The Embroidered Countryside

Presents an explanation of an embroidered fabric collage landscape pattern and directions, for each season of the year, and discusses different techniques for both hand and machine embroidery

It makes a great deal of sense, as Box demonstrates so well, to look on embroidery and other stitchery techniques with a painterly eye. Yet how-to books on this subject are more concerned with instructions than with beauty; this British artist simply reverses the emphasis. Based on seasons of the year, each section includes at least one full-scale explanation of an embroidered fabric collage pattern and directions that decrease in detail with each subsequent project, as stitchers increase their skills. Among Box's more unusual techniques are the use of a viewfinder (a new way to explore perspective) and the judicious intermixture of machine and hand embroidery. The only jarring notes? A propensity for New Age vocabulary and far too many quotes. Then again, as Horace pointed out, "there is a measure in everything." Barbara Jacobs