My friends, I think I have my Embroidery Book of 2026!
Yes, there are several embroidery books coming out in 2026 that I think are worth noting and highly desirable. I’ve already got a few on the calendar for review.
But this book – THIS book! – ticks all my little-embroidery-lovin’-heart’s boxes, on several levels. There is so much about it that is instructive – also on several levels – and so much about it that’s just downright charming.
Couple these points with the fact that it presents an approach to embroidery that can be highly customized into deeply personal and unique embroidery works, and I think you’ll understand why, even this early in the year, I think it is most likely my Embroidery Book of 2026 – and perhaps even beyond 2026. I suspect I will use it as a reference, project, practice, and inspirational book well beyond this year.
Please allow me to show you, up close, Cassandra Dias’s Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery, published by C&T Publishing, and available worldwide now. Are you familiar with Cassandra’s work? If not, pop by her Instagram channel! You will be mesmerized by her landscapes.
Stick with me through the review, and at the end, you’ll have the opportunity to win your very own digital copy of the book, courtesy of C&T Publishing.
The book is about exactly what it promises in the title, richly stitched landscapes, and how to accomplish them.
Cassandra is obviously an artist in her own right. Her skillful use of color, proportion, perspective, composition, movement, and even life come across in each of the little projects in this book.
In addition to her artistic skill, she certainly understands how to teach the concepts and techniques of her art to her reader, and in ways that are remarkably accessible. Whether you are a beginner or a skilled stitcher, you can do what she’s teaching you to do, because she knows how to teach you how to do it. And that’s a marvelous gift!
The book is logical in its approach – it makes sense and it is orderly. Here, you’ll find well-presented, good instruction.
And then…. and then… it’s just pretty. The projects are really, really pretty. I want to be in every spot depicted in these projects.
Alright, there’s my overly effusive intro. I can’t help it. I love this book!
What’s In It?
The whole point of the book is to present Cassandra’s methods for embroidering detailed, beautiful, realistic landscapes. They are not huge images – they are sometimes-vast scenes of visual beauty captured in a small frame. From rolling hills to jagged mountains, seasides to still lakes, vineyards to forests, you’ll find a variety of scenery types in the book, and you will learn how to stitch them.
You have but to learn and then adapt her methods to stitch your own view. But she gives you the step-by-step process, practice elements, and projects to lead you to the mastery of her approach.
Each project is designed to fit in a 3″ display hoop, but the author gives clear instructions (and percentages) for enlarging the designs if you want a bigger finished project. If you want, for example, a 4″ round landscape that will fit in a 4″ display hoop or display frame, she tells you how to accomplish that before you transfer the design.
The book begins with general concepts. First, there’s a section on tools and materials, including hand embroidery threads, tools, fabric; transfer tools; materials for finishing and display; and more.
Next, the author tackles notions of color and design. Though short, this is a fascinating section! She shows you how to work from a reference photo, to turn a snapshot into your embroidered scene – how to break the scene down into elements to stitch and how to plan your approach to stitching it. And she also takes you through the process of choosing colors to bring your scene to life.
Now, don’t worry! As you learn from the book, the author does not expect you to come up with scenes to stitch. She provides you with practice scenes.
Next, we move into Embroidery Techniques & Tips. Here, you’ll learn the basics: transferring your design, how to use the embroidery floss, how to set up your hoop or frame, the general concepts of thread painting, how to finish a hoop for display, and the like.
Following this, you’ll find a stitch library. The embroidery stitches are all presented with step by step photos. None of them are difficult, complicated stitches. They’re all simple stitches.
And then we move into the specific instructions for landscape embroidery, and I love, love, love what Cassandra has done here.
Before we start stitching whole scenes, she takes us step-by-step through how to stitch common elements of scenery, providing designs, materials, and step-by-step photo instructions for typical parts of scenery: the sky, clouds, hills, mountains, trees, grass, flowers and bush, calm water, waves, sand, rocks.
Taken individually, each of these is a great lesson in interpretation of natural element into embroidery. While she presents these elements each in their own little hoop, I could see laying them out on a strip or square of fabric and working them as a legit sampler. It would be challenging, instructive, and fun!
Finally, the projects! Cassandra gives us seven complete scenes to embroider, and they strike me as being arranged from less difficult to more challenging: a rolling hillside, a seagrass shore, a rocky seascape, a serene lagoon, a foothill lake, a vineyard valley, and a wooded trail.
If someone pinned me down and said, “Pick out your favorite,” it would be practically impossible. The Foothill Lake is exquisite. The reflection of the water, the billowing clouds in the sky with the rolling hills before them, the trees and sky reflecting in the water… it’s hard to believe all of this is presented in such detail, so vivid, so real – with thread – in 3″ of space!
Be still, my heart!
But that vineyard valley makes my heart sing. And the serene lagoon, the seashores, the… the… I can’t pick. Each scene is lovely.
If I had to pick one that resonates with where I live, I know you won’t believe me, but it would be the rolling hillside. (You think Kansas is flat, don’t you?) It’s not – and that little hoop captures the typical hills in the area I live in, and the big sky that mesmerizes with its ever-changing sky-scape.
(But – shhhhh! don’t tell Kansas I said this: I dream of living above that foothill lake or on that rocky seashore!)
With each project, you’ll find all the information you need to stitch the scene.
The designs are located in the back of the book, where you’ll also find a QR code for an electronic version of all the patterns. This makes it easy to enlarge them and print them if you wish.
There is a materials and tools list with each project. The materials list includes the DMC thread list. On some of these scenes, there are a lot of colors employed! And an others, not as many, but still quite a few. For example, the Rolling Hillside uses 21 colors of DMC thread. The forest path? 58! With this type of thread painting, the extensive use of color is what makes it so realistic.
And then you will find the step-by-step photo instructions for building the scene with embroidery. Every little element unfolds before your eyes, so that you can see how it’s done and have the confidence to do it yourself.
Pros and Cons
All pros, no cons.
This is a fabulous book – it’s instructional and inspirational. I want really badly to work through every project in it. Right Now! I want really badly to have little embroidered landscapes peppering my gallery wall! Right Now!
Where to Find It
You can find Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery: Mastering Thread Painted Scenes by Cassandra Dias available through Amazon now – it’s been out for a short ten days! It’s right here at the top of my Needlework Book Recommendations list.
Get it! And let’s stitch some landscapes!
The link to my Needlework Recommendations List on Amazon is an affiliate link, which means that Needle ‘n Thread may receive a small commission for items purchased through that link, at no extra expense to you. Thanks!
Give-Away!
Courtesy of C&T Publishing, I’m giving away a digital copy of Richly Stitched Landscape Embroidery to one lucky randomly drawn winner!
If you’d like to join in on the give-away, please leave a comment below on this blog post. You can follow this link to the comment form, answering the following question:
What’s your favorite landscape? Are you a mountains person? Seaside? Open skies and rolling hills? Prairies and plains? Forests and streams? A lake lover? Rugged cliffs with salty spray, or soft, sunny, sultry tropics? What type of ideal scenic setting do you escape to in your favorite daydreams, that would want to stitch?
Leave your answer below by 5:00 AM Central Daylight Time, Wednesday, May 27th, and I’ll randomly draw for, and announce, a winner that morning. Make sure that you leave a recognizable name in the “name” line on the comment form, and please double check your email so that I can contact you directly.
Entries left anywhere else besides this blog post are ineligible. Your comment may not appear immediately because all comments left on Needle ‘n Thread are moderated before they are published.
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