We all want pretty things to make our homes feel comfortable and cozy – it’s that nesting impulse common to living things kicking in. Often, something as simple as a brace of lovely pillows can add immeasurably to the ambience of an otherwise ho-hum room. And if the pillows are embroidered and sewed with our very own hands, well, so much the better.

In her book “Colorful Stitchery: 65 Hot Embroidery Projects to Personalize Your Home,” Kristin Nicholas helps experienced and wannabe stitchers “embark on a journey … others have traveled. People have been stitching for thousands of years when it wasn’t so easy to gather the supplies they needed. Today, it’s very easy and inexpensive to get into stitchery,” she writes.

And having said that in the book’s introduction, Nicholas wastes no time in sending the reader off to embroidery land. One of the first things she does is demystify doing your own design and using color. Have no fear, she says, inspiration is everywhere – in nature, architecture, fashion and geometry. Working with color, she writes, is often as easy as laying fabrics and yarns against one another to see how they look together.

Many of the designs in the book don’t require drawing or transferring a design. Rows of chain stitch, herring bone stitch or simply a running stitch are sewed on the fabric. These pillow projects are ultrasimple and very elegant. Other projects involve filling circles drawn on the fabric with satin or chain stitches. She also adorns the grooves of wide-wale corduroy with colorful back stitches. I tried that approach on some dark gold corduroy and was pleased with the result.

My favorite idea in the book is for pillows stitched in crewel embroidery techniques with bold flower motifs on unlikely wool plaid fabrics. Drawing a design on wool plaid is a challenge, but a similar result could be achieved with free embroidery. Inspired by her plaid embroidered pillows, I used a similar fabric to make a pillow appliqued with wool felt circles of various sizes held down with blanket stitches. The result, to employ a bit of word play, is “sew simple.”

I also liked Nicholas’ design for his and hers hot water bottle covers, the ideas for embroidered cards and the canvas espadrilles embellished with embroidery.

Nicholas also offers designs for pillows stitched on checked and striped fabrics, which have a contemporary folk sensibility and can be at home with porch furniture as easily as with the living room couch.

“Colorful Stitchery” is filled with blocks of information that give the reader tips, bits of needlework history and background information about stitching. It makes for pleasant and quick reading. The book includes project patterns and diagrams, but those who want to “wing it” will find the patterns and diagrams a good place to begin a design riff of their own.

Sewing for the pillows is simple, too, because it entails straight seams done on a sewing machine. Other projects, such as potholders, tea cozy, the hot water bottle covers and a tiny teddy bear are sewn entirely by hand.

To obtain the book, ask for it at your local bookstore or public library, or order it online at the book publisher’s Web site, www.storey.com.

Knitters on the go will enjoy having this little book to slip into their workbags. “Bags Two” is the new entry in Vogue Knitting’s “On the Go” series. The 51/2-by-71/2-inch book is designed for portability and will fit easily into most knitting tote bags. The book contains directions for 25 bags including an evening bag, a Navajo felted bag and a weekender bag. Directions call for yarns manufactured by companies that include Cascade, Classic Elite, Blue Sky Alpacas and Brown Sheep.

Ask for this book at your local bookstore or public library.

Snippets

Those who enjoy embroidery will find free, detailed, illustrated instructions for making the Periwinkle Pincushion and several other designs at www.wildflowerembroidery.com.

An Assisi-style counted cross stitch rabbit design chart and detailed instructions are free at www.berlinembroidery.com/assisirabbits.htm. This Web site also has detailed instructions for a gold thread sampler done with four different motifs.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net