Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery

By Leanne Prain

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year Hoopla , by the co-author of 2009's bestselling Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti , showcases those who take the craft of embroidery where it's never gone before, in an astonishing, full-color display of embroidered art. Hoopla rebels against the quaint and familiar embroidery motifs of flowers and swashes, and focuses instead on innovative stitch artists who specialize in unusual, guerrilla-style patterns such as a mythical jackalope and needlepoint nipple doilies; it demonstrates that modern embroidery artists are as sharp as the needles with which they work. Hoopla includes twenty-eight innovative embroidery patterns and profiles of contemporary embroidery artists, including Jenny Hart, author of Sublime Stitching ; Rosa Martyn of the UK-based Craftivism Collective; Ray Materson, an ex-con who learned to stitch in prison; Sherry Lynn Wood of the Tattooed Baby Doll Project, which collaborated with female tattoo artists across the United States; Penny Nickels and Johnny Murder, the self-proclaimed Bonnie and Clyde of embroidery; and Alexandra Walters, a military wife who replicates military portraits and weapons in her stitching. Full-color throughout and bursting with history, technique, and sass, Hoopla will teach readers how to stitch a ransom note pillow, mean and dainty knuckle-tattoo church gloves; and create their own innovative embroidery projects. If you like anarchistic DIY craft and the idea of deviating from the rules, Hoopla will inspire you to wield a needle with flair With a foreword by Betsy Greer.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1551524066
• ISBN13: 9781551524061
• Release Date: October 2011
• Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
• Length: 408 Pages
• Weight: 2.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 8.7" x 8.0"