Jane Nicholas does it again - another beautiful stumpwork and goldwork book is coming out soon! It's full of projects that are stunning. The book is on my list of "Must Haves" and I may even be springing for some kits! Take a look...
Jane Nicholas is among the best when it comes to stumpwork and goldwork embroidery. I love her books! I've reviewed a few of them - Stumpwork Medieval Flora and Stumpwork Embroidery, both of which are equally beautiful and instructive books. Her new book coming out in June, 2010 (on her website, anyway), is Stumpwork & Goldwork Embroidery, inspired by Turkish, Syrian, and Persian Tiles.

If you click on the image of the book above, it will take you directly to Jane Nicholas's website, where you can read some details about the book, which is scheduled for release in the US in August (but hopefully, it will show up a bit sooner!). You can also pre-order the book from Jane's website, which is always a great idea if you are eager to get it.

To get a sense of the designs offered within the book, take a look at the stumpwork and goldwork kits available from the projects in the book. It looks as if the kits will be available this month some time, so that's pretty exciting!
There's not one kit there that I don't like, but there are several that really appeal to me above the rest! I'm afraid I will definitely be succumbing to the temptation on some of them.
I love the vibrant colors in all the tiles, but it seems that the ones featuring red and purple really grab me!

This is the most expensive kit from the selection. The Sryian Pomegranate Tile is featured on the cover of the book for obvious reasons! I love the irises, I love the scallops, I love the little shoots of red flowers, and oh, I love the pomegranate!

This Persian Peony Tile is lovely, and it's the piece that alerted me a few months ago to this upcoming book when Sandy Vass of Gold 'n Stitches blogged about the Persian Peony Tile project that Jane Nicholas taught at one of the Koala Conventions classes. When I saw Sandy's project, I was enchanted! The first thing that struck me was the vivid color on the crisp white background. The delicate shape of the design, the airy thistles, the red peony lined with gold all struck my fancy right away. When I found out there was a Whole Book of these designs coming out, I was thrilled.

Finally, this Cherry Flower Roundel is on my list. It's a smaller project, a little more affordable, and I adore the edge treatment!
It's so easy to get excited about Jane Nicholas's work. Her books and projects always entice me. She has a unique design style - when you see her work, it says "Jane Nicholas" - and that's not a bad thing, because I've never seen any work of hers that I didn't like.
The difficulty, of course, is that there's only so much time in one's life! I already have a list of projects I want to do and a list of projects that I have to do this year. Is there enough time to get them all done? Probably not.
But I can't help it. I'm afraid the Tiles just moved to the top of both lists!
Do you ever get the itch to do something so badly that it's the only thing you can envision doing, and if you don't do it, you'll be distracted by it until you do? Well, that's how I've been since I saw the tile project on Gold 'n Stitches.
My mom always said that anticipation is greater than realization, and now that I've lived a bit, I think she may have been right.
But not about these. |