There is no need to spend a fortune on fabric, threads and other items in order to learn creative embroidery. With a few materials, Dilys Blackburn shows the reader how to design and complete a piece of embroidery from the start. Taking it step-by-step, learning stitches and other techniques, and exploring the use of colour, the reader is taught skills in both stitching and design. By reading through the manual and carrying out the exercises, readers learn such diverse techniques as basic stitching, adding texture, simple fabric painting, quilting, cutwork and Jacobean embroidery.