I’ve been reading “The art of embroidery” by Francoise Tellier-Loumagne. This is a beautifully illustrated (500 color photos) and very imaginative and inspiring book. It isn’t a comprehensive review of embroider, or a stitch dictionary - more like an overview of creative embroidery and the directions in which it can lead.
What I found particularly interesting was how she started with an element - for example, a photo of flower, a plant, or a rock - and interpreted it in different ways using different stitches or techniques. Same starting points, but leading to very different results.
As an example (a bit hard to see), the cover illustration shows how a different stitches (fly stitch, cross stitch, split stitch, beading, etc.) can be used to create varieties of leaves.
I did a bit of searching and found her website.
