This book was great, especially for the beginner. I haven't done embroidery for over 35 years and it was a great refresher, especially the subject matter. Empowered women are so important to every generation, and I am hoping that embroidery is not going to be a lost art. Mixing some of the past with important features of the 20th century will hopefully keep the skill moving. Knew nothing about some of the varied ways to embroider. This book has opened up another phase to me in the fall of my life.

A beautiful book for beginner or experienced stitchers, with information on transfers, embroidery threads, suppliers and much more. Invaluable!

I am just starting to get into embroidery and I enjoyed the opportunity to check out this book. It had a lot of modern patterns that would be fun to stitch up!

I am a recent convert to embroidery after years as a cross stitcher, so it wasn't too difficult to get into the craft. I love that it's becoming more and more trendy and popular with young people, so it's great to see publications such as this adding activism and feminism to the craft.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me access an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

I love the premise of this book and I think it covered a lot of bases, ideal for an introduction to embroidery.

For experienced sewists, six patterns does not feel like much, although I understand that some of the book is equipping you to go on and design your own patterns.

Thank you to Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was super excited to get into this and to try the projects myself. However, I ended up being a bit disappointed since I could not really followed what it provided. Maybe this is more for someone who has some knowledge on embroidery, but not beginner friendly when it comes to the actual projects themselves. Loved the idea of the empowering women tho! I’ll probably reference back to this book once I have better practice on embroidery. Thank you to Netgalley for the copy in exchange for an honest review. 3.5 out of 5 stars

I love embroidery books, going through tips and tricks artists use for their projects. This book was an amazing combination of embroidery and feminism, and is perfect for anyone who wants to learn to embroider portraits. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a new embroidery project.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy to review.

This book has a lot of different projects to work on. Unfortunately i have been to busy to physically do any of these, however the instructions seem straight forward and detailed, and there are a lot of different, pretty, projects to be getting on with.

I enjoyed this book; it does a good job of helping stitchers to create their own patterns. While the subject matter covered here is people you admire, the techniques would work for any subject you wanted to make a pattern of. I will say this would probably suit an experienced stitcher more than a beginner, as some of the stitch how-to's I found a little hard to follow. The introductory "what you need" chapter was good, and the explanation of different types of fabrics was very helpful. The part about creating your design was well explained, and had lots of inspiration, and left me feeling like I could actually create a decent pattern myself! There are six projects in the book to practice with, and/or to give you ideas to work into your own pattern. Frazer's patterns are pretty cool, and each shows something new and different from the other patterns, so they will increase your learning. Overall, a really fun and useful book, perfect for any stitcher's stash!

#EmpoweredEmbroidery #NetGalley

Like the simple yet detailed examples and instructions for embroidery stitches. Doubt I would do any of the projects though. Although claims to be of “strong” women, it basically shows strong liberal women. A wee bit biased for my taste.

I usually like to crochet. But I found some really nice stitching books.
And this here is one of them. I started to do some work on Jackets and bags and I am giving them to my friends and they really like it.

This book it nicely structured and good if you are a beginner ,like me.

Thanks for letting me read this book

4 stars

This pattern book has detailed portrait (and beautiful!) designs for 6 women role models (mostly known in the US), including Frida Kahlo, Harriet Tubman, & RGB. There is a basic stitch guide, but based on the difficulty level of the projects I’d recommend these patterns for those with intermediate to advanced embroidery skills.

[What I liked:]

•There is a decent basic guide to choosing tools & supplies, with detailed pictures in the stitch guide.

•There is a short section of the book dedicated to the creative process of designing your own patterns, making preliminary sketches, refining the line drawings to a completed design, & scanning them into digital format for pattern transfer.

•For the portraits that involve thread painting & not just outline work, there is a guide (visual + text) on stitch direction. Plus, each pattern has a color guide, & detailed photos of how to step-by-step do detail work like facial features.

•There is a nice variety of art styles (texture, color schemes, etc.) among the patterns.


[What I didn’t like as much:]

•I really appreciate the info on turning hand sketches into digitized patterns, but I wish there was more detailed info on this (digitizing, resizing, cleaning up the design in digital format, what softwares or tools to use, etc.) I’ve been looking for materials on digitizing patterns for awhile, but not finding much.

