Embroidered Botanicals by Yumiko Higuchi is exactly what I was looking for when I got hooked on vintage crewel kits and I scoured the library and thrift shops for every embroidery and crewel book I could find. Surely there had to be something that would show me how to stitch all of those gorgeous flowers without a kit.
The first half of the book is gorgeous eye candy. It's full of the traditional flowers I was looking for, along with brooches that look like fragments of pottery and light colored stitches on black fabric that feel like heavy old lace.
The second half contains the patterns and stitch diagrams. I haven't tried working from the instructions yet, but there are clear step-by-step photographs of the techniques and the patterns themselves show which stitches to use and how many strands of threads.
This is one of those books that makes me feel like I can absolutely do something gorgeous!
Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links.
Such lovely book of beautiful embroidery. I have been looking something like this also. It's hard for me to find a kit I really love and being a lover of nature I can see where these flowers would fit on bag or a pillowcase.
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