Approaches to Stitch - Book Review

Approaches to Stitch

Published by D4Daisy Books Ltd 

www.d4daisy.com

ISBN 978-0-9574413-1-6

Price £16.00

I am really pleased to be able to review Approaches to Stitch, the new D4Daisy book focusing on six artists - Elizabeth Brimelow, Ro Bruhn, Ruth Lee, Sian Martin, Olga Norris and Beryl Taylor.

Olga Norris

Sian Martin

Edited by Maggie Grey and with Michael Wickes's beautiful photography, the book grew from innovation, something that Maggie Grey is so good at.  Maggie put the feelers out to followers of her blog, www.magstitch.blogspot.co.uk and on Facebook, asking for suggestions of artists for a new book.  From the many responses that came in, these were distilled down to six artists.  This is a fresh approach in terms of commissioning, and the results of this are seen in the book itself.  The selections were well made. Each artists stands on their own in terms of their techniques and approaches, but the look and feel of their work gels together with each other in the book as a whole.

Ro Bruhn

Elizabeth Brimelow

Each artists talks of their background and experiences in inspiring the art they make today, and then go on to talk about how they approach their work.  There are step by step instructions given for techniques such as sun printing (Ro Bruhn) and stencilling (Beryl Taylor) within each chapter, and these are useful for giving an insight into how some of the work is produced.  Particularly interesting is Elizabeth Brimelow's stages of producing her Peach, Pear, Plum quilt, which takes you through the whole process of creating this quilt. This worked more effectively for this particular artist, rather than taking you through one specific area, because the construction of the quilt as a whole was what made the piece so interesting.  Each artist is profiled in a way that best fits their work and this really makes the book work well.

Ruth Lee

Beryl Taylor

There is a great mix of work contained within the book, from Elizabeth Brimelow's varied approaches to quilts, the colours of Ro Bruhn's journals, Ruth Lee's beautifully crafted gloves, Sian Martin's amazing bottles using dimension, paper pulp and stitch, Olga Norris's beautiful figurative studies and Beryl Taylor's delicious mixed media techniques.  All beautifully shot, the book is a fantastic snapshot of the scale and variety of textile work being created at the current time.  And in the technological age, where blogs and social networking have us flicking from screen to screen, it is refreshing to have some great contemporary artists committed to the page and provide us with a book we can sit down and absorbed.  I loved it.

If you want some added extras, take a look at Maggie's blog www.magstitch.blogspot.co.uk where there are posts relating to the progress of the book, and also sneaky peeks of the work she is doing on the next D4Daisy book on Cutting.  I am working hard on my bits for that book too, so 2014 is looking exciting already.