Stitching Idyllic is an 80 page ebook directed towards new hands to embroidery but experienced stitchers will find good information in it too.
Basically you imagine a beautiful garden and with the assistance of Ann Bernard then you set about making it come to life. As the aim is to produce a garden landscape of flowers I can see Crazy quilters easily adapting many of the ideas in the book.
Ann Bernard trained at the Royal School of Needlework and has oodles of tips to share. The book is presented with beginners in mind so it starts off with basic introductory information such as the preparation of fabric and stretching it on a frame.
The rest of the book provides instructions on how to work a large variety of garden flowers and how to combine threads to produce their impressionistic colours. To name a few flowers in the garden include the favourites such as Daffodils, Snowdrops, Crocuses, Grape Hyacinths, Bluebells, Tulips, Iris, Forget-me-nots, and Primulas.
The flowers are accurate, but use simple surface embroidery stitches. Although there are no step by step photographs in the book they are not required as the stitches are basic.
A definite point in its favour for anyone who wants to create her own designs is that Ann Bernard shows you how to plan and stitch your garden, provides a colour chart and sample Gardens to assist you in planning and stitching your own project.
As I have already said the ebook is written for beginners but it is more than that, as instead of trapping people into the dependency of following this line with that colour in that project pattern, Ann takes a beginners hand and takes them straight towards self expression using simple stitches. At $10 Stitching Idyllic is fair price.
Note: apart from receiving a free review copy of the ebook I do not make financial gain by writing this review.