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Beginner's Guide to Stumpwork - By Kay Dennis.
19 May, 2003 - Book Review - Recommended by Nancy Kinsman, NGNAG
Dennis, Kay, Beginner’s Guide to Stumpwork, Search Press, England, 2001.
2002 reprint ISBN 0 85532870 3.
About $19.95 at Amazon.com.
In this my first book review for the ONN website, I have chosen one of the newest books on Stumpwork. The author, Kay Dennis has been teaching stumpwork and needlelace for several years. She is a professional embroiderer from England and is Chairman of the Guild of Needlelace. As an avid stumpwork embroiderer I ask the question : what does this book bring to the current teachings and instructions on Stumpwork ?
The recent interest in Stumpwork has so far produced two distinct styles. The first is from the books of Barbara and Roy Hirst of England. Their style starts from the historic beginnings of stumpwork and has gone on to include hand painted backgrounds and machine embroidery techniques such as stippling. They are including embroiderer made accessories out of wood such as musical instruments. Their work fits into current trends in fibre art.
The other style very much in favour with stumpwork fans is the work of Jane Nicholas from Australia. Her work also draws on the traditional but with more of an emphasis on exquisite fabric, threads and beads. Her work is usually on a white silk background with great attention to detail and anatomic accuracy. Her embroidery is usually all hand stitched with excellent technique. Her current focus is on creating lifelike insects in stumpwork. Jane Nicholas has taught extensively in North America. Sherry Del Rizzo's stumpwork workshops follow the Nicholas style.
Kay Dennis' work is very much in the Barbara and Roy Hirst style of needlework. She acknowledges that they are her mentors in the field of stumpwork. The basics are well covered - padded work such as acorns, berries, and wired leaves. She uses mostly hand dyed and space dyed threads that give a good range of natural colours. However, her colourations tend to photograph muddy and drab, compared to the jewel like tones of Nicholas' work.
To give a crisper line to her flat elements, Dennis uses an interfacing slip. She gives it a colour wash to match her threads thus providing a background colour to prevent the background fabric showing through or affecting the thread colour.
Her strength is primarily in needlelace. Needlelace is one of the traditional elements of stumpwork and one of the most difficult. Kay Dennis goes into great detail on basic needlelace instructions. Her almost twenty years of teaching this subject figures prominently in the book and is reason to buy it. As a lefthanded stitcher probably with some dyslexia, trying to learn a few basics of lace making, I can be a difficult student and severe critic.
Kay Dennis' instructions and diagrams are excellent. She spends quite a bit of time setting up needlelace pads and the outline. This careful preparation step is the key to successful needlelace. This is the first set of instructions that have given me the confidence to try the technique again.
While the book covers the basics well, and is an excellent teaching book, Kay Dennis does not bring or incorporate new influences to the subject of Stumpwork.
Ratings
Good on Stumpwork. Excellent on needlelace technique.
Brings new and exciting techniques/ideas and inspiration : Fair
Gotta rush out and buy it. . . . no matter the price : No.
Recommended for Guild Libraries : Yes.
Worth the money : Yes.
I have to watch my pennies, can the projects be tried inexpensively ? Yes.
I have stumpwork books from both Hirst and Nicholas, would I want this book ?????
(Is this review too long ? Probably. Yes.)
For inquiring minds that want to know..... I did come up with an idea to try to make palm fronds for my tropical trees in stumpwork from reading this book. Now let's hope the tree trunks will work too.
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