Product Description

Recycling is one of the hottest new trends in embroidery, and this is the first book to cover it. Embroiderers recycle for many different reasons: to conserve old pieces of ephemera for the future, to give their work a personal touch, to convey meaning, or simply for economy. Covering both hand and machine embroidery, this book is packed with ideas for using many different types of salvaged material, such as fabric, paper, nature's materials including dried flowers and tree bark, plus plastic, wood and metal waste, and precious personal objects such as broken jewellery or special souvenirs. Illustrated in colour throughout with work from the world's leading contemporary embroiderers, the book covers: introduction: why recycle?; how to collect salvaged objects; finding your own meaning; fibre waste; fabric waste; recycling old embroidery; paper and natural waste; plastic waste; wood, metal and mineral waste; and packaging and books.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111225 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

About the Author
Val Holmes is a well-known teacher and embroiderer. She lives in Lucon, France, where she runs her very popular residential embroidery courses. She is the author of The Machine Embroiderer's Workbook (ISBN 0713479833) and The Encyclopedia of Machine Embroidery (ISBN 071348859X), also published by Batsford.

Customer Reviews

sharissa
I wanted this book as i'm a bit of a magpie and save lots of little things like, coloured sweet papers,buttons,bottle caps,shells,fabrics etc, now, i know what to do with them all. This book is excellent for anyone who has a creative mind, full of exciting ideas and very thought provoking.

Stitch your trash.

With a bit of imagination, Domestic Duchamps can use found and discarded materials for their embroideries. Recycling, thus, is not just for ethics but for aesthetics as well. Because, as presented in Creative Recycling in Embroidery, trash embellishes.
Here the Medium is the Message, and the focus is on the materials used to create a work of art---fruit netting, old clothes, fiber waste, candy wrappers, plastics and even soda cans.
Today, creatively speaking, there are new techniques possible due to new commercial products that can be used for fabric manipulation and "creative recycling" provides instructions on their use. Therefore, this book is especially helpful for those who like to experiment with new materials and processes. And in using discards, experimentation comes easier because you don't have to worry about wasting materials thus wasting money. Some instructions are given for patchwork, papermaking and papier-mache as well.
Finally, recycling has become fashionable!