Introduction
What you need
Ribbon embroidery
Stumpwork
Appliqué perse
Printing the appliqué shapes
Before you start
Embroidering the sampler
Application in other crafts
Completed designs in full colour
Watercolour designs in full colour
Line drawing
Stitches
An artistically inclined mother and a keen interest in all things beautiful got Di van Niekerk off to an early start as an embroiderer. Her love for this discipline soon became her livelihood and starting an embroidery business was just another natural progression for this talented crafter. She opened her first shop in the Natal Midlands and when the family decided to uproot and move to Johannesburg, along went the business. After four years of running one of Johannesburg's most successful embroidery shops, the family's urge to settle in Cape Town became too strong to ignore. Di now lives in the Mother City where she runs two successful embroidery shops. The end product of her latest interest, hand painting her own range of silk and organza ribbons for embroidery, is marketed to retail outlets worldwide. Visit her website www.dicraft.co.za/blog.
It is always a pleasure to see Di van Niekerk's wonderful work.
Find new ideas and techniques that appeal to embroiderers and
quilters alike. 17 panels introduce you to the techniques. There is
a stitch gallery too. Each of the 60 design elements are shown with
clear step-by-step photographs. Embroider the whole sampler as one,
or choose motifs separately. Suitable for beginners upwards.
Everything you need to know to create beautiful embroidered panels
in a beautifully illustrated book. Includes instructions to
embroider fantastic flowers and creatures such as dragonflies, bees
and birds.
*www.karenplatt.co.uk*
This beautiful book with 17 illustrated panels each starting with
their own inspirational introduction is a delight and entices the
reader to delve further. They give an informative background to new
ideas and techniques that will appeal not only to all embroiderers,
but also to cross-over quilters. Each project is achievable for the
novice and the more experienced alike. The original watercolour
design is by South African botanical artist Verde. There are
instructions for over sixty elements ranging from tiny creatures to
beautiful plants from all over the world. These are featured with
understandable directions which, when reading, almost feels like a
conversation with the author. This is a lovely book in which to
lose yourself.
*Sew Region Magazine*
We might not live in a perfect world, but we can at least create
one with this book! The “world” here is a beautiful seventeen panel
sampler to display on your wall, giving you a “perfect” opportunity
to practice and refine your embroidery skills. This is another
stunning book by talented embroiderer Di van Niekerk which shows
not only how wonderful embroidery can look, but how much fun it can
be. Turn to the back and you will find the watercolor picture which
needs to be enlarged, and then transferred to cloth. Instructions
for doing this are given, or you can buy a pre-printed cloth from
the author’s website if your country has a store that stocks it. As
with pretty much all of this author’s work it would be pretty
daunting for a total beginner, but anybody with some experience
will be able to make a decent job of it. Partly this is because a
lot of it is easier than it looks, but mostly this is due to the
excellent instructions and diagrams. Before the project there is a
wealth of useful information about transferring, tips on what to
buy and how to tackle various aspects of the work, but most of what
you need to know can be found in each of the panel chapters. There
are seventeen of these, each organized by dealing with each item in
the panel separately. This typically consists of a mixture of about
four flowers and creatures, each described briefly with a list of
what you need to buy and the stitches used. Staged instructions
feature small detailed photographs and if you need to refresh your
memory or learn a new stitch turn to the back for some clear
diagrams. The designs are mostly worked in chameleon threads and
hand dyed silk ribbons plus a few seed beads, giving the work a
lovely and lifelike look, rather like a botanical painting.
Included too is a chart showing how you can use the panels in
various other crafts and which ones would be suitable. There is a
wide range of choices from decorating a teddy bear to adorning a
wedding dress. The book finishes with a chapter on finishing the
sampler, and then you just stand back and wait for the admiring
remarks. Another lovely book for the keeper shelf.
*myshelf.com*
Newsletter 65, Summer 2007 A really fascinating book combining both
old and new embroidery techniques. The flower designs are lovely
and the animal and insect examples are very original. The working
instructions are clear and fully detailed with plenty of working
diagrams to help even the beginner in this field of embroidery.
Barbara Hector, St. Stephens-on-Brannel
*West Country Embroiderers*
Oct 06 Di van Niekirk, the author of this lavishly illustrated
book, has produced an inspiring collection of beautifully
illustrated embroideries based on the natural forms she observes in
her native South Africa. Her book is based on the tradition of
three dimensional work we are familiar with from Stuart times, but
updated to include ribbon work and stitchery giving a rich raised
surface. There are 17 panels to be stitched, based on beautiful
watercolour paintings by the artist Verde. Carefully laid out and
informative instructions enable beginners as well as acomplished
stitchers to achieve satisfying results. The techniques used could
then be developed by experienced stitchers to their own designs.
This book would give inspiration to all levels of ability.
*Merseyside Embroiderers Guild*
March 07 There is something very magical about creating life-like
and three dimensional images with a needle and thread. The effects
that can be achieved are absolutely breathtaking and leave many who
have not tried Stumpwork or Ribbon embroidery totally in awe. The
secret is to take one tiny motif at a time to develop confidence
and with this technique a little motif goes a long way. This book
features a wonderful sampler of flowers, insects and animals within
a lattice framework of seventeen panels. Overall there are sixty
different elements to the design all of which can be worked
individually or put together in your own combination to create
smaller projects. For example just one of the flowers could be made
up as a card, added to a hand-made box or trinket pot or any other
accessory. The design is based on a watercolour painting by South
African botanical artist Verde. The author recommends that this is
printed on to the fabric and the stitches worked over the top
leaving the background tints and shading to show through. There are
various means of doing this described in the book and there are
templates and images provided for you to do this or choose to use
more traditional methods. To recreate the flowers a combination of
Ribbon embroidery and Stumpwork is used to produce great results.
There are new ideas for working insect wings and flowers with many
helpful shortcuts. As there are many more products available today
that can make Stumpwork easier and less traumatic to stitch, these
methods are also included. Look out for many clever ideas such as
covering seed beads with ribbon to make cup-shaped flowers and tips
such as repairing an accidentally snipped edge with clear nail
varnish. The sampler is broken down into panels and these in turn
are approached element by element to complete it. These stages are
explained step by step and illustrated with extremely clear
close-up colour photographs. There is a glossary at the back of the
book where there are diagrams for each of the stitches used and
each panel has a comprehensive materials listing for the threads
and ribbons required. Although there is a South African slant to
the plants and wildlife, the vast majority are universal including
freesias, corn poppies, bluebells, roxes, phlox, bulrushes, daisies
and many, many more. Of the creatures featured in the sampler,
there are butterflies, a beetle, bee, dragonfly and even
termites!
*New Stitches Magazine*
Issue 45 This is a stunning book. One of those books that when you
open it you think you've died and gone to heaven. The front cover
doesn't give too much away, it's only when you actually open the
book and start to read on that you realise it is just overflowing
with new ideas and techniques for ribbon embroidery and stumpwork
enthusiasts. Each chapter covers one panel which can be completed
on its own for smaller projects or combined with the other 16
panels to create a magnificent finished sampler piece. Quilters may
want to use a single element, for example one of the beautiful
flower or butterfly designs to make their quilt unique. Clear
colour photographs, step-by-step diagrams and instructions and a
clear stitch gallery offer great guidance for beginners. There are
also lots of great ideas for the more advanced embroiderer.
*Fabrications*
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