Stitched Textiles: Animals Review & GIVEAWAY

New 6th title in popular textile series just released - Stitched Textiles: Animals by Mrs Bertimus! From inspiration to final design the UK artist shows how she creates her wonderful animal-themed stitched textiles using freestyle machine embroidery and a little bit of hand stitching. She says the thread becomes the pencil and the fabric becomes the paint. Her book is divided into 5 main parts - Where to start, Composition, Going further, Telling a story and Projects. It's packed with insight into her creative process - from the materials she uses to step-by-step demonstrations of a whole range of techniques. There are 3 stitched textile projects - Sausage Dog, Midnight Fox and Acrobat Mouse. Templates are included. Delightful examples of the author's work are featured throughout. As well as machine embroidery you'll find collage, printing, drawing and some of the authors stories plus the methods she used in the work. An amended table of contents is shown below. I have individually listed every topic. You won't find this anywhere else. Publisher Search Press released the 128 page paperback on May 28, 2021. Get your copy below!

CONTENTS

Introduction

Materials

Fabrics, Embroidery, Art

Where to start 

Core techniques

Inspiration

Engaging with your subject

Choosing colors: my palette

Making your drawing

Tonal value maps

Fabric collage

Freestyle machine embroidery

Sheep skull

Composition

It's all about balance

Orientation - the horizontal and the vertical

Composing: Whitby Sheep

Identifying tones

Planning the stitches

Composition challenges

Refining the fabric collage

Letting the character emerge

Backgrounds

Composition of the fabric collage

Composing with sticky notes

Into abstraction

Going further

Advanced techniques

Paper collage

Paper and stitch

Gel-plate printing

Using gel-plate printing alongside other techniques

Making your own printing plates

Printing fabrics

Using the printed fabrics

Masks and stencils

Layering prints and combining techniques

Reserving areas

Creating texture

Telling a story

Starting points

Stories, sketches and photographs

Acrobat Mice

Story and colour

Story and style: old photographs

Sausage Dog

Step-by-step project

Midnight Fox

Step-by-step project

Acrobat Mouse

Step-by-step project

Afterword

Templates

Index

Sausage Dog - Project #1.

Midnight Fox  - Project #2.

Acrobat Mouse - Project #3.

This layout is from the chapter on composition. It's a look at backgrounds. If you read the text under the images then look closely at the image you'll be able to see exactly what Mrs. Bertimus means.

Sticky notes technique.

Freestyle machine embroidery technique.

Charming examples of Mrs Bertimus's work.

Owl

Queen of Sheba

Minuet and Mouse in a Spotty Teacup. 

How to set up your machine for freestyle machine embroidery, page 24.

Party Lurcher from page 43.

Stitched Textiles: Animals ISBN-13 : 978-1782218227 is available worldwide at Search Press. Search Press is an independent, multi award-winning, family owned art and craft book publisher. Check out their unique catalog at Search Press. Search Press has generously offered to giveaway a copy! One winner will be selected at random. Open until July 6, 2021. Canada & USA only. Good luck!

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