I know what you’re thinking! And I don’t blame you!

After my article on Monday about my book dilemma, here I am, writing another book review.

Oh, ye hypocrite! you may well cry. But this is The Thing: This book is so beautifully thorough that I could pretty much eliminate every other book I own on this type of whitework embroidery, thereby saving quite a bit of shelf space!

Of course, I won’t do that. I have several books on whitework that I very much appreciate and use.

But wow! Jenny Adin-Christie’s new book, Fine Whitework, is a barn burner from cover to cover. I think we are super fortunate to have this book available, written by a master embroiderer who has such a profound artistic sense and such notable teaching skills. It seems to me that only Jenny Adin-Christie could have written this book and pulled off such a masterpiece that makes traditional fine whitework accessible to today’s embroiderer.

That’s just my opinion. But let’s look at the book up close. It’s hard to review, because there’s so much valuable content in it. How do I choose what to highlight?!

There is a slim chance that I have an obsession with needlework books.

I’ve always been a book lover. I like to read. I love holding a real book in my hands and reading it. And when my hands are occupied with work, I like to listen to audio books.

Throughout my reading life, I’ve sunk my teeth into many genres of literature with insatiable enthusiasm until eventually glutted. Then, I moved on to the next genre and became a devotee of it until duly gorged. Right now – and for about the past five years – I’ve been on a non-fiction binge. I’ve found, much to my extreme delight, that non-fiction is possibly the best genre I’ve ever wallowed in, despite my calculated aversion to it when I was younger. You know the kind: well-written, accurate, supported by meticulous research, and related in the best tradition of story-telling? I just can’t get enough non-fiction these days.

Needlework books don’t really fall into any of the categories of regular literature that I’m talking about above. They are the Other Category of book that I tend to over-indulge in. I love needlework books! And I have a great excuse for constantly acquiring them, after all.

This poses a question: can you ever have Too Many needlework books?

Recently, I’ve been evaluating this question. I think the answer could be yes.

Good morning! It’s an exciting launch day here at Needle ‘n Thread! I love it when we can finally release a kit!

Autumn Fire is the third Stitch Snippet project for this year, and it is truly more snippet-ish than the Bee-Jeweled Pincushion and Cotton Quartet.

Autumn Fire is a small project. The embroidered autumn tree is just over two inches tall, and it fits in a custom-cut arched mat (supplied with the kit) for a 4″ square frame.

Here’s a little more information about the project and the materials kit, which you will find available here.

Today, let’s chat about embroidery tools!

You’ve probably noticed that I’ve been building a small curated collection of retail goods in my online shop. When I add something to this collection, it’s always something I already have that I like for some good reason or another. And I try to offer goods that I believe solve a problem or serve to help embroiderers in some way.

Next week, when I add Autumn Fire to my shop (around 10:00 am central time next Tuesday, September 13), I’m also adding a few extra retail items that I plan to offer regularly. I’m posting it all at once instead of stringing out new additions, so that you have the opportunity to save a little bit on shipping if you want multiple items.

Among these new retail items that I find useful are the tools we’re going to talk about today: some sweet, functional, beautiful little needle threaders (oh, how I have learned to love the needle threader!) and some absolutely swell scissors that I’ve been using for several years now.

Something Jacobean-ish must’ve been rumbling about in the embroidery world in the last month or so.

I always surmise there’s a workshop or a new kit out or a new article or tutorial out there on a specific subject, when I suddenly get an influx of multiple requests for more information (or tips, or tutorials, or instructions) on that particular technique or topic.

I’ve had a number of emails lately requesting tutorials for Jacobean embroidery. Here’s one question (used with the author’s permission):

I’m doing Jacobean embroidery and I’m struggling with the instructions. Can you do some tutorials on Jacobean embroidery, or do you know of a book with illustrations or diagrams?

The reason this is a difficult question is that “Jacobean embroidery” is not a technique. We’ve talked about this before on Needle ‘n Thread, but the topic is buried a bit. So I thought I’d dig it up here.