Embroidery Made Easy: Beautiful Birds Review & GIVEAWAY

New Release! Embroidery Made Easy: Beautiful Birds: Easy techniques for learning to embroider a variety of colorful birds, including a cardinal, a barn owl, and a puffin by Beth Hoyes. She is a UK embroidery artist and art therapist based in Denver, Colorado. Her book is about the newest embroidery trend - thread painting. Thread Painting is a hand embroidery technique that uses a combination of short and long stitches and a variety of colors to create designs that look like paintings. Learn how to embroider twelve gorgeous birds - a few stitches at a time. They include a Blue Bird, Calliope Hummingbird, and American Flamingo. Their life-like features, colors, and details are remarkable. Ordinary embroidery supplies are required - needle (size 1), floss (2 strands of 6), fabric (8"), hoop (6"), and scissors. Once you've assembled your supplies, review how to transfer the pattern and set up the embroidery hoop with fabric. There are twelve full-size pattern templates at the back of the book. The 'painting' technique is not complicated. Begin by learning how to blend colors. Review the following embroidery stitches - straight, running, French knot, and satin. Learn about staged and scattered stitching. There are tips for stitching bird eye rings, feathers, and wings. Tidy up the back of your hoop with a few finishing touches. All twelve patterns come complete with the name of the bird species, a general description, a DMC thread color guide, stitch flow directions, and a template. In addition, detailed step-by-step instructions with large, full-color photos, diagrams, and text show (and explain) what to do. The birds showcased in this book are impressive. I enjoyed poring over the thread-painting-in-progress photos as well as the finished masterpieces. The instructions gave me a good idea of how to recreate them. I am an intermediate-level embroiderer and have no experience with thread painting. See excerpts and the complete table of contents below. Walter Foster Publishing released this 128-page paperback on May 31, 2022. Get your copy below!

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Tools & Materials

Stitching Techniques

Finishing Touches

STEP-BY-STEP PROJECTS

Calliope Hummingbird

Cardinal

Keen-Billed Toucan

Wood Duck

American Flamingo

Kingfisher

Atlantic Puffin

Swallow

Barn Owl

Hoopoe

Raven

Eastern Bluebird

Pattern Templates

About the Author

Stitching Techniques - Blending Colors.

The Calliope Hummingbird pattern. Note the Thread Color Guide and the Stitching Flow Directions.

The hummingbird pattern continued. Note the first color guide.

The hummingbird pattern continued. Note the second and third color guides. The fourth (tail and feet) is found in the book on page 24.

Nine of the twelve projects.

Shared from Beth's Instagram. The hummingbird, owl and blue bird.

Embroidery Made Easy: Beautiful Birds is available worldwide at The Quarto Group. They have generously offered to giveaway a copy! One winner will be selected at random. Open until October 1, 2022. Canadian and USA addresses only. Good luck!

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