Book review: Freestyle Machine Embroidery

free You’ve probably heard of Carol Shinn and seen her work around the Internet. You may even have been lucky enough to learn from Carol through one of her many workshops. If not, here’s your chance to be tutored by her.

Carol is an American fiber artist who is known for her realistic images produced with machine stitching. Her book Freestyle Machine Embroidery: Techniques and Inspiration for Fiber Art shares amazing examples of her work and explains her techniques in detail. It is not a book for the casual crafter or dabbler, really. It’s more about producing fine art in an unusual medium.

If you paint but you’ve never before touched a sewing machine, and you’d like to experiment with painting with thread, this is the ideal book for you. Carol prepares you by explaining in simple terms the mechanics of the sewing machine so you can understand what’s happening between fabric and thread and you can manipulate that interaction. She steps through each critical element down to thread, needles, and hoops, pointing out pitfalls along the way. She even details how to set up your workspace and guide the fabric so that your body can tolerate long hours of stitching. There’s also plenty of information about canvas prep, color blending, and stitch variations.

But can a crafter with a limited background in studio art benefit from and enjoy this book? Well…yes. That’s just who I am, and I enjoyed it a lot. I’m probably never going to attempt photo-realistic fine art with my sewing machine. But there’s a very good chance, indeed, that some new machine-stitching experimentation will be going on my studio, thanks to this lovely book.

Freestyle Machine Embroidery was produced by Interweave and is available from Amazon.com and many other outlets. ISBN 978-1-59668-042-5

Comments

8 Comments so far

Giveaway: Freestyle Machine Embroidery · Needlework News @ CraftGossip on November 15, 2009 5:02 am
[...] First up is Freestyle Machine Embroidery: Techniques and Inspiration for Fiber Art by Carol Shinn from Interweave Press. See the review. [...]
Joyce on November 15, 2009 8:22 am
Looks interesting. It’s a technique I’ve never tried
Isabel on November 15, 2009 9:03 am
Looks like a very exciting book – would love to win it.
Lynn Tolles on November 15, 2009 9:18 am
This book is on my very long “want list” at Amazon! I’d love to win it so that I can go onto the next level of my machine embroidery. Oh, please pick me!

Thanks for all the free info you bring us! Lynn
sandy on November 15, 2009 9:20 am
The work looks so exciting … someday I’d love to give it a try. thanks.
Becky Potts Baker on November 15, 2009 9:55 am
I’m really glad to see this book review. I’ve made the transition (or most of it) to art quilting from more traditional quilting. There are quite a few books on “thread painting” or “thread sketching,” and “freestyle machine embroidery” for quilts and they are all good; but this book looks and sounds like the information I feel like I still need. One of the categories, if that is a correct descriptive, in art quilts is the landscape and portraiture one. I have found that I prefer making these quilts rather than abstract art quilts. I would love to win this book! And thanks again for reviewing it.

Becky
Billie K on November 15, 2009 10:11 am
Another great giveaway. Count me in.

Billie
Shirley on November 15, 2009 6:45 pm
I am currently trying to learn these sewing machine techniques. I would LOVE to have these books!