Book review: Freestyle Machine Embroidery

free You’ve probably heard of Carol Shinn and seen her work around the Internet. You may even have been lucky enough to learn from Carol through one of her many workshops. If not, here’s your chance to be tutored by her.

Carol is an American fiber artist who is known for her realistic images produced with machine stitching. Her book Freestyle Machine Embroidery: Techniques and Inspiration for Fiber Art shares amazing examples of her work and explains her techniques in detail. It is not a book for the casual crafter or dabbler, really. It’s more about producing fine art in an unusual medium.

If you paint but you’ve never before touched a sewing machine, and you’d like to experiment with painting with thread, this is the ideal book for you. Carol prepares you by explaining in simple terms the mechanics of the sewing machine so you can understand what’s happening between fabric and thread and you can manipulate that interaction. She steps through each critical element down to thread, needles, and hoops, pointing out pitfalls along the way. She even details how to set up your workspace and guide the fabric so that your body can tolerate long hours of stitching. There’s also plenty of information about canvas prep, color blending, and stitch variations.

But can a crafter with a limited background in studio art benefit from and enjoy this book? Well…yes. That’s just who I am, and I enjoyed it a lot. I’m probably never going to attempt photo-realistic fine art with my sewing machine. But there’s a very good chance, indeed, that some new machine-stitching experimentation will be going on my studio, thanks to this lovely book.

Freestyle Machine Embroidery was produced by Interweave and is available from Amazon.com and many other outlets. ISBN 978-1-59668-042-5

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If you want to teach kids the basics of Hanukkah in the classroom or at home, the picture book Hanukkah by Lesléa Newman and illustrated by Rotem Teplow is a nice place to start.

The book explores the Jewish holiday through the eyes of Lior, a boy whose name means “my light” in Hebrew, which is appropriate for talking about the Festival of Lights.

The book goes through all the preparations the family does, including cleaning, setting the table and cleaning the menorah. It talks about what the menorah symbolizes and the Hanukkah story of the oil in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem lasting for eight days when it should have only been a one-day supply.

The meaning of the letters on the dreidel are also explored, in that when you are in Israel they have a different fourth word (the letters symbolize the Hebrew letters for “a great miracle happened there” or, in Israel, “a great miracle happened here”).

Because the story of Hanukkah involves oil, a lot of the foods that are eaten during the celebration are fried in oil, such as latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (fried jelly doughnuts). Other foods mentioned include challah, noodle kugel and sour cream and applesauce, which are served with the latkes. Family and friends drop by to share their food, light their menorahs together and play dreidel (the game is explained in the story). It also talks about how the candles are lit through the eight days and what happens at the end of Hanukkah.

The book includes Hanukkah blessings in English and Hebrew and talks about the lunar cycle of the Hebrew calendar, which is why Hanukkah is sometimes celebrated in November and sometimes in December. It also talks about why Jewish holidays are celebrated beginning at sunset rather than in the morning.

Other topics covered include Hanukkah greetings; how to spell Hanukkah; how to make an edible menorah and an tzedakah box (to collect money for charity); recipes for latkes and applesauce; and a more detailed story of Hanukkah than is included within the story of the book. There’s also a quiz to see how well you were paying attention.

This sweet little book is a quick read and a cute overview of the basics of Hanukkah and what the symbols, foods and games mean. It’s a great book for classrooms or at home for sharing basic knowledge.

About the book: 48 pages, hardcover. Published 2024 by words & pictures, suggested retail price $14.99.

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