Stitching through the Seasons: Evocative Patterns and Projects to Capture the Magic of Each Month

Stitching through the Seasons is a is a tutorial and pattern book with example projects by Yumiko Higuchi. Released 28th Nov 2023 by Roost Books on their Shambhala imprint, it's 96 pages and is available in paperback format.

The included projects are all stylishly appealing and full of colorful surface embroidery featuring floral subjects arranged by month. All of the tutorials include full color pictures as well as detailed line drawings with stitch guides and directions. Materials are readily and widely available. Although the tutorials are specific to finished projects (eye mask, bags, Christmas stocking, and several others), they could all easily be adapted to whatever finished form the reader wishes, or simply framed as pictures.

The stitch diagrams which are provided include clear pictures of straight stitch, lazy daisy, satin, French knot, chain stitch (used in most of the projects), and other surface embroidery techniques. It would be possible to complete the projects in the book by just using the stitch tutorials, and despite their seeming complexity, they're built up of simple elements and should be accessible to anyone, even beginners. 

Full size templates are included as well as materials lists and suggested finishing instructions. 

It should be noted that this book is about surface embroidery, not cross stitch.  It's lovely to see tutorials and an 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.

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 embroidery/stumpwork.

Four and a half stars

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