By Lesley Wilkins
Paperback  |  64 pages, 110 colour illustrations
 
Inspired by the past, Lesley Wilkins illustrates her techniques with a whole host of wonderful designs – flowers, plants, birds, animals and figures. She covers everything – from the materials to use and working with a chart, to getting started and how to stitch. Patterns are created by small stitched units which are combined in many different ways – some heavily textured, some delicate and light. Borders can be built up by repeating and joining motifs.
 
Clear step-by-step photographs accompany the author's comprehensive instructions, and the motifs, borders, fill-in patterns and images are all charted, with inspirational pictures of embroideries showing how to build up finished designs.
 
About the Author
 
Lesley Wilkins discovered blackwork samplers on a school visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London when she was only ten, and has been hooked ever since. Her fascination with the craft has led her to become not only an embroiderer of extraordinary skill, but also an expert in the history of blackwork. She has collected thousands of patterns from all over the world, and her own work is inspired by historical motifs, patterns and borders. Her designs have appeared in Needlecraft and Needlework magazines, and also edited her own embroidered sampler magazine Antique Samplerstitcher for nine years which contained many blackwork designs. Now that she has retired early from local government, Lesley continues to self-publish a variety of embroidered projects online.