Stumpwork Embroidery and 5 Resource Books to Help You Learn This 3D Stitch Technique
- Jul 3
- 5 min read
Stumpwork embroidery is a three-dimensional form of embroidery. It’s an advanced technique that involves creating raised or padded areas on fabric and then embellishing them with various materials like beads, wire, fabric scraps, and additional stitching to bring a design to life. It is often used to create highly detailed and realistic motifs that pop out from the fabric, giving a sense of depth and dimensionality to the embroidery.
Stumpwork is a technique that dates back to the end of the seventeenth century. The name "stumpwork" comes from the use of a wooden mold or "stump" that was traditionally used to shape the raised areas. Nowadays, you can achieve the same effect using stuffing or padding techniques.
A typical modern stumpwork embroidery can contain flat, padded, and freestanding embroidery, as well as small pieces of added needlework (slips). It's like creating a little sculpture with your needle and thread. Techniques like wire slips allow the stitcher to create movable wings, petals, and plants leaves while various types of padding can create raised layers and dimensionality.
Much of stumpwork embroidery uses a combination of embroidery stitches, that are layered on top of one another. Because of this building of stitches and techniques, it’s considered a more advanced form of embroidery. Fear not, stumpwork it’s as daunting as you might think, as long as you have a good foundation in hand embroidery, you can build on it to create stumpwork.
Even though stumpwork is an old form of needlework, there aren’t many tutorial and craft books to help the everyday embroiderer wanting to learn this 3D technique. After much scouring of my local library and the internet, these are the 5 helpful stumpwork tutorial books I found that cover a wide variety of techniques, projects, and tutorials to help you gain a foundation in stumpwork.
5 Helpful Stumpwork Embroidery Book Resources
A-Z of Stumpwork: The Ultimate Reference and Design Source for Stumpwork Embroiderers
As the title of this book suggests, with A-Z Stumpwork, you will learn a wide variety of stumpwork stitches and techniques. From a detailed materials list to clear step-by-step photos this book will prepare you to start stitching. The front of the book includes a clear step-by-step photo glossary of stitches, making it a book you’ll be able to reference again and again. Additionally, this book includes a variety of plant and animal projects to help you practice and build your stumpwork skills. The few drawbacks to this book are that the patterns lack step-by-step photos and are mostly written instructions. Also, the book doesn’t include finishing techniques for any of the projects.
Beginner’s Guide to Stumpwork by Kay Dennis
The Beginner’s Guide to Stumpwork features techniques, stitches, and patterns favored by Kay, which covers raised stitch techniques and a wide variety of needlelace using plants, animals, and people. Unlike many other craft books that include a stitch glossary in the front, this book has the stitches interspersed within the projects. While this is helpful when creating that specific design it makes the book less useful as an easy reference guide. Because the stitches are also worked into the patterns, the focus is more on the step-by-step of the pattern photos and some of the stitches are only one illustrated diagram, when they could use a bit more explanation. While Kay’s designs aren’t as modern as some others, she does use a variety of materials for her projects and you’ll get a true sampling of stumpwork techniques with the projects in this book. This book also doesn’t include project finishing techniques. * This book has also been published under different titles since its original publication in 2001.
RSN Essential Stitch Guides: Stumpwork by Kate Sinton
The Royal School of Needlework holds a world-renowned reputation for excellence in needlework. This essential stitch guide is written by one of their students Kate. Much like other Royal School of Needlework guides, it is an in-depth guide, not a project book.
This book is also the first stumpwork book I’ve come across to highlight how to prep a slate frame with step-by-step photos, while others only mention it’s usage. This book also had the widest range of stitches and techniques with clear step-by-step photos. The only drawbacks with this book, is that the examples showcased aren’t very modern and a stitcher looking for a project to practice these stitches would need to find another pattern or project since there aren’t any included in the book.
Raised Embroidery: Technique and Projects by Rachel Doyle
Raised Embroidery is a newer stumpwork embroidery book. It refers to stumpwork as raised embroidery, which is another term for the technique. This book takes a more modern approach to stumpwork and offers insights into creating your own designs. Much like other stumpwork books, this one also covers materials but offers a more traditional project prep. These techniques and needed supplies might be cumbersome to the everyday embroiderer compared to other prep options available. While this book isn’t large it is packed with many step-by-step photos of techniques making a great resource guide to keep on your shelf. If you’re looking for projects, however, the book only includes three and they’re quire labor intensive at that.
Stumpwork Embroidery & Thread Painting: Stitch 3D Nature Motifs by Megan Zaniewski
Stumpwork Embroidery & Thread Painting is also another newer addition to the stumpwork book options. It’s one of the few books available that takes a more realistic and modern approach to stitching nature motifs. Unlike other stumpwork books this one also touches on some more artistic elements like pattern inspiration, creation, design placement, and color theory. This book follows the similar format to other craft books with the materials, tools, and stitch glossary in the front- all of which include detailed descriptions and photos. A drawback of this book, compared to others is that it doesn’t include as many stumpwork techniques and focuses mainly on wire slips and thread painting, the painterly use of the long and short satin stitch. Despite the fewer techniques used, this book includes extremely detailed and close up step-by-step photos of each project to help you clearly understand how to blend the thread and create each technique described. I also appreciated that this book included additional finishing techniques like framing, pendant and ring settings, and other wearable options.
Depending upon whether you’re looking for more of a stitch guide/ reference book to practice specific stitches or a project based book for techniques, these 5 stumpwork books are great options to have in your craft library. As needlework has become more popular, more and more books with exciting techniques and combinations are being published. Be on the lookout for more new and modern publications.
