The Stitched Landscape: An Embroidery Field Guide to the Textures, Colors, and Lines of the Natural World

In this inspiring debut guide, fiber artist Hultin teaches crafters how to embroider natural landscapes. She begins by encouraging readers to closely study their surroundings to find a landscape that excites them and then sketch it onto paper. From there, readers can use a fabric marker to trace their design onto cloth, which can then be embroidered with thread. Hultin offers instructions for a variety of basic embroidery stitches, like the back stitch and straight stitch, as well as experimental techniques, like incorporating watercolor and collages of fabric into an embroidered piece. She provides more than 40 designs for landscape features, such as trees, flowers, grasses, and mountains, that readers can replicate in their own compositions. There are step-by-step instructions for several sample landscapes crafters can copy and customize, including a field of California poppies and a tree-lined mountain range, as well as tips for composing an original landscape. Throughout her accessible explanations, Hultin intersperses thought-provoking quotes about nature from writers like Wendell Berry. This will help textile artists find beauty in their everyday surroundings. (Oct.)