Embroidery

Thinking of taking up some type of embroidery as a creative skill? Or wanting to improve your skills?

~ Hand Embroidery ~

Mega Books (stitch bibles, encyclopedias, complete guides, etc.)

A-Z of Embroidery Stitches

A-Z of Embroidery Stitches 2

Hand Embroidery Stitches At A Glance

Mary Thomas’s Dictionary of Embroidery Stitches

The Complete Book of Embroidery

The Embroiderer’s Handbook

The Embroidery Stitch Bible (I noticed that this one is spiral bound–seems like that would be handy!)

The Stitch Bible: A Comprehensive Guide to 225 Embroidery Stitches and Techniques

~ Specialties ~

I don’t have a lot of links here (and may never) but these should at least give you an idea of what each type of embroidery is and whether or not you want to pursue it.

Bead Embroidery

Bead Embroidery Stitch Samples

Crewel Embroidery

A-Z of Crewel Embroidery

Beginner’s Guide to Crewel Embroidery

Drawn Thread

Beginner’s Guide to Drawn Thread Embroidery

Goldwork

A-Z of Goldwork with Silk Embroidery

Mountmellick Embroidery

Beginner’s Guide to Mountmellick Embroidery

Ribbon Embroidery

The Handbook of Silk Ribbon Embroidery

A-Z of Ribbon Embroidery: A comprehensive manual with over 40 gorgeous designs to stitch

Stumpwork

A-Z of Stumpwork

Thread Painting

A-Z of Thread Painting

Whitework

A-Z of Whitework

Other

A-Z of Embroidered Motifs

~ Related Needlework ~

Crazy Quilting

See Allie Aller’s Crazy Quilting: Modern Piecing & Embellishing Techniques for Joyful Stitching for an introduction. If you look through the “customers who bought this item also bought” list you should see more crazy quilting books with nice covers that show more examples of what crazy quilting looks like.

Cross Stitch

See The Cross Stitcher’s Bible for examples.

Hardanger

See Beginner’s Guide to Hardanger to learn what is is.

Needlepoint

See A-Z of Needlepoint.

Punch Needle

Punchneedle The Complete Guide

Smocking

A-Z of Smocking: A complete manual for the beginner through to the advanced smocker. Usually used on clothing.

~ Machine Embroidery ~

Machine embroidery is done with a sewing machine with some decorative stitches, with a sewing machine/embroidery machine,  or with an embroidery only machine (typically the term does not refer to using just a few decorative sewing machine stitches).  What you plan to use is an important factor in what resources you use.

A Few Books on the Subject

The Sewing Machine Embroiderer’s Bible: Get the Most from Your Machine with Embroidery Designs and Inbuilt Decorative Stitches.

The Complete Machine Embroidery Manual

Embroidery Machine Essentials – Basic Techniques

Embroidery Machine Essentials: How to Stabilize, Hoop and Stitch Decorative Designs

Machine Embroidery in 6 Easy Lessons Book with Tools By Eileen Roche