Reviews

A Library Journal Best Book of the Year 2011 (full article here)

Reviews for Hoopla: The Art of Unexpected Embroidery

Proving there’s much more to stitching than flower patterns, Hoopla inspires creative activism by presenting the art of embroidery through critical lenses of gender, class, and culture. Radical artists, take note: here’s a new challenge for you.
—Julia Horel-O\’Brien, Shameless magazine

With hilarious DIY projects, like needlepoint nipple doilies, Hoopla proves that there’s a place in every woman’s heart (and wardrobe) for some cheeky thread work.
—Elle

Prain’s admiration for and fascination with the work of embroiderers shines in this visual and thoughtful collection of interviews and instructional guides.
—Plaid Magazine

It presents embroidery as a bright, bold, smart and sophisticated art form. Just as promised, Hoopla is a craft book with attitude.
—Canada Arts Connect

Prain (co-author of Yarn Bombing) offers out-of-the-ordinary designs, starched with humor. Informative and inspirational interviews with embroiderers prove they don’t sew like their grannies. But Grandmother would approve of the practical sections — on history, tools from needles to the humble thimble, types of embroidery, and finishing techniques.
—Publishers Weekly

This book is filled with a wide range of approaches to the craft – from making and embellishing useful items to creating statements … Hoopla is a project book in that there are projects to try. But mostly, it’s a statement book, a primer on stitchery’s many possibilities, and a big dose of inspiration.
—CraftyPod

Projects don’t disappoint, with directions as clear as the designs are funky: handkerchiefs emblazoned with microbes, a modern cuckoo clock stitched on Aida cloth, and knuckle-tattoo church gloves.
—Booklist

Hoopla covers everything anyone would want to know about embroidery and more … The hours and detail involved in each piece are astounding, yet many of the artists speak of the calming and meditative nature of embroidery.
—School Library Journal

Hoopla explodes the notion of needlework as quaint craft and nostalgic pastime, and reveals the astonishing artistry, creativity and activism at stitchwork’s cutting edge … The book’s take-home message is to experiment, explore, express. Anyone can enrich an old medium with the fresh ideas and techniques offered here.
—BookPage (“Top Pick in Lifestyles”)

Hoopla is a wonderfully thorough collection of needlework both relatively straightforward and outright mind-bending, from pixel art to portraiture … Hoopla looks at embroidery through a lens that sees its value as a decorative art, as a source and means of personal reflection, and as a subversive action, from “tattooed” baby dolls, to thread-embellished family photographs, to careful reproductions of prison life.
—xojane

If you thought embroidery was just for hankies and little girls’ church shirts, you will quickly dispose of such nonsense when you peek into the colorful pages of Hoopla … the how-to portions of the book are beautifully interwoven with inspired photographs and thoughtful interviews with embroidery renegades whose work is like nothing you’ve ever seen.
—Foreword Magazine

Prain’s examination of the world of alternative, free-form embroidery is both inspiring and educational. Part art book, part guide, it will appeal to crafters who are looking for something beyond the stamped patterns available in big-box craft stores.
—Library Journal