My Little Book of Embroidery Stitches

Sweet Pea Journal

Sweet Pea Journal  is a tribute to my sister’s garden filled with beautiful sweet peas.  When I began this project, I understood the basics of bookbinding and wanted to stretch myself to see if I could create a beautiful, elaborate design using a nontraditional background fabric.  To create the sweet peas, I used Contemporary Stumpwork techniques to pad and add dimension.  The embroidery was worked on Italian linen book cloth.  The text block was formed using Mohawk Superfine paper. 

Embroidered books have existed since at least the 16th century.  My goal was not to recreate what has already existed, but to blend modern design elements with proven bookbinding techniques.

A Walk On the Beach

A Walk on the Beach was my first foray into using dimensional embroidery stitches and techniques on paper. I printed photos that I had taken at the beach on matte brochure paper and then used embroidery stitches to enhance the photos. In some photos I used line stitches such as Outline and Stem Stitch to emphasize the shapes. For the seaweed, I added Ghiordes Knots to bring the messiness forward to the eye. For the starfish, I padded and used Detached Buttonhole Stitch. My goal for these was to accentuate what was already there and draw the viewer in.

In My Garden

I worked In My Garden to stretch myself artistically.  The question I posed to myself was “Is it still Stumpwork if your background fabric isn’t fabric?”.  I also wanted to incorporate the playfulness of the “I spy” game I played with my children when they were young.  To accomplish these goals, I started by photographing flowers and trees in our garden.  I printed them out on matte brochure paper then worked insects on each photo using contemporary Stumpwork techniques such as padding and wired slips.  I wrote the text for each page like a children’s book, inspired by the work of Denise Fleming.  Finally, I created an accordion book using cut mat board and Mi-Teintes paper.