I spent years experimenting with machine embroidery, textile dyes, wire and a weird and wonderful collection of tools, gadgets and gizmos to evolve ways to create models of Australian Native plants that look like the real thing.? Now I can call myself a Botanical Artist even though my drawing skills are almost non-existent.? This book documents my methods, not as projects for the readers to follow, but as an explanation of the results of my experiments, in the hope that others might build on them and discover even better ways to create 3-dimensional Botanical Studies.

Stitch in Bloom is a gorgeous new embroidery book, celebrating the art of couching, an embellishment technique used to adorn fabrics. Artist and mixed-media textile designer, Lora Avedian demonstrates the versatility of this stitch using different materials to produce a range of finishes before showcasing 15 stunning projects to try yourself. Featuring ways you can enhance pre-owned garments and accessories, to creating statement pieces for the home, and with each design giving a nod to nature, this book will emphasize the beauty of this style of embroidery, the joy of stitching by hand and making with intention.

Joan Ericson's magnificent survey of writing by Japanese women significantly advances the current debate over the literary category of "women's literature" in modern Japan and demonstrates its significance in the life and work of twentieth-century Japan's most important woman writer, Hayashi Fumiko (1903-1951). Until the early 1980s, the literary category of "women's literature" (joryu bungaku) segregated most writing by modern Japanese women from the literary canon. "Women's literature" was viewed as a sentimental and impressionistic literary style that was popular but was critically disparaged. A close scrutiny of Hayashi Fumiko's work--in particular the two pieces masterfully translated here, the immensely popular novel Horoki (Diary of a Vagabond) and Suisen (Narcissus)--shows the inadequacies of categorizing her writing as "women's literature." Its originality and power are rooted in the clarity and immediacy with which Hayashi is able to convey the humanity of those occupying the underside of Japanese society, especially women.