Beginner's Guide to Embroidery and Needle Painting by Sarah Godfrey

This is an embroidery book focused on developing your own patterns inspired by things in nature. It starts with a list of tools and materials, including those needed for developing the pattern. There are short sections with ideas for finding inspiration, designing a pattern and basic stitches.

The bulk of the book is 18 projects in which the author walks through the process from inspiration to template to step-by-step stitching instructions. The instructions include clear pictures for the steps along the way. Templates for tracing are included at the end. I especially appreciate the commentary on choosing colors and shading patterns to create different effects.

It is important to emphasize that this is not necessarily a beginner's guide to embroidery but more a beginner's guide to needle painting. Some (minimal) level of artistic ability would be needed to design the patterns. That is in no way a negative - just important to know for anyone considering the book.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #LandauerPublishingFoxChapelPublishing for a free copy of Beginner's Guide to Embroidery and Needle Painting by Sarah Godfrey. All opinions are my own.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Beginner’s Guide to Embroidery and Needle Painting by Sarah Godfrey is a must-have book for embroidery artists looking for inspiration. The book features step-by-step project guides that help capture the beauty of nature in stunning hand embroidery patterns and realistic thread portraits that you can design yourself.

The 104-page resource provides complete overviews on tools, materials, and various skills and techniques required for embroidery. The book includes 18 realistic embroidery projects featuring birds, flowers, mushrooms, and much more. Not only does this book teach you how to make gorgeous works of realistic embroidery art, but it also helps you learn how to design and embroider your very own original patterns.

As someone who recently took up embroidery as a hobby, I found this book well laid out with easy-to-follow instructions for the included projects. There is plenty of basic information to get started in embroidery in general. Also, the colorful photographs used throughout the book make it visually appealing.

Overall, Beginner’s Guide to Embroidery and Needle Painting by Sarah Godfrey is an excellent resource for both beginners and experienced embroiderers looking to create their own nature-inspired designs from start to finish. It is an inspiring and skill-building guide that makes your embroidery bloom!

**ARC Via NetGalley**

I was super excited to read this book. I do several needle crafts and have been wanting to try painting with needles. The information in the book is great, really helpful but unfortunately I couldn’t see the majority of the photos they were just a blank box. I’m going to rate this highly as the info was great but it was disappointing not to see the whole complete book. I would buy this book for myself.

A perfect beginners guide with easy and steps-by-step instructions, including a lot of picture references. I’m a bid fan of bird and flower related stitching, so this is perfect!