Beginners Guide to Goldwork

This popular book by Ruth Chamberlin now returns as a Search Press Classic, with an updated design and preface on the author by the illustrious embroiderer Mary Corbet.

A needle art that dates back over a thousand years, goldwork embroidery involves sewing with lavish metal threads. It has been prized and often used by religious orders and royal households for its opulence and the way the light glimmers and plays on the beautiful metallic designs. Those in love with this brilliant style of embroidery can now create their own with easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide. Through calm and deliberate instruction, Chamberlin's book aims to teach the reader how to create a personal sampler - a piece of embroidery containing a mixture of designs and stitches, which shall provide a basis for future projects and enable readers to continue on their goldwork journey.

With multiple stitch techniques - from simple laid stitch to the more complex basket stitch, several design motifs with corresponding templates that can be used, and a luminous gallery of finished work interspersed throughout, Chamberlin's work gently introduces beginners to the exquisite needle art of goldwork embroidery.

Ruth Chamberlin studied drawing and dress at Croydon Art School before moving on to the School of Embroidery, London, where she studied ecclesiastical embroidery. After leaving the school, Ruth worked at the Warham Guild in London where she embroidered a cope and mitre for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Ruth has taught in adult education for over thirty years, and now works on her own commissions. She lives in Rutland, UK.