Joyful Stitching

Laura Wasilowski loves fabric. Her first love was a sweet pink gingham fabric selected for a 4-H sewing project. As a college student, she discovered more exotic fabrics. And while she earned a degree in costume design, she found a new thrill - dyeing. For many years Laura created hand-dyed fabrics for garments that she sold in boutiques across the country. It was a friendly neighbour who introduced Laura to her current flame, the art quilt. This latest love is a marriage of fabric, colour, and whimsy that she truly enjoys. Laura lives in Elgin, IL, where she hand dyes fabric and thread for her business, Artfabrik.

Joyful Stitching, a very apt title as the cover of the book makes you smile and want to look further. The book is nice to handle and is full of colour photos that show every stage of creating the many sample illustrated. As it says on the cover with this book you can learn how to 'transform fabric with improvisational embroidery' and have a lot of fun in the process. The detail given about the materials, threads and stitches is very clear, excellent for a beginner but not too distracting for the more experienced embroiderer. Stitch on wool, felt, or silk and enjoy the simple pleasure of stitching. The author also uses a lot of variegated skeins which adds a lot of the liveliness. I really felt that I wanted to have a go at creating something so colourful and 'joyful' either following one of the authors designs - A Rare Songbird, A Tasty Bite of Apple, Yellow Landscape - or even making up one of my own.