Book Review: Joyful Daily Stitching

I am on a listing from C&T Publishing and from Martingale that I get ebook copies of new books that come out.  I have the opportunity to review them.  It’s really fun and I enjoy seeing the new books that come out.  Every once in awhile I find a book that I think I would really love and I request a hard copy of the book.  I recently got an awesome book from C&T Publishing, Joyful Daily Stitching:  Seam by Seam by Valerie Bothell.

Check out the cover.  I LOVE it without even opening the book.  I have forever been intrigued by embroidery.  Crazy quilts I could look at forever and ever.  I was THRILLED to get this book.

Check this out…See that it says, “Complete Guide to 500 Embroidery-Stitch Combinations.

One of the first quilts I ever made was for Kelli when she was about three.  It was her first bed quilt….here she is showing it off as an adult.  This is an old picture.  We lived at the farm and Gracie, our first beagle, was still with us.  Anyway, notice the patchwork areas….All of them had crazy quilt embroidery stitches on them.  I was working as a telephone operator at Methodist Hospital in Rochester at the time.  I did lots of overnight shifts.  It was slow and I could stitch.  I LOVED stitching!!

I used to buy cute little denim jumpers and then do ribbon embroidery on them for Kayla.  She wore them all the time.  Oh, I loved stitching.  I wasn’t quite into quilting so much then….

Anyway, you can see why I was so interested in getting a copy of this book…for nostalgia sake if nothing else.

Let’s show you a peek into the book….I love this.  Notice that to the left is a simple stitch…as you go further to the right, the stitches get something else added to them to make them more and more complicated.  It’s great encouragement for beginners!!

The illustrations in the book are very nice.  The wording is complete and easy to understand.  Imagine how hard it would be to write directions on how to make a stitch!!

There is a big section on adding beads to the stitching.  I wasn’t as excited about actually doing that but it was interesting to look at, see and understand how adding beads would be done.

The flower stitches are my favorite.

I LOVED the ribbon embroidery section.  I have a stash of ribbon embroidery stuff.  Oh I loved doing that…then it kind of went out of fashion and I didn’t see supplies or more publications about it.  Through it all, I’ve still kept my supplies with the hope that it would make a come back…I have more hope now than ever.

I’m going to be on the hunt for some close for our new grand baby Lucy that would look good with a little ribbon embroidery on them.

In the back of the book there are pages and page like this.  What I love about it is that it says what stitches were combined to make the end product.  AWESOME.  I love when things get broken down into understandable parts.  It makes it all more do-able.

Cool right?

I loved these leaves!!

I don’t know how or when I’ll be stitching and using this book….but I sure am happy to own it.  It is one of those books that I want on my shelf for a reference.  When the time is right to stitch I want it there and waiting for me.  In the meantime, I’ve been reading the book at night at bed time and admiring all of the great stitches.

Bravo to the author and bravo to C&T Publishing for making the book a reality!