I enjoyed this book more as an art piece than a how-to guide. Aoki's embroidery is simply beautiful and it appealed to my gardening side. Additionally, the second of half of the book includes the templates and thread colors she uses, so more experienced embroiderers can follow along. That said, I have no experience with needlework, so I'll admit the two pages of tips and four pages of stitch types aren't enough for me to get started just yet.

Such a lovely book. While I admire embroidery, I seldom practice it. Now I want to pick up a hoop and create some of these beauties!

This truly is a garden book and strikes me as very vintage. It is not the pristine florals, but the reality of a true garden in it's full glory.

Embroidered Kitchen Garden is a lovely way to give second life to your old kitchen textiles or to create completely new look of your kitchen towels and table cloths. I love simple designs showed in this book. It's a must have to all garden lovers with crafty souls.

I am new to the work of Kazuko Aoki, but this title appears to be similar to other books she has done. Aoki shares her inspiration and process as an artist through descriptive prose, and I enjoyed admiring her realistic interpretations of the most everyday objects: edibles from a kitchen garden.

This book was not what I expected, though. I enjoy embroidery, often free form, but also from whimsical patterns. Often, I work on plain flour sack towels, which I can then gift or use at home, and I thought perhaps I would find a new pattern or two that I could use. As I only had a copy of the ARC, the patterns were not in a usable form, but I don't think this is a book I would purchase as the designs seem almost personal to me. "Embroidered Kitchen Garden" does serve as inspiration for me to continue to find inspiration for my own work, and I will look elsewhere for patterns to work from.

Can not wait for the published version so I can get my hands on the patterns! In the meantime I am thankful to Netgalley for providing the arc for this cute book. Reading little 'behind the scenes' of the embroidery imagery was fun.

Thank you, NetGalley for the preview of this eBook.

This is the first Kazuko Aoki book I have come across and this one, Embroidered Kitchen Garden is filled with delightful and beautiful patterns that are not only fun to recreate, but very easy to do so too.

I love Kazuko Aoki's embroidery books. Her designs are so exquisite and so delicate! The first part of the book is filled with color photographs of her finished work so you can see how the final piece is supposed to look like.

The projects would make really lovely embellishments to any garden themed fabric items. I can imagine them on aprons, tea towels, posters for the dining area or kitchen, and on almost any gift that the avid gardener of vegetables and edible flowers would love.

The designs are not hard to stitch, even a beginner can do so as there is a an embroidery stitch guide. There are also line drawings at the back of the book to make the pattern easier to follow by tracing.

I haven't embroidered for a long time, but if I were to start again, I would love to stitch Kazuko's beautiful works of art.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. This is my honest review.

This is a cute but possibly poorly laid out embroidery book. It includes lots of vegetables, tools, flowers and insects that can be embroidered which look lovely and fun to do.

However, the book is split into the finished product at the beginning, how to make the stitches in the middle and then the patterns at the end. I believe this would have flowed much better for me, if the stitches had been first and then the pattern was next to the finished project. It would be so much easier to see what I'm supposed to be creating rather than having to keep flicking back to another part of the book.

The stitch guide appears quite comprehensive and explaining how to transfer the templates to your material is useful. Each template provides a list of the threads needed by colour number and tells you which colour to use, what stitch and how many threads.

I would certainly try to follow the insects and some of the flowers myself as they looked the cutest. I know my daughter would find some of the ideas in here useful as she has just started embroidering herself.

I received this book from Netgalley in return for a honest review.

Kazuko Aoki was inspired by a box of vegetables she received. The colours and shapes stood out, and made her want to draw them, paint them, sew them!
This beautiful book is the result of the passion they inspired, and is full of fabric renderings of each item of her kitchen garden, with instructions for us to follow to create our own.

The opening page holds a larger than life photo of the legendary box of vegetables, and it's rich colours are truly inspiring. I love the photographs, and the authors excitement and passion bleed through on every page. The layout is helpful, with a section showing the finished embroidered vegetables with their names and varieties, and then a pattern section, which first teaches you a selection of sewing stitches, and then shows you which to use where on each of the veggies. Everything about this book makes me want to sit in a spring garden, stitching everything in sight. I love that Aoki has taken inspiration from vegetables - they are truly beautiful and deserving of showcasing.

I would love to own a print copy of this book, and would happily buy it as a gift for other stitchers and crafters. The patterns are transferable to any project, and would be beautiful no matter where you decided to place them.

