Beautiful guided stitchwork for every season—featuring fall pumpkins and mushroom wreaths, winter skiers, spring blossoms, summer vegetables, and more!"

I absolutely loved this book. As someone who become obsessed with stitching during the pandemic, I love to see more and more embroidery in mainstream media. This book has beautiful patterns for each month and shows ways to use embroidery beyond a hoop.

The embroidery were so pretty and easy to follow. I was happy to have early access and test them with a friend. She help me follow along. Because yes the book made it easy but when you try something different you need a coach !

beautiful book with gorgeous stitch patterns. Contains patterns for each season. I would highly reccomend this book.

This book was such a lovely book to look through. The book has great illustrations, easy to follow patterns and great explanations. I haven’t been doing embroidery very long and it was easy to follow.

The book is really helpful for crafting and embroidering. As an embroidery enthusiast myself, all the designs are so beautiful. The designs are based on floral patterns with stitching instructions and can be sewn on handkerchiefs and dresses. I had been looking for a book like this for so long that as soon as I saw it, I requested it for download. Definitely, 5 stars for its beautiful representation.

Stitching through the Seasons is a is a tutorial and pattern book with example projects by Yumiko Higuchi. Released 28th Nov 2023 by Roost Books on their Shambhala imprint, it's 96 pages and is available in paperback format.

The included projects are all stylishly appealing and full of colorful surface embroidery featuring floral subjects arranged by month. All of the tutorials include full color pictures as well as detailed line drawings with stitch guides and directions. Materials are readily and widely available. Although the tutorials are specific to finished projects (eye mask, bags, Christmas stocking, and several others), they could all easily be adapted to whatever finished form the reader wishes, or simply framed as pictures.

The stitch diagrams which are provided include clear pictures of straight stitch, lazy daisy, satin, French knot, chain stitch (used in most of the projects), and other surface embroidery techniques. It would be possible to complete the projects in the book by just using the stitch tutorials, and despite their seeming complexity, they're built up of simple elements and should be accessible to anyone, even beginners.

Full size templates are included as well as materials lists and suggested finishing instructions.

It should be noted that this book is about surface embroidery, not cross stitch. It's lovely to see tutorials and an upswing in interest for the other fibrearts; it seems like only cross-stitch had any following for a long long time and it's nice to see surface embroidery enjoying a renaissance.
I enjoyed the book very much. It's a worthwhile and fun introduction and guide to learning embroidery. Many of the designs in the book could also serve as a good jumping off point for dimensional embroidery/stumpwork.

Four and a half stars

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

What a beautiful book!

Here's a whole year's worth of stitchery projects, organized by appropriate season. The designs are lovely and elegant: mostly florals, with some fun groupings of camping gear and sewing tools. The how-tos and patterns are at the end of the book, with fairly comprehensive instructions for getting started. Whether you choose just a tiny motif, or a larger project, I suspect you will be thrilled with your results.

Fabulous, wonderful, I learned so much and the pictures were captivating.. not quite a book for beginners and a good entry to any collection

Stitching Through the Seasons by Yumiko Higuchi is a delightful collection of 58 embroidery projects with patterns for every month of the year. Not only are the stitches are easy for the beginner to master but there is also inspiration for advanced stitchers. There is always more room and occasion for bits of stitching art in any nook or cranny.

Higuchi's designs are folksy, whimsical and practical. She provides creative uses such as handkerchiefs, bags, eye masks and jam lids which in turn will have your mind twirl with your own ideas. One could create a compendium of figures or take a sprig or spray to add in a corner or border. The 58 patterns could become hundreds!

So many favourites but my top few would be the adorable people which would be easily customizable, sprigs of lavender, fruits, mushrooms (I'm a rabid forager) and Christmas rose. Not only are the patterns and stitches detailed but so are the material requirements. Tips such as thread blending add special touches. Though I am an advanced stitcher, my heart is bedazzled by new and fresh designs to tuck just there.

My sincere thank you to Shambhala Publications and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this funtastic book! It makes me smile.

A nice collection of monthly themed embroidery designs. The book focuses mostly on botanicals and fruits and vegetables, with a few animals and other patterns. It felt to me like these projects were more for people with previous embroidery experience, due to the size and complexity of the patterns.
The book starts with color photos of each completed design, usually three per month. After all the photos, the book transitions into a stitch guide and the pattern outlines.
Overall a nice book if botanical patterns are of interest.

The designs and ideas in this book were beautiful and unique. I haven't had a chance to stitch them yet, but I read the entire book. Highly recommend it.

Really cute seasonal stitching patterns! There are a lot of botanicals, which I don't necessarily stitch a lot of, but I definitely saved a few patterns to try out later!

Solid 5 stars.

