Di Van Niekerk's Roses: In Silk and Organza Ribbon

Jun/Jul 12

The vintage craze is perhaps typified by roses. Adding a rosy touch to everything from a crocheted scarf to a beaded necklace is explored in Di Van Niekerk's book. The tome includes 16 different roses for crafters to produce realistic creations blooming among a latticework of rosebuds, leaves and stems, and is suitable for beginners to advanced.

Sept/Oct Workbox

Whether you learn on the exquisite rose sampler specially designed for the book, or make only one rose, this is a book that you will refer to often, especially when you wish to make something exceptional. Learn how to make delicate, beautiful and realistic silk roses and organza leaves, and have fun making them for a friend, or a special project. There is a flower for every occasion: adorning a hat or a knitted bag, embellishing a crocheted scarf or adding beauty to a beaded necklace. Techniques include 16 different roses, blooming amongst a latticework of rosebuds, leaves and stems. Learn how to make rose petals and rose hips, sepals, stems and leaves, spent roses and stamens, and gorgeous little birds, a bird's nest, beautiful butterflies, bows and wisteria. There is something for everyone in these pages and it is amazing how easy, enjoyable and rewarding these techniques are. As artistically inclined mother and a keen interest in all things beautiful got Di off to an early start as an embroiderer. Her love for this discipline soon became her livelihood and started an embroidery business was just another natural progression for this talented crafter. She opened her first shop in the Natal Midlands and when the family decided to uproot and move to Johannesburg, along went the business. After four years of running one of Johannesburg's most successful embroidery shops, the family's urge to settle in Cape Town became too strong to ignore. Di now lives in the Mother City where she runs two successful embroidery shops. The end product of her latest interest, hand painting her own range of silk and organza ribbons for embroidery, is marketed to retail outlets worldwide.

March 13

This book is brimful of delicate, beautiful and realistic silk roses and organza leaves. We learn how to make 16 different roses plus petals and rose hips, sepals, stems, leaves and stamens along with gorgeous birds, beautiful butterflies and bows. With something for everyone it's amazing how easy and enjoyable this craft can be.

One of the high spots of my reviewing year is the publication of the next Di van Niekerk book. This one has all the features that made the others so popular and so well loved: the luscious illustrations, the beautiful heirloom-quality projects, the attention to detail in the instructions and Di's lovely watercolour studies. Roses are the subject of this new book, and they are presented in the form of a sampler made up of irregular shapes, each one teaching techniques about this type of work and featuring roses with a variety of other subjects. These include birds, butteflies, a web and a few other flowers and can be stitched as a glorious whole or broken up into a variety of project adorning sections. There are over sixty techniques to learn in here, some of them entirely new and the creation of the author and sixteen different roses. I love the way this book tells you absolutely everything you need to know (even the author's email and website for obtaining supplies) including the sort of information most writers would overlook. The anatomy of a rose for example, or how to get to grips with transfer paper and a wealth of information for those new to ribbon embroidery. The diagrams are a nice mixture of photographs and drawings and this is the type of hardback that obligingly lays flat. Another feature is the user-friendly layout that starts with the basics, moves on to the techniques involved and finishes with the actual sampler sections. Each one tells you what ribbons you need (all from Di's website or international stockists listed on the site) the needles, threads and anything else as well as lots of staged instructions. Search Press publishes some excellent books for beginners to this type of work but this one is aimed more at the intermediate/advanced stitcher who wants to create the sort of work of art that you can imagine being passed down through a family. Probably the best craft book I've seen yet this year.

Aug 11

Whether they learn on the exquisite rose sampler specially designed for the book, or make only one rose, this is a book that customers will refer to often, especially when they wish to make something exceptional. Learn how to make delicate, beautiful and realistic silk roses and organza leaves, and have fun making them for a friend, or for a special project.

