The Art of Embroidery: Inspirational Stitches, Textures and Surfaces

By Francoise Tellier-Loumange
Published by Thames & Hudson
ISBN 0 500 28639 5
Price £24-95
Reviewed by Jenny Lewis

The Art of Embroidery is a visually stunning book that emphasizes the miraculous way that nature’s fruits provide the crafter with image upon image of inspiration. Getting ’close-in’ is the best way to appreciate and interpret the textures, colours, shapes and designs of the world around us. These offer new perspectives to intrigue and delight - and the photography of the author does just that.

With over 500 magical photographs, Francoise challenges and inspires us to re-create nature in a variety of intriguing and imaginative ways - all suited to the new textile art images of the 21st century. She uses familiar embroidery stitches, as well as unfamiliar and exciting ones, plus beadwork, appliqué, ribbonwork and explorative textile techniques – digital image transfer, soluble film and so on.

The 12 chapters and 300 pages contain hundreds of suggestions for taking your own work beyond those pictured, with many suggestions for projects. Francoise purposely doesn’t include pictures of finished items, the point of the book being to be inspired, develop techniques and produce some astounding textile work of your own.