Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Book Review: Stitched Collage

Stitched Collage by Sherrill Kahn. I go this off Amazon. I like this book because it has good pictures. It has some very colorful pictures that give me ideas of what to do for my own fabric collages. The pictures are nice and large so you can see the details. It is much more mixed-media - stuff that I would do. I am not sure I would be that colorful, but the ideas are good.


It starts out with some simple painting techniques that you can do on fabric. I like the section on hand stitching techniques. Even though I do a lot of hand sewing already, it is nice to have an easy reference for different stitches. There are little sample picts next to each stitch. Yeah, I had to ask Harriet what couching was.


There is also a section on machine stitches. I have a simple machine that does straight and zigzag only. There is a buttonhole stitch but I need to play with that. Looks cool though. The sections are short - only a couple of pages of each or so. There is a section on stitched embellishments. Yes, there is punchinella in there! What I like is that there is a lot of stamping and other elements in the artwork besides just fabric and fibers. Beads and Buttons section is just a one pager and pretty simple. The See-Through Pockets and windows are interesting. I could think of a lot of things to use to make windows and pockets.


The book ends with a gallery. I am not sure about the finished pieces. They all look like a variation of the same theme to me. I guess because of the colors. What I do like about each one is that you can take details from each and use them in your own artwork.


I would suggest this book to mixed-media artists like me who are just starting to dabble in art quilts/fabric art. It is more like fabric collage than quilting. This would not be for a more experienced fabric/quilting artist. The one shortcoming of this book is that most, if not all, the artwork is the author's. I would like to see a variety of art using her techniques but from different people. You can only see the same thing in a different ways so many times.

Comment and let me know what you think, if you already have this book.

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