365 Days of Stitches: Keep a personal embroidery journal: motifs, techniques, templates
Steph Arnold
Search Press
Looking at this latest embroidery offering, I witnessed a lightness, it looks a happy, maybe pointing to a younger market as a target with all the little symbols on the front cover. Yet within its approachable visual look….its actually a bit of a guise. This book stems from an artists need for repair mentally within themselves. Its content’s focus being to ask us to allocate time within our lives to make a mark, a stitched one, to remind us of what is going on in our lives. We may all be guilty of starting a new year with the intention to keep a visual diary, but what about the goal of a stitched one instead? This title features over one thousand motifs, all pictured so that we can have a choice…don’t say that Arnold does not give us variety! There are plenty of helpful hints throughout to guide the beginner too, for example hoop and material advice. The book itself is set out to have chapters on certain umbrella subjects, i.e. Celebrations. So many of us let life pass us by and lack and thoughtful note as to what just happened. We all look to the future, yet we can lack appreciation for the every day it takes us to get there. This book encourages us to take note of the microscopic things which keep us alive throughout the year, not just the summer holiday we have had or are going to have.
For the busy, this book is a perfect turn to, as its achieveable. You could set yourself a personal goal - how about a few of these tiny motifs every week?
I enjoyed the early pages of this book too, where we are shown how other artists have tried to develop their own stitch diaries, using this technique in their own personal format.