Learn How to Thread Paint and Create Stumpwork Embroidery in Megan Zaniewski’s New Book

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Do you look at 3D embroi­dery and find your­self in total awe? (I’m rais­ing my hand over here.) It’s like those who can do it can work some sort of magic—alchemy with thread. But, tech­niques like this are more acces­si­ble than you might think. Embroi­dery artist Megan Zaniews­ki shows you how to cre­ate impres­sive works of thread art in her new book, Stump­work Embroi­dery and Thread Paint­ing: Stitch 3D Nature Motifs.

In this expan­sive and beau­ti­ful book, Megan shares the basics with you—from sup­plies you’ll need to essen­tial stitches—before div­ing into the book’s projects. She demon­strates exact­ly what you need to know to com­plete them. This includes how to trans­fer an embroi­dery pat­tern, under­stand the nuances of thread paint­ing, and cre­ate wings using a wire slip.

Learn more about embroidery artist Megan Zaniewski’s new book, Stumpwork Embroidery and Thread Painting, and how you can win an e‑book copy!

“I hon­est­ly love all the projects in the book and had so much fun design­ing and stitch­ing each one, but I think the Mal­lard Duck­ling pat­tern holds a spe­cial place in my heart,” Megan tells me. “A lot of peo­ple learned about my work through my duck embroi­deries (and the bub­bles!) and they’ve been my most-request­ed pat­tern by far.” She designed and revealed a duck pat­tern in her book. “The lit­tle yel­low duck­ling is adorably bright and cheer­ful and real­ly sums up how I want­ed the book to feel. I want my read­ers to have fun with these projects, and fall in love with the process.”

In addi­tion to the duck­ling, there are a vari­ety of projects that will appeal to every kind of embroi­der­er. Megan’s encour­ag­ing writ­ing and expert instruc­tion make what seemed impos­si­ble now pos­si­ble. “The hard­est part about stump­work and thread paint­ing is get­ting past any self-doubt and just div­ing into a project, and I think you’ll dis­cov­er it is eas­i­er than it looks” Megan explains. “I am an over­thinker and the ‘wow!’ fac­tor of stump­work and thread paint­ing def­i­nite­ly put me off from even try­ing it as a begin­ner embroi­der­er because I thought it was far out­side my skill level.”

Megan wrote the book with her past self in mind. “I want­ed these tech­niques to be approach­able and fun for begin­ners and sea­soned embroi­der­ers alike. If you are inter­est­ed in learn­ing to add dimen­sion and depth to your embroi­dery or to embroi­der more real­is­tic sub­jects, I think you’ll find this book’s step-by-step approach (with lots of pho­tos!) sim­pli­fies the process for read­ers and address­es com­mon ques­tions and con­cerns with help­ful tips and guid­ance in an easy-to-learn way. I hope these 15 projects help trans­form my read­ers’ appre­hen­sion to con­fi­dence, so that they can com­fort­ably plan and stitch their own 3D designs beyond the book.”

Stump­work Embroi­dery and Thread Paint­ing is avail­able on Jan­u­ary 25, 2024. To cel­e­brate, I’m host­ing a give­away! Win a free e‑book copy of Megan’s book when you leave a com­ment on this post telling me what you love about embroi­dery. The give­away dead­line is Feb­ru­ary 5, 2024, at 11:59 PST.