Good morning, and welcome to the first embroidery book review of 2021!

I have an ever-growing stack of needlework books on my book table at the moment – some fabulous bookish treasures have appeared in the past year! – but I really wanted to highlight Sharon Boggon’s Creative Stitches for Contemporary Embroidery right away for several reasons, not least of which is that Sharon’s was the first embroidery website that I ever found and followed (way back when it was called “In a Minute Ago”), before craft blogging was big. She’s been online for a long time, and of all the contemporary embroiderers out there, she is one of the most thorough and creative when it comes to manipulating the stitch.

Sharon heads an initiative every year called TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday) in which she presents a stitch every Tuesday, highlighting variations, and encourages the participants to explore the stitch thoroughly, experimenting with combinations, variations, threads, colors, embellishments – all the aspects that can bring a different look and life to the stitch.

Predominantly, Sharon is a crazy quilter. But her embroidery goes beyond crazy quilting. She creates fascinating embroidered works of texture, color, and combinations, all hinging on getting the most out of each type of stitch she uses.

Creative Stitches in a Contemporary Embroidery is the natural outcome of Sharon’s explorations in stitch. It’s a book for embroiderers who love embroidery stitches of all kinds, from simple to elaborate, and who find fascination in the creative ways they can be employed.