A colourful and beautiful book full of ideas to compliment your living space and person. There would need to be a certain amount of prior knowledge or the ability to follow a pattern. Some patterns were easier than others but they gave a peaceful and relaxed feel when deciding what project to choose. I loved the colours and designs.

Lovely ideas for a totally new craft. Easy to follow and beautiful designs. Would love to try and am going to look into purchasing the equipment.

Kogin embroidery looks terribly complicated and time consuming, but the book Modern Kogin shows that although it may take some time to embroider a certain pattern, it is not as difficult as I first thought. The information was interesting but not overwhelming, and the step-by-step instructions provided were easy to follow.

In my opinion, this is a very good book for anyone who would like to embellish their clothing and accessories with modern Kogin embroidery.

This is a beautiful, fun book that embroiderers and crafters will enjoy and get a lot of use out of. The illustrations are great and the projects are really attractive. It will have a lot of appeal for stitchers of all skill levels! The presentation is typical of Japanese craft books that show finished projects at the beginning and instructions at the end, a little different than typical craft books for the American market but I think this will add to the book's appeal and authentic feel.

I enjoyed seeing the techniques and ideas depicted on the pages. Thank you for allowing me to read this advance copy

I received an advanced reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a beautiful book about modern kogin designs and how to make them.
This is an art form that is very beautiful and well crafted and I hadn't heard of until now.
The first half of the book is a section displaying all the things you can make and the second half gives you patterns and instructions on how to make them.
A beautiful book sewing and embroidery fans are sure to love.

The projects in this book a beautiful and would fit well blended with a modern aesthetic, although I would describe them more as classic simplicity. Further, I would warn that they are probably deceptively simple. Geometric, harmonious designs have to be very well executed to work, so this is probably better suited for experienced embroiderers/crafters. I can imagine all kinds of wonderful handmade gifts from this book, and the designs would probably appeal to a wide range of gift recipients.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is about a specific type of embroidery, rather than the different embroidery stitches. It gives clear details of the materials it requires, the techniques and then step by step instructions, with clear photographs. Although I think the embroidery is a little too advanced for me just now, I am inspired to try out the techniques and maybe, one day, give one of the projects a go.

A lovely book full of intricate embroidery projects on a variety of media, The photographs are beautiful and will entice you to have a go. The instructions are very thorough and easy to follow. An excellent book for crafters wanting to have a go at something different and quite delicate. Highly recommended.

This book had so many beautiful pieces in it. I would love to make some. I’m learning how to sew and I think this books pieces would be a great start to any collection. I liked the pin cushions for sewing needles, change purses, make up bag and coasters. Everything was beautiful. The instructions were very easy to follow and I can’t wait to start cross-stitching/sewing something beautiful.

It's been a while since I've reviewed a crafts book on my blog so this was not only an interesting one to look at, it's also long overdue that I look at one! Subtitled, "Sweet & Simple Sashiko Embroidery Designs & Projects" this books draws upon an ancient Japanese tradition, kogin-zashi (hard G, long I in the kogin, short I in the zashi), which was essentially mending fabrics that have begun to wear thin. During the Edo period, in the Tsugaru region, citizens were forbidden from wearing cotton (made form the cotton plant, of course) and forced to wear linen (made from the flax plant), which wore out more easily, necessitating repairs. These skills though, went a step further, and simple darning evolved into techniques of decorative art that adorned all kinds of creative items.

This book addresses that aspect of the art, listing well over 20 projects:

Butterfly Brooches
Square Brooches
Scarf Pins
Circle & Oval Brooches
Geometric Pattern Barrettes
Button Hair Ties
Memento Box
Kogin Hoop Art
Coffee Bean Sampler
Floral Sampler
Holiday Ornaments
Elegant Ornaments
Snowflake Pin Cushion
Argyle Pin Cushion
House Coasters
Indigo Pot Holder
Square Coasters
Diamond Placemat
Beautiful Bookmarks
Framed Brooches
Classic Coin Purse
Gusset Pouch
Zippered Pouches
Kogin Purse

Additionally, the book details techniques, equipment and materials, and offers many hints and tips. I confess I was not quite in agreement with the layout of the book, which listed all the projects with a photo up front, but then referred the reader to page x where the actual instructions were given for that particular project. It would have made more sense to me to include the instructions with the illustration.

But perhaps this is a book not intended as an ebook, but a print book, with the ebook merely distributed to reviewers like moi! The formatting of the ebooks was, as usual, largely mangled by Amazon Kindle's crappy conversion process, which does not handle well anything that's not plain vanilla text. That;s one reason I refuse to do business with Amazon, but the text was legible, so I hope this is intended to be a print book or at least that the ebook version will be revamped before publication. While there was a link from the content page to the relevant project, there was no link from that project to the indicated page, and no page numbering to find one's way there.

But these are minor considerations when compared with the beautiful end-results one can get, and so I commend this book as a worthy read.

Modern Kogin by Boutique-Sha is a very interesting hand craft. Kogin is a type of embroidery which was created in Northern Japan during the 16th Century. The purpose was to reinforce threadbare fabric and add warmth to clothing worn by people in rural villages. Today we use the term Sashiko Embroidery, There are many, many projects in this book. There are brooches, pins, barrettes, hair ties, samplers, ornaments, pin cushions, bookmarks, coasters and purses. The projects are plentiful and very colorful. The directions seem to be thorough and the supply list is minimal. If you love intricate embroidery or counted cross stitch this is the book for you. The photos are beautiful and very inspiring. Well done!

I would like to thank the publisher, author and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Kinda disappointed in this one, to be honest.

I was so excited to read the original function of kogin: "Historically, kogin was used as a pattern darning technique to reinforce threadbare fabric and add warmth to the clothing worn by farmers in the villages of northern Japan." I love anything that uses art or craftsmanship to rescue or repurpose objects. I have a denim glider that I love that has threadbare arms from our family using it so much, and I got excited at the idea of using something like this to add unique beauty and rescue the arms. I had planned on ironing on denim patches but ancient Japanese embroidery sounded so much better!

Unfortunately, this book modernizes it by making it into a modern craft of buying items new to just craft on. It's still lovely, but I would have loved to see "modern" once again also mean sustainable. Ah well. It's still pretty stuff, but there's not a lot of technique taught and it all involves buying things.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.

The patterns are easy enough for a slow stitcher like me, and gorgeous. The photos do not do it justice, and it is a good book for any crafter who loves to stitch little projects on the go.

This is an absolutely wonderful book with plenty of delightful login projects. Being a translation of a Japanese book, readers may find the organization a bit odd. Take comfort, everything you expect is there, just in a different order.

The opening section of the book has color [pictures of each project with a short description, there are no instructions in this section. Following this is an excellent section on basics and on how to stitch login. With lots of pictures, it's the best instruction on login in English I have seen. Especially nice for North American readers are the instructions for embroidery floss.

After the basic instruction, are the instructions for each project. These include clear charts of each pattern and lists of materials. Best of all are the detailed illustrations for making the projects. Since many of the items are less commonly made outside Japan, this is fantastic.

I just love this book.

I’ve heard about sashiko embroidery before, so thought I would learn some more about it. This was a great book, it started off by telling you about how it originated and what the different stitches were called. It has great little projects to get you started, rather than the daunting big projects than can often put you off. Step by step clear instructions with an itemised list of tools and materials required.You can also just flick to the project that you want without following the book from start to finish.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.