Ribbon Basics: All the Stitches and Techniques of Silk Ribbon Work and Embroidery

If you're looking for patterns and techniques you can take right off the page and put on your cloth, you'll be disappointed. The projects illustrated are too frou-frou for my tastes to do 'as is' (and unless your tastes run towards gobs of Victorian embellishments, probably yours too) but it gave me ideas how to combine stitches into designs. This book also has instructions on how to do many gathered flowers with wider or wired ribbon. In addition to flowers by alphabet (including some unusual choices like caladiums), there are instructions on how to make decorative initials; something I haven't seen before. Each project picture is shown in a wide shot, then a close up, and a drawn diagram the same size as the close up, so you can easily see the details, and what goes where. As a modestly experienced embroideress, I will use this book mostly for inspiration when dreaming up my own designs. P.S. I'm surprised they didn't use Zantedeschia (calla lilies) for the letter Z!

If you have never done ribbon embroidery, you might want to choose another book for your first instruction book. But if you already have some experience, this book offers inspriation as well as guidance. There's not much in the way of basic information, such as choosing fabrics or ribbons, but each letter of the alphabet offers a new example of doing ribbon monograms as well as illustrated step-by-step instructions for various stitches and flowers. They have to stretch things a little on some letters (even THEY couldn't think up any flowers that start with X). Every letter also features a full color photograph of the stitches/flowers used for that letter, as well as a multi-color stitch guide to follow. While I haven't used any of their guides "as is," I have found their projects inspirational. The instructions for stitches easy to understand and the alphabetical organization of stitches and flowers helpful in planning my own projects.