Embroider Everything Workshop: The Beginner’s Guide is written by Diana Rupp and is published by Workman Publishing. This spiral bound text has 251 pages along with a envelope insert (attached to the hard cover of the book) of 48 original iron-on transfer patterns. It also has a pretty clever “Practice Stitch Card” inserted into the binding that allows you to poke holes in the illustrations on the card and practice standard stitches like running stitch, back stitch, and the French knot. Though the list price is $24.95, Amazon has one of the best prices on it (see the image link above).

While my husband drove us to a holiday celebration, I had a chance to spend a few hours digging into this book, and I found it was loaded with easy to follow technical information. Rupp really breaks everything down so that a total novice could use this book to learn all kinds of embroidery methods and stitches. She also has some needlework history as a section as well as included in side bars and inserts throughout the book, which I found very interesting. In fact, I feel there is a lot here to offer more experienced needle workers too, not just beginners.

While a lot of the ideas she illustrates and projects include repurpose existing items and adding embellishments to them, there are some projects that you do from scratch, like the “Bargello Belt” on page 112. Wow! With some canvas and needle point, she shows how to make a stunning stitched belt. Then there is the “Feather-Stitched Scarf” (following on page 116) that is more of the repurposing idea. She takes a wool scarf and stitches a border around it to jazz it up.

For total beginners, there seems to be everything necessary here to learn any number of stitches techniques. Just do not find yourself overwhelmed but so much information. For intermediate stitchers, this book offers a great reference when you are trying to find out more about a new method you might be working with.