200 Embroidered Flowers: Hand Embroidery Stitches and Projects for Flowers, Leaves and Foliage

200 Embroidered Flowers is a lushly illustrated freehand surface embroidery tutorial book from first time author Kristen Gula, published by F+W Media and due out 5th June, 2018.

Aimed at beginners, she spends a fair bit of time introducing materials and includes a good basic compilation of stitches with photos and descriptions.  Roughly 14% of the page content is devoted to thoroughly explaining the basics and techniques as well as material selection.

The majority of the content is devoted to the individual flowers, ~60%.  The sections are arranged by seasons and further subdivided into flowers and foliage sections.   Each of the individual entries is accompanied by a basic pattern line drawing, suggested colors and stitches, and a picture of the potential finished project.

It's a very systematic and organized book and fun to look at.

The individual flowers and plants are followed by suggested projects, including some surface embroidered clothing (jeans, blouse, hat), a nifty canvas tote,  and some really appealing and colorful espadrilles.

The author's style is chatty and encouraging and very informal.  I also really liked it that many of the individual flower entries included botanically accurate names for further research and reference photo hunting.

The book ends with a short author bio and artist statement, along with a no-nonsense basic index.

Very good, very basic, very appealing, embroidery book.  144 pages, ebook and softbound formats.

Five stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.