The Insect Embroidery Cabinet follows the small actions that make a garden feel alive: a bee carrying a cut leaf, a dragonfly leaving its empty skin, a larva moving inside a portable shelter and a beetle emerging beside a new fern shoot.
This two-volume digital book pairs 80 reference drawings with 80 embroidery interpretations. Across 218 pages, the images and twelve essays explore how an insect's movement, its footing and its surrounding plants can become a convincing textile composition.
What Is Included
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Volume I: Gathering, Building & Water. 111-page PDF, Studies 01 to 40.
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Volume II: Growth, Shelter & Return. 107-page PDF, Studies 41 to 80.
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160 full-page study artworks: 80 drawings (A) and 80 embroidery interpretations (B).
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Twelve essays, plus opening and closing reflections, natural-history source notes and numbered study indexes.
- Searchable text, PDF bookmarks and linked contents for returning to a particular study.
A Cabinet of Insect Behaviour
Volume I begins with gathering and building: leafcutter bees, wool carders, mason bees, potter wasps and ants carrying or working with found materials. It then moves to pond surfaces, aquatic insects, dragonfly emergence and the pebble case of a caddisfly larva.
Volume II follows changing bodies and concealed lives, from a pale emerging ladybird to a leaf miner's winding passage. Folded grass, winter ivy, bark chambers, fireflies and a final fern opening bring shelter, encounters and seasonal return into the collection.
From Drawing to Thread
Each A/B pair keeps the drawing beside its textile interpretation in the reading sequence. Study the point where a foot meets a stem, the space inside a rolled leaf or the fine divisions of a wing, then compare how colour, thread direction, density and visible cloth change those relationships.
The essays address specific visual questions, including The Missing Crescent, What a Nest Is Made Of, The Empty Skin Still Holds the Pose and A Small Light on Dark Linen. They support close looking and personal design research rather than prescribing a fixed stitching sequence.
Book Details
- Two digital PDF volumes, 218 total pages
- 80 paired studies and 160 artwork plates
- US Letter portrait, 8.5 × 11 inches
- English-language edition
- Created and edited by Ridvan Yusein; published by Stitchesly
- Original PNG artwork embedded in the full-quality Shopify edition
For Makers Who Look Closely
A reference collection for hand embroiderers, textile artists, illustrators and insect-art enthusiasts interested in composition, colour relationships, natural-history subjects and the translation from line to embroidered surface.
Digital Product Notice
This is a digital book set. No physical book, fabric, thread or finished embroidery will be shipped. The collection is an editorial visual reference, not a step-by-step stitch guide. It does not include DMC colour charts, stitch maps, transfer-ready pattern sheets or machine embroidery files such as PES, DST or JEF.
Personal Use License
You may view and print the PDFs for private reference. The files and artwork may not be shared, resold, redistributed, uploaded or reproduced for sale.
Explore the Stitchesly Library
Continue with Botanical Embroidery Studies or browse the Digital Embroidery Books collection.
Request a Custom Embroidery Adaptation
Selected studies may be suitable for a separately quoted machine-embroidery adaptation. Include the study number, desired size, hoop and machine format in your custom embroidery request. Each composition is reviewed individually; digitizing is not included with this book.
