Jane Nicholas' fascination with beetles became an absolute passion when she discovered Evans' and Bellamy's book ''An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles'' in a store in Indianapolis in 1998. As she turned each page her imagination was captured visualising the stumpwork beetles that could be stitched using the photographs for inspiration. Hence, the stumpwork beetle specimen box was born. Jane has always recorded ideas and drawn sketches in a notebook, and as the months went by the entries burgeoned to interpret the beetle, not only in stumpwork, but in many other forms of embroidery: glittering goldwork beetles, inspired by Art Nouveau jewellery; beaded beetles, from mosaic buttons; redwork beetles, first seen on an antique quilt on display in Omaha, Nebraska; and beetles in surface stitchery, using lustrous silk and metallic threads. Jane's hope is that this book will ''delight and inspire'', and that readers may find an idea that they just have to stitch!