400+ Embroidery Stitches For Quilts & More (Love to Quilt) Paperback – Illustrated, January 1, 2013

This book is in black and white. It's a stitch instructional, not a color catalog. It begins with seven pages of clear illustrations, showing you how to create particular stitches. Each stitch has written step-by-step directions of where to put your needle down and up. The step-by-step written directions have corresponding illustrations which are also numbered, step-by-step. Additionally, it shows LEFT HANDED instructions! A great aid for any righty teaching a lefty, or a lefty teaching him or herself.The remainder of the book (pages 8 through 31) contains stitch diagrams showing seam decorations. The diagrams are categorized by the type of base stitch. For example, there is a Herringbone Base, a Stem Stitch Base, and so on. One creates the base stitch first, then embellishes it with other stitches, such as a double cross or lazy daisy.This section is just stitch diagrams, not written directions. It does not have the "up and down" numbers. Laying down the base stitch and then embellishing combines the information from the first seven pages. For anyone who has done cross stitch or basic embroidery, this shouldn't be too hard. For novices, it would be wise to practice all the stitches in the first seven pages first. Get a piece of fabric, a hoop, and just do a throw-away sampler until you are comfortable with all the basic stitches. Play with different colors and floss or yarn. After you have mastered the stitches, practice deciphering a stitch diagram. Put down your base line stitches in one color. Then, pick another color to do the next embellishing stitch, and a separate color each subsequent stitch. By picking different colors, you will see how the stitches are combined. Practicing this will make it easy for you to decipher a diagram.The book does not tell you how to construct a crazy quilt, pick fabric, or design a layout. There are an abundance of other books that cover that material.I have a shelf (or two, or three) of embroidery and crazy quilt books. I have been stitching for almost 50 years. This book is a great source for inspiration. When you have a blank seam and are dreaming up what to put there, you can look at these stitch diagrams, then chose your colors and design to fit the spot. Or, use their base stitch and add your own embellishments. There aren't all that many books out there (yet) that offer this. I have a copy of the much-touted and coveted Crazy Quilt Stitches by Dorothy Bond. It has stitch diagrams similar to this, but at five to seven times the price. For any crazy quilter on a budget (and who isn't?), 400+ Embroidery Stitches is a very worthwhile investment and resource.On a packaging note, the book is the size of a large magazine. Why Amazon decided to send it in a 10x10x20 box, with LOTS of brown paper stuffing, is beyond me! Perhaps they ran out of smaller packaging from the Christmas rush? At least it arrived safely.

There are very few pictures of actual embroidery in this book. The pattern diagrams are lovely, and make my mind start clicking about where to use the stitches and others that can be made from them. It is just that I love to see the quilts and embroidery and I was so disappointed to not have them here! However, the book is inexpensive and contains all of the lovely diagrams, so I would buy it anyway.

I love everything about this book. The pictures of the stitches are easy to follow and I am enjoying practicing them and figuring out what I am going to do with my crazy quilt. For people who are visual learners I would suggest more pictures of real examples of what a finished product looks like. Following the examples provided is easy for me because I know most of the stitches but this is not a good book for a beginner who is trying to figure it out.

This is a great reference and learning tool. It contains many combinations of embroidery stitches for seam treatments for crazy quilts. I have found many of them lovely. The charts clearly explain how to create the stitches. My only complaint is that the stitches are not easy to find. I would have preferred that the stitches were in alphabetical order. Other than that, this book is certainly worth the price.

nice selection of stitches with added on stitches to take crazy quilting to a new level. i mean why use a single simple stitch when a little planning will allow combinations of three all fit together on a large block.

Title was/is very misleaing. Rather than 400+ embroidery stitches, you get maybe diagrams on 20 stitches. The remainder are motifs - ie, ways to combine those stitches into nice patterns for crazy quilts. It's nice, but I was expecting more of a reference book of stitches, not motifs.

This book shows a lot of emboidery stitiches especially for crazy quilt type stitching. I did not find the illustrations particularly helpful. It shows that you can combine a lot of stitches but not how to get from point A to point C, D, etc.

Wow what a speed devliery. It is good book. Thank you. Thumbs UP

When I was a child, one of my greatest pleasures was to study an old crazy quilt of my grandmother's. I delighted in the many textures and patterns of the various bits of fabric, the seemingly vast diversity of the embroidery stitches. I was fascinated, in particular, by the way those same patterns, textures and colours- used in different combinations- changed entire look and effect of the materials used. This a book filled with creative possibilities and with all the information required to enable anyone so inspired to make those possibilities a reality.

写真はほとんどない図案集です。薄い本ですが中身は充実しています。眺めているだけでも楽しい。右利き・左利き別の刺し方が載っていて、さすがアメリカ。英語はわからなくても図案ばっかりなので問題ありません。