Oct 11

Di van Niekerk's new book Roses in Silk and Organza Ribbon is a visual feast. No one does ribbon work quite like Di. Her work is sumptuous! When Seneca said that art is an imitation of nature, I think he had Di's roses in mind. They are certainly art, in perfect imitation of nature's most glorious flower. The book itself is beautiful. It's published by Search Press, with a hard cover, a gorgeous dust jacket, on nice paper. It just feels like a good book. And the book is packed with color and abundance - it is a visual feast. I like the fact that the book begins with the anatomy of a rose. This told me, right off the bat, that the roses within were going to be Serious Roses. Did I mention Color? Visual Feasting? Examining the book, so many adjectives came to mind! Luxurious, rich, exquisite... But the nice thing is, it's not just eye-candy! Packed with step-by-step instructions for achieving Di's results in ribbon work, the book is wonderfully instructive. In the book, the author covers over sixty techniques (many of which you'll see for the first time in this book) and shows the reader how to create sixteen varieties of roses. There's plenty of information on supplies and tools and plenty of handy extra tips throughout the book, too. And of course, there's a stitch dictionary included, with diagrams of the various stitches commonly used in ribbon embroidery, as well as standard surface embroidery stitches that enhance ribbon work. The instruction in the book is arranged around a sampler, which is how most of Di's books work, and she breaks the sampler down into separate parts and instructs on each element. In fact, if you wanted, you could always break the sampler apart and work the various elements as separate projects. If you're not familiar with Di's method of creating a project, the stitcher takes the print of the design (supplied in the book) and actually transfers an image of the colored print to the fabric, and then stitches over this transfer of the project. So in the photo above, the rose on the left is the color print of one of the elements of the sampler. The rose on the right is the stitched rose. The image on the left would be transferred to the fabric before stitching. How is this done? Well, that's explained in the book! Di takes you through several different ways of achieving this type of colored transfer. And if colored transfers aren't for you, no worries. She explains how to transfer a line pattern as well. Within each element of the sampler, there are plenty of step-by-step and close up photos to demonstrate the techniques used. Some of the techniques are quite simple, so the beginner will find a place to start in this book, and some of the techniques are more complex, so those who have experience with ribbon work will find plenty of challenges and inspiration for furthering their abilities. The book is stunning. But better than that, it's thoroughly instructive, too! So if you've wanted to kick your ribbon embroidery up a notch, or if you've always wanted to create sumptuous roses in ribbon work, then you may very well want to add this book to your needlework library! It's a winner!

Issue 71

Perfect for silk ribbon fans, crazy quilters, fibre artists, card makers, dress designers... there is a rose in this book for every occasion. In this book you will learn more than 60 techniques, many of them brand new. Whether you learn on the exquisite rose sampler designed for this book, or whether you make only one rose, this is a book that you will refer to often over the years to come, especially when you need to make something exceptional.

Vol 18, No 5

Who doesn't love a beautiful rose? It is the world's most popular flower and traditional symbol of love. This beautifully photographed book teaches how to make stunning roses using silk ribbon, and leaves made from organza. Botanically correct and described in detail they will appeal to many such as crazy quilters, textile artists, card makers and dress designers. Make the rose sampler from the included instructions to showcase your gorgeous roses - the sampler sets the roses amongst birds, butterflies, bows and wisteria. Alternatively why not make some roses to adorn items such as a hat, bag, scarf, necklace or even a wedding dress.

An artistically inclined mother and a keen interest in all things beautiful got Di off to an early start as an embroiderer. Her love for this discipline soon became her livelihood and starting an embroidery business was just another natural progression for this talented crafter. She opened her first shop in the Natal Midlands and when the family decided to uproot and move to Johannesburg, along went the business. After four years of running one of Johannesburg's most successful embroidery shops, the family's urge to settle in Cape Town became too strong to ignore. Di now lives in the Mother City where she runs two successful embroidery shops.
The end product of her latest interest, hand painting her own range of silk and organza ribbons for embroidery, is marketed to retail outlets worldwide.