Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners

Doodle Stitching: Fresh & Fun Embroidery for Beginners

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Editorial Reviews

Asian-inspired lampshades embellished with flying fish. Canvas sneakers decorated with pink and white swirls. A pretty pillow adorned with a sleeping bunny, sweetly curled up. All it takes to create these appealing projects—or add charming embroidered touches in no time at all—are a few simple stitches, some easy techniques, and the nearly 30 projects in this book. Begin by learning several styles for outlining, filling, decorating, and appliqué. Find out about floss, fancy threads, fabrics, and needles. Get the scoop on hoops, and the lowdown on transferring your very own designs onto every type of fabric. The fresh ideas, witty patterns, and clever color illustrations take stitchers from novice to accomplished in a blink of the eye!

Customer Reviews

LOVE this book! Cute, cute, cute!!

Reviewed by Mommy Donahue, 2010-02-10

I first requested this book from my library to see if I liked it, and I immediately ordered it! I love the projects. Even though there is not a "pattern" for every project, you can enlarge a photo in the book on a copier and using a transfer pencil and tracing paper. The stitching instructions are nicely done as well, including actual photos of the stitches, instead of illustrations. Enjoy!

Easy to get started

Reviewed by M. Allen, 2010-01-17

I bought this book over the Christmas holidays because I have always liked the look of embroidery and I thought the designs were really cute. I am no crafter, I don't know how to sew ( though I have wielded a needle to mend things), or knit, or crochet and I had never embroidered. But I bought this book, some basic supplies (6 in hoop, embroidery needles, thread) and set to work on an old pillowcase and I taught myself all of the stitches presented in the beginning of the book in about 2 hours. The instructions were mostly quite clear and the illustrations helped, I had no problem picking it up. For my first project, I picked the stuffed felt owl, and I was able to finish it over the course of two days. I followed the directions and I had great results, and was happy that I could start and finish a small project. I was really pleased with the results, and now am feeling ambitious enough to tackle the lap quilt for a friend's baby. This is an excellent book for beginners and has really inspired me.

OK at best

Reviewed by D. Cooper, 2009-12-27

I received this book for Christmas. It is ok at best. I was very sad, as I thought it would have transferable patterns to tear out, like the Sublime Stitching books. There weren't many projects, and they were just ok. I was really excited because of the pictures, and reviews.

Doodle Stitching

Reviewed by L. Dice, 2009-11-16

Bought this for my daughter for Christmas. I browsed through it and I'm sure she's going to love it. Definitely for beginners...

Liberating!

Reviewed by K. Smith, 2009-09-03

I grew up on counted cross stitch. I loved the meditative little XXXXX patterns I made, but ARGH, what if I don't like DMC 307? Do I really have to follow the pattern? And what if the stupid pattern turns out to be WRONG?!

But oh, embroidery. How do I love thee? Let me STOP counting the ways and just stitch for the joy of stitching! Aimee Ray introduced me to free-form stitching at its best. She gave me the tools and some fun ideas, but if I don't like a split stitch or just don't feel like chain stitching today, I don't have to! The Embroidery Police (*cough* or Mom) won't come knocking down my door!

The book is full of close-up photographs of projects, so it's easy to see how she varied colors and stitches to achieve certain looks. My favorite page is 13 where she shows the same pattern (the bird on the bottom left of the front cover) done three ways to illustrate how different stitches can affect the final product.

My only criticism is that there isn't a discussion on needle size... perhaps I'll discover that I only need one type of needle, but can I really do satin and denim with the same thing? I'm dubious. That said, it's not enough for me to dock this book even half a star. Some folks have complained that the book doesn't contain the instructions/patterns for some of the cute, complete doodle projects she's done. Yes, you can get them from her [...] store, but I think including them in the book would've defeated her purpose - make your own doodles and embroider those instead!