Adventures in Stitches Author:Mariska Karasz Adventures in Stitches and More Adventures-- Fewer Stitches — Revised and expanded edition — "This book is designed to show you not only the art of embroidery, but the art of acquiring an inner satisfaction as well. And, if you way you haven't energy enough left for needlework after your everyday tasks, then remember the surgeon who finds diversi... more »on for his tired mind and hands in a paint brush; the businessman with his flower garden, or his workshop. All of us can find rest in doing something for relaxation and fun.
Given the proper tools, each has inherent creative energies and, like the writer's pen, a needle is woman's traditional instrument of self-expression. Embroidery is to sewing what poetry is to prose; here the stitches can be made to sing out as words sing in a poem. Embroidery is a challenge to your imagination and makes it possible for you to express ideas with a needle. Any woman who can sew a fine seam should, within a short time, develop into a painter in thread. These lessons have no relation to the ready-stamped table runner, or to the chair back designed and patterned by a stranger. Nor will this book teach you to imitate the work of another age, for this is acceptable only as a means of learning to master a technique and, no matter how beautifully you stitch, your efforts will have no creative meaning. Meaning is born when the designer and the workman are one. When they are one, you will have ceased to copy. You will have begun to create; each line and stitch will be your own."« less