Weekend Review: Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery

 

Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery / Cassandra Dias
Lafayette, CA: C&T, c2026.
160 p.

This is a recent book I picked up via my library. It's a gorgeous look at thread painting, creating full coverage landscapes that look realistic (the size of these are 3" hoops, to make them manageable, it looks like a lot of work!) 

This book is a great workshop, essentially. It starts with an introduction to tools and materials, and basic embroidery techniques like transferring, basics of thread painting, hooping a piece etc. There is also a section on design -- working from a reference photo and creating your own designs. This is all handy info for anyone who is not a pattern follower. But for those who are, or who want to start with a pattern, there are also lots of those! 

The book then provides a stitch guide to 9 stitches, and 10 tutorials for the various landscape elements -- grasses, rocks, trees etc - so that you can get used to the techniques for each of them. After that, 7 complete patterns are shared (traceable in book, or downloadable). Each of these patterns has a stitch guide and instructions on order of stitching and so on, each one quite lengthy and complete. I feel like the instructions would be easier to follow if you had a bit of stitching experience, though eager beginners may be okay. 

While this is not my usual style of stitching for myself, I really enjoyed looking through this and learning some new techniques. It's a beautiful book and if you like gentle, realistic landscapes in stitch, you're going to love it. I thought it was very well done, and just right for a stitcher who wants to up their skill level a bit.