Embroidered Collage

I checked this book out of the library on a whim to see what types of things were going into this contemporary introduction.  I enjoyed it overall, but I was glad that I hadn't purchased it, as it didn't add anything to my shelves of needlework books, but it might be a good fit for someone else.  I was pleasantly surprised by how comprehensive it was for such a slim volume.    It meets both its goals of introducing embroidery to the beginner and introducing a different approach to the more experienced stitcher.  The projects are rather quirky.

The book is full of text, which carefully details the steps for each project and a substantial amount of information about the technique or side-bar subject.  These were all well-written, but a bit of a departure from many other recent needlework books that I've seen that rely heavily on color photographs.  There were both descriptive and decorative pictures, certainly, but to get the most out of the book you need to read each word of the text.

The author, Melinda Barta, is also the assistant editor of Piecework magazine, which I've been enjoying reading for the last few years.  It focuses primarily on articles about historic and ethnic needlework and fiber crafts but also includes patterns that update those techniques into something a modern stitcher or knitter or such can follow and use.