Embroidery on Paper: Alphabet & Festive Motifs

Embroidery on Paper – Alphabet & Festive Motifs.
Joke & Adriaan De Vette
Published by Search Press
ISBN: 978-1844484-61-4
Price: £6.99
Reviewed by Jackie Langfeld

The enthusiastic card-maker and embroiderer will find this book an interesting addition to their library, both in the approach to the Festive season and for special personalised cards throughout the year.

It is an attractive and well laid out book. There are plenty of coloured photographs of the ‘end products’ and the templates for the designs are clear and precise and include the full alphabet as well as the Christmas themed designs.

The book starts with a good list of general materials and equipment required for all of the designs. Ready-made cut outs and special papers are also detailed later in the book with the appropriate project illustrations and instructions.

A complete beginner may have been a bit confused by the assumption of prior knowledge regarding some of the materials and ready-mades. Perhaps a reference to information on card-making techniques would have been useful here. I also searched for a suppliers guide and eventually found a note to contact the publishers website if there was a problem locating materials. I do recognise though that it is difficult to maintain a comprehensive and up-to-date list of suppliers for the period that this book may be in print for.

There is a very good section entitled ‘General Instructions’. This includes use of templates provided, pricking out the design and finishing touches. I found these instructions informative, not only because they explained the process but also because they identified some of the things that could go wrong during the process – always useful!

The section on embroidery stitches is comprehensive and although, as the author explains, they differ in some cases from traditionally perceived stitches, the instructions and diagrams are very clear. I would have liked to see the holes numbered in the diagrams though, just to make it clearer where the needle and thread were going. This is a fussy criticism, however, of a very good guide.

After the general section the projects are detailed, starting with an alphabet section and working through the simpler card designs, punctuated by more of the alphabet, to more complicated projects later in the book. Each of the projects has a good set of instructions which include useful tips such as thickness of a stitched line and which areas to stitch first to achieve a good result.

One of the points that I find quite rewarding is that some of the designs could be easily adapted using a ‘mix and match’ method to borders and motifs, lending an individual slant to these effective projects and perhaps making the reader experiment further with this interesting technique.

My own work involves the very experimental use of paper and stitch and can sometimes be quite harsh and unforgiving. It has therefore been a refreshing change to survey this little book which focuses on the more traditional art of embroidery on paper and I hope that others will also enjoy it.