Just stitch

The authors of Just stitch – a South African mother-and-daughter duo – teamed up on this, their first book together, to reflect their collaborative creativity. Having both taught all over the world, Just stitch was inspired from ten years of travelling and an assortment of stitch-witchery from different continents and cultures.

Just stitch, published by Metz Press, is any embroiders dream and makes provision for novice as well as more experienced individuals. The book is themed ‘fauna and flora’, and contains the most beautiful photography and illustrations showing how to render embroidered butterflies, delicate dragonflies and an abundance of floral blooms onto just about any fabric surface.

The first chapter, called “The sewing basket”, introduces different threads, ribbons, fabrics, needles and other tools necessary to start stitching. It even gives handy hints on where to store your trinkets. The second chapter details stitching techniques of varying degrees of difficulty, from simple photo transfers to more complicated appliqué, trapunto quilting and barbola.

Once you’ve grasped the basics, the third chapter is lovingly divided into projects per colour group. Take your pick from oyster white, lilac and lavender, salmon, burgundy and indigo to name a few – just heavenly! And last but not least, at the back of the book you’ll find an extremely useful illustrated gallery of stitching terms and 20 pages of stitching templates.

The book is dedicated “To all who enjoy the inspiration of antiquity and the pleasure of stitching” – I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Reviewed by Cara Visser

Published by Metz Press