The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery

by Mildred Graves Ryan

A guide to seven areas of needlecraft--crocheting, embroidery, knitting, macrame, rug making, sewing, and tatting--explains basic stitches and variations, special terms, and abbreviations and describes materials and tools

Genres: Reference, Crafts, Knitting, Sewing, Nonfiction, Crochet, Quilting

689 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1979

Reviews

[Chelly Wood · Rating 5 out of 5]

One Christmas, I made quilted Christmas stockings. As a sort of practice tool, for my "quilt" stitches I chose 40 or 50 of the different embroidery stitches that I found in this book. It made me far, far better at embroidery, and I created some lovely stockings that my family still uses every year, at christmas. I've gone from novice to pretty dang good, because of this wonderful book.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

love this book! so much crafty goodness, its saved me so many times and answered so many questions.

[Sailorbug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great for beginners looking to get into any and all types of needle work as well as great for anyone who just wants to learn even more about whichever craft they already do. I mainly practice hand embroidery and found so many new stitches in this book. I absolutely recommend it.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything you ever needed to know about stitchery!!

[Kelly (Maybedog) · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars

This book isn't very good even allowing for when it was written (1979). It suffers from a multitude of problems from trying to cover to much--knitting, crocheting, embroidery, tatting, sewing, macrame and rugmaking--to a terrible format--almost 700 pages of a reference book in a trade paperback size. You can't even open the pages all the way without breaking the spine, let alone keep them open with one hand or a weight on the pages so you can actual use it.

The instructions and illustrations range from adequate to useless unless you already know the techniques. The hand drawn examples of the patterns are not very good as the lines are too thick. The embroidery instructions are better than the rest, but there are gobs of better books out there. The absurdity of trying to cover sewing as part of such a tome is laughable as it's such a huge field. Even worse, it's only 38 of those 700 pages long. At least with the other crafts there are a limited number of techniques and you can do a lot just knowing how to knit and purl for example.

Overall, this book is really not at all useful, even for someone wanting a quick reference or a brush up. I recommend getting a book specifically for the technique you are trying. My shelves are full of books I think are much better if you'd like a place to start. It's hard to recommend just one or two as there are so many good ones out there. I only have three types of crafts sorted on their separte shelves as well right now but I've included them, too. (These are sorted by rating.):

All crafts
Knitting & Crocheting
Sewing
Embroidery & other small needlework

[Vacrocheter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is almost always within arms length of me. This book has every stitch you'll probably ever need. I use it primarily for crochet stitches, but it has many, MANY, needlework stitches, with great descriptions as well as diagrams. You will be surprised how often you reach for this book :-)

[Judi]

Arranged alphabetically, information on a variety of needlework techniques. I had no idea there were so many crochet and knit patterns in existence. Some tatting patterns included too. A good reference work.

[Diana McCutcheon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic and super helpful reference book. Great for learning a variety of stitches for crewel, embroidery and more.