Richard Box's Flowers for Embroidery: A Step-By-Step Approach

Box ( Drawing and Design for Embroidery ), a painter and a teacher as well as a writer, organizes this book into chapters defined by floral genres: the first, colonized by the poppy, ``is intentionally kept simple and uncomplicated,'' based on a painting by the author that leads to a fabric collage. His narrative style is chatty (many exclamation marks--maybe too many), and his designs are ambitious and imaginative: one depicting honeysuckle can involve not only embroidery but the incorporation of 5000 beads. For seamsters with one foot in the garden, the book will appeal strongly: the author offers species of projects much as nature offers types of flowers (his first clematis project takes its cue from Clematis montana , the second from Clematis jackmanii ). Box also addresses various hierarchies of skill. And he isn't prim; his fabric collage suggesting a meadow is a motley swell. Ample illustrations of paintings, sketches, works in progress and finished pieces aid the eye, and quotations from Sacheverell Sitwell, Shakespeare and others help to set the tone. His optimistic philosophy: ``There will be many ideas that will occur to you. Try them all!'' (Jan.)