Vintage Craft Book Feature: Faces and Figures in Embroidery (1979)

 Another of my many needlework hobbies is the collection of vintage craft books. Found in dusty corners of second hand shops, in pride of place in used book stores, these old tomes often contain beautiful nuggets of crafting wisdom, and a heaping helping of vintage charm. Reviving the techniques, tips and retro projects is just one more way for us to bring back the wonders of the handmade.

Faces and Figures in Embroidery 1979

This book is one of my favorite finds, and a big reason for that is the awesome picture on the cover. It reminds me of some old videogame like Pitfall! 

In all seriousness, this book is really awesome as an inspiration for embroidery design. While it does have some instructional bits for actually stitching, it is much more of a design book. 

It has some great historical examples of different ways of creating faces and bodies in stitches.

And it's also got some really great contemporary examples. Many are very textured and three dimensional like this, but a variety of other styles are also showcased.

There are a lot of line drawings to work from, and examples of how they could be stitched. Throughout are guides on how to place design elements, how to utilize texture and color, and many more tips and tricks.

All in all, this book really gets you looking at embroidery with different eyes! (No, I'm not sorry at all about that lame pun!)