Embroidered Kitchen Garden by Kazuko Aoki is a beautiful book full of eye candy. If you are an embroiderer you know that most embroidery patterns are of flowers. This book takes the 'common' items from a home garden and recreates it in stunning and beautifully executed way.
The photos in the book are superior. The directions are well done. The templates at the back of the book are well done also. My only suggestion would be to have a place where owners of the book could download the patterns instead of photocopying them That is my only negative about this book.
The author is extremely talents and definitely inspires this embroiderer to try all of these stitcheries.
I would like to thank Quarto Publishing, the author and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

An easy to follow book with pictures and simple instructions to make some fun embroidery come to life.

This book explores using embroidery to capture and reflect kitchen garden motifs. I love the photography because it is detailed, clear, uncluttered and beautifully captured. The instructions for the embroidery stitches themselves are very brief and I think the book could have benefitted from grouping the instructions, stitching plan and embroidery photography according to the project rather than separating them out so that all of the instructions are together, all of the stitching plans are together, and all of the photography is together – it means you have to flick back and forth between pages quite a lot which is frustrating.

Verdure, erbe, animali che popolano un orto: un'idea brillante per schemi di sicura efficacia, che promettono lavori di grande allegria.
Delizioso, e non solo per il pensiero delle insalate che si potrebbero realizzare con i soggetti ritratti!

This is a beautifully presented book with wonderful photos, firstly of the finished embroidery and then followed by the stitch instructions and drawn motifs. a perfect book for those that love embroidery and also gardening, or have friends that love gardening and require a fun gift - handmade, off course.
Very pretty and realistic motifs that can be incorporated into table linen, clothing, or really anything you want.

Book has sweet designs that would work in a variety of projects and can have individual elements separated out. Stitch instructions seem clear and it's nice that the exact thread colors are included.

Another book of Aoki's completely charming embroideries, this time of the elements of kitchen gardening, including vegetables, herbs, and tools. The first half of the book presents the embroideries, each delightful. Some are the like botanical illustrations, showing the vegetable and the plant, others just show different varieties, each with the name embroidered.

The second half of the book gives you line drawings for each embroidery. These can be enlarged to transfer to fabric. Arrows point to each section, giving you the thread color (DMC floss) and stitch. Along with a section of basic information and stitches, you have everything needed either to reproduce these designs or create charming ones of your own.

While there are no projects in this book, stitchers are likely both to want to make these designs as is and to use the elements to create original pieces.

This book looks gorgeous, and as an inspirational title I cant fault it.
My only problem? When would I ever need to embroider an aubergine? When would I have the time?

Cute examples of garden themed embroidery lots of fruit, veggies, and a few critters! The good: the book has color pictures of all the designs, and a stitch glossary where you can see how to do each one. The back of the book has the true to size pattern for you to trace or copy over to your blank. These are great images that have lots of household uses.

I would have liked to see examples of the designs decorating items like a reusable grocery bag, kitchen towel and have a few project ideas included. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for a digital ARC to review.

A very pretty embroidery book featuring designs for an extensive range of vegetables. Additionally, there are designs for edible flowers and some insects and birds.
Each design has a full page colour photograph and an outline drawing for the design, indicating the stitches to be used. Unfortunately, the embroidering scheme is in a separate section to the colour photograph, at the back of the book. It would have been better if the two were together. Also there are no close up photographs to show more details of the stitching, which is a pity.
These are designs only and there are no suggested projects. It's up to you to decide how you want to use them.
A lovely book but I felt it was rather limited. The designs were nice but nothing special or particularly inspiring.

I have been doing embroidery (on and off) for about 20 years and I love to find new patterns. My favorite projects include making personalized flour sack towels for my friends and family and this book give me so many ideas. Besides being a craft pattern book it also makes a really gorgeous coffee table book. There are amazing photographs of the author's works and there is just about every plant and flower I can think of in this book. I enjoyed the use of color and the accuracy of these plants. The author really got the details down and these pieces look just like my plants! The detail work that has gone into these patters just blows me away! I would say that this author is an embroidery perfectionist.

On personal preference alone: I didn’t like that all the color photographs were upfront and then the patterns were in the back of the book. As I am a visual person I would have much rather preferred everything together so I don’t have to flip back and forth to get the pattern and the final product. Also I do think that this book is for intermediate and advanced embroiders as the patterns are more outlines with a thread suggestion. I received an ARC via NetGallery and I am leaving my honest review.