Embroidered Garden Flowers: Botanical Motifs for Needle and Thread

by Kazuko Aoki

Overview

A whimsical field guide to embroidered flowers.
 
Working through a full growing season, from spring to autumn, the sixty-three flower varieties presented here offer a full garden of cherished blooms. From pansies and lilies-of-the-valley to poppies, zinnias, and campanulas, the flowers presented here feature buds, blooms, and roots in stunning detail and charming color combinations. As an avid gardener and seasoned embroiderer, Kazuko Aoki presents a beautiful blending of her twin passions through designs that are clearly rendered with an appreciation for intricacies and a delight in the subject. 

With artistic photographs, clear step-by-step instructions, and detailed diagrams, Embroidered Garden Flowers is a treasure trove that can be enjoyed by novice and experienced sewers alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611804546
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	12/05/2017
Series:	Make Good: Japanese Craft Style
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	483,255
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

KAZUKO AOKI is a talented and popular Japanese textile artist whose work features in many embroidery magazines and exhibitions. Her delicate pictures are inspired by her great love of nature, and the flowers in her own garden, which often provide the starting point for her creative designs. Kazuko loves to combine other embroidery techniques with cross stitch to introduce a beautiful and unexpected element in her designs and, in the process, create an original new style.

Read an Excerpt

Embroidered Garden Flowers

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By Kazuko Aoki, Josui Yasuda

Shambhala Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 Kazuko Aoki/Bunka Publishing Bureau
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61180-454-6

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INTRODUCTION

When I'm sketching, I find that it is important to look away from the actual drawing and look closely at my subject. I heard this advice many times when I first started drawing. It's the same with flower embroidery — sometimes I need to take time out from stitching to appreciate my subject. I draw upon the colors and shapes of flowers that are familiar to me or that I've already sketched. However, when the flowers I want to stitch are not in my garden or I've never encountered them before, field guides to flowers are my go-to reference. Field guides come in various kinds — some have only photographs; some have illustrations alongside the photos. My favorites have exquisitely detailed botanical art with enlarged illustrations of a plant's roots, leaves, and fruit. I stare at these meticulousimages and have a strange sensation, as though I am the size of a bee, slowly circling around the plant. I imagine that this is just how the illustrator must have felt.

This field guide to embroidered flowers begins with stitching flowers that arrive in the spring and finishes with blooms from late autumn. I have chosen sixty-three varieties of flowers — some that I have tended myself and some that are beloved to me. I make no claim that this "field guide" is the genuine article, only that I was fascinated by these color combinations. It would give me no greater satisfaction for my field guide to serve as a gateway for those who love flowers and embroidery. I invite you to share in the pleasures to be found between the fabric and the needle.

From my atelier, Kazuko Aoki

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Embroidered Garden Flowers by Kazuko Aoki, Josui Yasuda. Copyright © 2013 Kazuko Aoki/Bunka Publishing Bureau. Excerpted by permission of Shambhala Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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