Another Stitched Design and a Book Review

Here's a photo of my latest stitched design. This is just a sample to test out an idea. It's only about 8 inches square and I'm using a design I have done previously in applique. I blogged about it here. I've had several inspiration sources for this type of work. It reminds me of Kantha, an Indian (the country India) stitch work. I know almost nothing about Kantha stitching other than a few photos I've seen. The photos I've seen have been online and I was not able to enlarge the photos enough to tell what kind of stitches were used. Just that the stitches were used to create a design, similar to how applique is used in quilting. I'm just using a running stitch or quilting stitch for this project.

For my book review I wanted to share with you the book I won from Pat Sloan's Creative Talk Radio Show about a month ago. The book is title Bended Bias Applique by Linda M. Poole.

Let me start by saying I'm not a big fan of doing applique. I love to admire other people's applique work and I think it is beautiful, but it is not my favorite technique to actually do myself. This is a bit different than other applique techniques I've tried though. The book goes over a couple different standard applique techniques but then you add a thin strip of bias tape to cover the edges of your applique shapes. It could blend in with your applique fabric, or contrast with your applique fabric and act like an outline. I think the idea is that if you do raw edge applique you can still get a finished edge look using this idea. I suppose you could also cover up bad applique stitches if necessary too.

The book has 41 patterns inside, in addition to the instructions on how to make bias tape and do the bended bias applique technique. The patterns are not full size so you have to enlarge them before doing them which is something I've heard applique fans complain about. Most of the patterns are for various types of flowers. But there are also a few butterfly patterns, some Celtic designs and hearts.

Overall, a very nice book. Not something I would have purchased (because I don't like to do applique and typically don't purchase applique books) but the technique is very interesting and something I'd like to try. Originally I thought that I would just look at the book to learn the technique and then donate it to my guild library. However, after looking at it, I think I'll hold on to it for a while and maybe in a couple of years it will end up in the guild library.