I have long admired Yumiko Higuchi’s lovely designs and stitchwork. I love how vibrant, fresh, and joyful her creations are. I also admire how beautifully she incorporates her designs into everyday items, so that one is always carrying/using/wearing sweet, magically embellished items.

This may be my favourite ever collection of Yumiko’s designs. I love how each month incorporates a different theme, which leads to so much variety throughout this book. The example work brings each design to life - incredibly well - using neat, beautiful stitching and rich, vibrant tones. My favourites include the mushroom wreath, migratory birds, the spring pressed flowers collection and the idea of putting one of the summer fruits over a jar of homemade jam as a gift. Though, I can see using so many more than just these.

The patterns are all included in the second half of the book. These are well-rendered and incredibly clear. With patience and a deft hand, any stitcher can use these to recreate the magic displayed in the first half of this book. Of course, each reader/stitcher can surely alter the colours and suggestions to suit their own project needs, though everything needed to recreate the original designs are stated on the patterns. Plus, the author provides readers with not only her stitching patterns, but ideas of what to use these designs on (patterns included), such as the lavender eye mask. So many of these designs would add magic to any home or make amazing gifts. You could also incorporate any many of these design elements onto articles of clothing (think upcycling and/or covering up any irremovable stains). She has included the 12 title designs that (with a little imagination and ingenuity), could honestly be used for almost anything - other numbers, initials, important dates, etc.

I definitely need to purchase myself a physical copy of this book!

Huge gratitude to the publisher, Shambhala Publications, and NetGalley for a digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Yumiko Higuchi's Stitching through the Seasons includes lovely flowery patterns for freehand embroidery. Higuchi's projects are stunning to look at!

In my opinion, the patterns have different levels of difficulty so as you enhance your skill, you will still be able to glean some value out of this book.

Overall, I love nature patterns so this book was made for me. Do you love freehand embroidery? Then this is the inspirational book for you!

Such a cute little book! What if, instead of listening to podcasts or streaming a show I'm not really watching while I sew, I actually concentrated on the positive message I was stitching? These designs are easy and creative. I cannot wait to take time to work through a couple of projects.

A beautiful addition to any crafters book collection. The color photos are stunning, the seasonal outline is timely, and the clear instructions are well organized at the back of the books.

This book is Beautiful. I started doing embroidery a few months ago. I’m a seamstress already so it seemed like the next best thing. I enjoyed that there are a few patterns for sewing projects as well in this book after you embroider the fabric. There was a pattern for a sleep mask and a little stocking ornament. I especially loved the mushroom themed wreath, the camping themed page and the sewing themed page. The pictures are beautiful and it’s well put together. The instructions are clear and easy to follow.

This is a fantastic book of embroidery patterns and ideas. They are modern and super beautiful, and most importantly the instructions are clear. I am definitely going to make the mushroom wreath right away, and hope to try another project after! Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC- all opinions are my own but I highly recommend this for lovers of botanicals and modern embroidery!

This is a visually entrancing book. As I flipped through the pages, I was regularly thinking about which motifs I might pull out for what use. I expect to use some of the ideas in the book in "lunch and learn" workshops in my makerspace this year, and hopefully encourage students to take on a regular embroidery practice.

The seasonal themes are lovely, though the motifs may not completely match up with your seasons depending where you live in the world. Living in Ontario, pansies are not part of my January, but they are part of my year! There is a great deal here that would translate well into creating a seasonal sampler project, or just adapting a small motif to go on a bag or a piece of clothing. The other thought that I had was that the templates in the book would adapt well to beadwork. Many of the floral designs would make stunning beaded pieces.

The book does a strong job of showing how the embroidered pieces might work in different contexts - on a handkerchief, or a skirt, for example, or stitching lavender sprigs onto a lavender sleep mask.

There is an instructional section to the book, although the photographs (and particularly the numbering of the steps in the photographs) could be clearer. Showing a clearly labeled photograph for each step of the sequence might work better, particularly for beginners. The written instructions that accompany the photographs are quite well done. The template diagrams themselves are very clearly laid out, with clear explanations of how many strands of floss are needed for each element.

There are patterns included for some of the projects photographed in the book, such as the lavender eye mask. The written instructions are well written, but more detailed illustrations or photographs would have bene helpful here as well.

All in all, a beautiful book and a worthwhile addition to an embroidery reference collection, but beginners might struggle with some of the instructions.

Stitching through the Seasons is a stunning embroidery book! As a newbie to the craft, I was worried this book might be too advanced for me, but I'm so glad I was mistaken! This book was incredibly inspiring and beginner friendly with useful information on tools, materials and a guide to the stitches. I absolutely loved how the contents were divided throughout the year and each month had beautiful designs associated with it. There was so much colour and vibrancy in the designs and I can't wait to try some of them out!