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The Proper Stitch: Complete Guide to Counted Thread Embroidery Techniques for Beginners & Experts | Perfect for Cross Stitch, Needlepoint & Handmade Craft Projects
The Proper Stitch: Complete Guide to Counted Thread Embroidery Techniques for Beginners & Experts | Perfect for Cross Stitch, Needlepoint & Handmade Craft Projects

The Proper Stitch: Complete Guide to Counted Thread Embroidery Techniques for Beginners & Experts | Perfect for Cross Stitch, Needlepoint & Handmade Craft Projects

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Reviews

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Being addicted to samplers, I join all my fellow reviewers here with the directive: YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK. I have coveted this book for years, having it dangled over my head in Just Cross Stitch (the publisher) and other elusive offers on the net or in used bookstores. I decry Amazon's eliminating customer uploaded images on books because a picture is worth a thousand words: I'd like to upload the pictures of the 2 marvelous samplers to stitch and then maybe a couple images of the ridiculously good stitch diagrams. Instead, I'll have to be very explicit as to why this book is invaluable to anyone who loves samplers:Darlene Garner O'Steen is a teacher and designer of stitch par excellence: this book has the perfect set-up. In the very first paragraph of the Introduction, she discusses the Jane Bostocke sampler of 1598, the first stitch-signed and -dated sampler in the English language. I was able to hold this very sampler and admire it in the V&A in London several years ago and it also affected the author deeply. She relates that she's loved samplers since she was a teenager. The first brief chapter brings us up to speed on basic stitching techniques with no less than 8 hints to make more proper stitches (tee hee). Then she lovingly lingers over the techniques in these chapters: Cross Stitch Family; Buttonhole Stitch Family; Satin Stitch Family; Straight Stitch Family; Drawn Thread Family; and Looped Stitch Family. I think it's genius on her part to discuss the stitches in the "family" format because they're connected and the difficult are built up from the easy. I count about 54 different stitches, about half of them cross stitches. The stitch diagrams are huge and she takes up as many pages as she needs to fully illustrate how make every single stitch. She carefully explains how to start every stitch, what it's usually used for, a description of what the back looks like when the stitch is done properly, how to change and end threads, how to turn corners or make other departures and every single discussion ends with a full Difficulties and Hints.An example is the simple Running Stitch she shows as the first of the Straight Stitch Family. The Double Running Stitch, however is shown over 5 pages. Really, really clear. And if you think that the Outline/Stem Stitch and Backstitch are the same as the Running Stitch, you'd be wrong. In the diagrams you see the subtle differences. There's only one other book I've seen that described and this book shows it the clearest.One beautiful perk is that the chapter pages all have a color picture close-up of the samplers to be stitched and in each chapter there are sprinkled tantalizing cropped close-ups of antique samplers from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.Finally, the pièce de résistance is the 2 samplers she's been building up to in the preceding 120 pages: her "Proper Stitch Sampler" and the "Our English Heritage Sampler." I'm having an internal battle right now which to do first...there's no doubt I'll do both. Oh, if only I could upload them...they're just lovely.The Proper Stitch Sampler is a traditional long band sampler which takes 11 colors of Kreinik Soie d'Alger floss plus threads from a DMC pearl cotton, gold metallic and tatting cotton. It is designed for 32 count vintage linen with a stitch count of about 75 x 370 stitches. There are 16 discrete bands and you'll be stretching your wings in working it.The Our English Heritage Sampler is of similar time frame to the above but is the more squarish with 5 wide bands with borders. 3 of the bands are whitework and the alternating other 2 are colorful Elizabethan stylized florals. The stitch count is about 125 x 250.I adore samplers and own hundreds of needlework books. I'm always stitching and have a lot of irons in the fire; I don't call them UFO's (UnFinished Objects) but PIP's (Projects In Progress). In my estimation, you're not a serious stitcher if you don't start and stop projects as your fancy takes you. Stitching isn't a solely "linear" avocation. When I come across projects like these of such stunning beauty, I'm always willing to push them to the head of the line and start stitching them. You may be inclined the same way.