left-hand stitches, with step-by-step photos See how tiny tweaks to each stitch can take your needlework to unexpected places Play up the possibilities with modern fill patterns, asymmetry, luscious texture, and crazy quilting




Creative Textile Craft


Book Description




Sprang; Thread Twisting


Book Description

"What is Sprang? It is a technique for twisting yarn on a simple frame or loom to form decorative and useful fabrics in hundreds of patterns. Get the simple materials - a few pieces of wood or an old picture frame, some sticks, a ball of thread or yarn. Try sprang yourself. Complete step-by-step instructions and easy-to-follow diagrams are provided. See what happens: wall hangings, handbags, capes, pillow covers, mats, caps, skirts, vests and much more." -- www.amazon.com.




Creative Thread


Book Description

Learn to embroider project by project with Royal School of Needlework trained, professional embroiderer Jo Dixey. Sure - colouring books are enjoyable and great for stress relief, but what if you want more? More creativity, more mindfulness and more fun? There are myriad crafts that can give you all of these and embroidery, or stitching, is one of them. Tap into your creative side and make one-off pieces of art, embellish clothing with images and symbols unique to you, or make beautiful gifts for your friends. Professional embroiderer Jo Dixey has designed this book to inspire and challenge both those new to embroidery and those with some knowledge of stitch who want to take their ideas further. Each project introduces new embroidery stitches and techniques. As you work through the ideas, you expand your skills and gain confidence in using stitches and ideas in your own work. The projects range from small embroidered cards to more complex pictures to hang on your wall; simple appliqu for a scarf to an embroidered jacket - all based on the theme of people. Templates of the images to stitch are provided for photocopying and there is a photo gallery of all the stitches covered in the book, along with step-by-step photographs of key techniques, such as transferring patterns onto fabric or using batting to create 3D effects.




Zen Camera


Book Description

Zen Camera is an unprecedented photography practice that guides you to the creativity at your fingertips, calling for nothing more than your vision and any camera, even the one embedded in your phone. David Ulrich draws on the principles of Zen practice as well as forty years of teaching photography to offer six profound lessons for developing your self-expression. Doing for photography what The Artist’s Way and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain did for their respective crafts, Zen Camera encourages you to build a visual journaling practice called your Daily Record in which photography can become a path of self-discovery. Beautifully illustrated with 83 photographs, its insights into the nature of seeing, art, and personal growth allow you to create photographs that are beautiful, meaningful, and uniquely your own. You’ll ultimately learn to change the way you interact with technology—transforming it into a way to uncover your innate power of attention and mindfulness, to see creatively, and to live authentically.




Color, Thread & Free-Motion Quilting


Book Description

Use color and thread to create the quilting of your dreams! With Color, Thread, & Free-motion Quilting, author Teri Lucas, a world-renowned master machine quilter, shares her brilliance and guidance to hone your machine quilting skills in a helpful, comprehensive, and understandable way. Quilters talk about building their fabric stashes but what about building their thread stashes, which is equally important? This book is a beautiful, well-guided and helpful resource for choosing threads––considering color, kind, and weight; choosing aids to help you quilt successfully; improving your free-motion quilting skills; and ultimately making free-motion quilting FUN! There are also lots of tips and tricks to help make your quilting enjoyable, playful, and frustration-free! Color, Thread & Free-motion Quilting is a comprehensive, go-to book that will be a staple resource in any quilter’s stash; I know it will be in mine!” ~ Pokey Bolton Thready or not! Learn how color, thread, and motif come together in machine quilting Compare actual quilted color wheels on a rainbow of various background fabrics Make your quilting a design element with solid quilting tips and color fundamentals




The Crimson Thread


Book Description

In Crete during World War II, Alenka, a young woman who fights with the resistance against the brutal Nazi occupation, finds herself caught between her traitor of a brother and the man she loves, an undercover agent working for the Allies. May 1941. German paratroopers launch a blitzkrieg from the air against Crete. They are met with fierce defiance, the Greeks fighting back with daggers, pitchforks, and kitchen knives. During the bloody eleven-day battle, Alenka, a young Greek woman, saves the lives of two Australian soldiers. Jack and Teddy are childhood friends who joined up together to see the world. Both men fall in love with Alenka. They are forced to retreat with the tattered remains of the Allied forces over the towering White Mountains. Both are among the seven thousand Allied soldiers left behind in the desperate evacuation from Crete’s storm-lashed southern coast. Alenka hides Jack and Teddy at great risk to herself. Her brother Axel is a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator and spies on her movements. As Crete suffers under the Nazi jackboot, Alenka is drawn into an intense triangle of conflicting emotions with Jack and Teddy. Their friendship suffers under the strain of months of hiding and their rivalry for her love. Together, they join the resistance and fight to free the island, but all three will find themselves tested to their limits. Alenka must choose whom to trust and whom to love and, in the end, whom to save.