How to Embroider Almost Every Animal is an encyclopedic sourcebook for animal surface embroidery by Applemints (Mieko Sasaki). Due out 2nd March 2021 from Quarto on their Quarry imprint, it's 120 pages & will be available in paperback format.
This will be an oddly formatted book to western audiences. The first 30% of
the book is a catalogue of designs (and there are oodles of them!)
presented in full color. There is a short gallery of project
inspirations after that (4 pages) along with an introduction and general
techniques chapter. This chapter covers materials, fabric and thread
choices, needles, scissors, tensioning devices (hoops) etc etc.
It should be noted that this book is about surface embroidery, not cross
stitch. It's lovely to see tutorials and and upswing in interest for
the other fibrearts; it seems like only cross-stitch had any following
for a long long time and it's nice to see surface embroidery enjoying a
renaissance.
Anyhow, following the materials and supplies chapter is a really well
done tutorial chapter about the different stitches used for the patterns
in the book. The step-by-step photos are annotated and accompanied by
explanatory text. They're clear and easy to follow.
The final half of the book contains the patterns for the elements listed
in the catalogue at the beginning. They are mostly small(ish) elements
which can be combined and switched around as desired. There are
several animal alphabets as well, for personalization (or monogramming
gifts for animal loving friends). Although it's not clear from the cover art, many of the included patterns are for anthropomorphic animals in hats, clothes, dancing ballet, riding bicycles, etc. (Not all, but I would say roughly 10% of the patterns)
I enjoyed the book very much. It's a worthwhile and fun introduction
and guide to learning embroidery. Many of the designs in the book could
also serve as a good jumping off point for dimensional
embroider/stumpwork.
Four and a half stars
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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