[I received an ARC ebook copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. Thank you for the book!]

Very easy to follow instructions and step by step visuals/pictures that helped and are essential fir beginners

There are so many good things about this little embroidery book by Amy L. Frazer. The author takes the time to show the development of her style and art. Her style is painterly, using color and stitches during the process of creation. The feminist-inspired patterns are very good, and the color choices are inspiring. I particularly like her Frida Kahlo, Maya Angelou and Ruth Bader Ginsberg pieces. Frida for her color choices, Maya for the floral pattern of the dress, and Ruth for her thread painting technique. One of the best things Frazer provided was to show the back of an embroidery piece and how it should look. This is so valuable to those new to embroidery, and I have never seen done before in any book. Frazer said one thing that will stick with me: if she can thread it through a needle she will sew with it. This gives the reader permission to experiment with needles and threads in the best possible way. This is a nice addition to a sewing collection.

4☆ An Educational and beautifully presented Craft Book

I am very new to embroidery and wanted to have a look at a new skill as I have been shielding since last year March!

Not only is this book beautifully illustrated with full step by step instructions, it also pays homage to some amazing women who have empowered and inspired others all around the world.

This book is very educational, inspiring and creative. It gives the reader everything they would need to get started with embroidery. It explains what equipment you would need to purchase, it goes through stitches and techniques, understanding how to read embroidery maps and more.

As I said before I'm a beginner and to be honest I've purchases some embroidery kits and they are so confusing I've just put them to one side. But with this book it has helped me to understand the stitches that I will need and it has made it a lil less daunting, so for that I'm grateful!

Would I recommend reading this Delightful book?
Well on a kindle format it proved to be a little challenging as I found myself zooming in and out, so would recommend purchasing a physical copy instead.

'Empowered Embroidery' is such a fabulous book full of creative inspirations, incredible women, fabulous imagery and exquisite stitching. I love the breadth of stitches and women, and the step-by-step instructions for embroidering such empowering women are really accessible.

A book not only about embroidery but also about strong women. It's perfect to learn more about these women and to have an awesome embroidery project for this month of March. I am still a beginner and I do not possess the skills to create such beautiful pieces as pictured in the book but it certainly makes me want to get better, I am definitely trying some if the projects to see what I can do.
The illustrations are great and the instructions clear enough.

--Not what I expected and kind of boring--

I received an advanced review copy from the publisher through NetGalley and here are my thoughts.

The words "Empowered Embroidery" conjured up a very different picture in my mind than what is in this book.

What is in this book are instructions to embroider the portraits of six women, mostly American, three of them are Black and three are White. I suggest that you use the "Look Inside" feature to see if embroidering any of the faces feels like an "empowering activity to you.

To me, absolutely not. Even though I consider someone like Harriet Tubman to be a heroine, I have no desire to embroider her, and actually feel this book, by the omission of any indigenous women, Asian women, and even men...does not quite live up to the title.

When I say this book, I was not sure whether I would like it - I'm glad I took the chance because it is a fabulous book, not only of some brilliant women, but the techniques of capturing these faces via embroidery is just so exciting. Why? because the book explains how to capture a face by first drawing, then getting the colours and methods of embroidering the facial features expertly.
There are patterns of the women shown for those that are happy to do them, but it opens the possibility of designing many other face. Including capturing eyes, mouth, depth of features, background and much more all with stitches which are well explained.
I really love this book

I wouldn't rate this book, but because it's required I score it based on how helpful was for me.
At the start, I want to highlight that I don't have any experience with embroidery. Or this is not true, when I was very young, I did some Hungarian folk embroideries with my mom, but that technique was very different. I saw some embroideries on the internet, and I wanted to start, too, but I don't have any idea how to start. Then I saw this book on NetGalley and I thought why not to read it. I saw on the cover that these type of patterns are not my style, but I hoped that there will be some flowers, too. It's my subjective opinion, but I wasn't a fan of the patterns and embroideries. When I requested the book, I know that it can be hit or miss, but I hoped that I will found a few techniques and some tutorials on how to start embroidery. That part of the book was very detailed, but I don't recommend this book for starters.