Abstract Embroidery

World-renowned Emily Botelho is a master embroiderer. This is her first book and showcases 12 projects inspired by three distinct environments: coastal, mountain and urban. She deftly leads you through her complete creative process, and shows you how to find inspiration from the environment, how to create bespoke backgrounds and how to embellish each embroidery with a range of stitches, beads and found items.  Emily uses intuitive, slow stitching and a vibrant colour palette, taking from her surroundings with sources as diverse as mossy rocks or peeling paint -- meaning her results are always unique. Here she shows how to do the same with photographs, creative insights and helpful advice to guide you, along with with an additional gallery section. This book will definitely inspire creative embroiderers of all abilities.  -- Stitch Magazine * Issue 46 * A beautiful introduction to this beautiful art of creating embroidery embellished with a diverse array of stitches, beads and found items that capture a moment in time. There are no strict rules making it an inexpensive art, and as demonstrated by the 12 projects featured, it can be a meditative and mindful activity that is just beautiful. A vibrant and stunning book with advice for beginners and experienced stitchers alike. -- Jackie Butler * The Bookseller's Circle * This study in abstract embroidery was a joy! A key aspect of the book is the variety available to the reader – the project sections with a range of colour combinations, hoop sizes, stitch types and textures means a new or intermediary stitcher can find something that appeals to them to explore, with the former helpfully equipped with all the techniques needed. And this book certainly inspires explorations! I believe abstract is something exciting for any artist to delve into: the freeness and loose direction allows creativity and the ability to experiment and run wild, and I think Emily demonstrates this exquisitely throughout her art – from the mixed media of the coastal shell pieces to the most abstract and expressive section, her urban series. This was the section that drew me in more than anything. While many of us artists already lean towards admiring, recreating and/or interpreting coastal and mountainous terrains, these being two very well-explored themes in embroidery already, turning something many people would pass in the street without thought or care into something just as gorgeous merits admiration! The chipped paint layers, mis-matched stone wall or old sink, all proving as worthy of these abstract studies and reconstructing through an artistic lens as shell-adorned beaches. Emily’s ability to view these mundane everyday objects as opportunities for beauty and how this can inspire those reading to also see more beauty in their everyday lives shows her to be a leader in her field, and this book a great outlet to let readers explore the abstract beauty around them. -- Victoria Rose Richards, Embroidery Artist * @victoriaroserichards *