120 Contemporary Designs for Cross Stitch and Needlepoint, Felicity Hall, David & Charles, 2014 $24.99 ISBN: 978-1-4463-0391-7
The British designer, Felicity Hall, is well-known for her bold graphic needlepoint, often featuring lettering and sayings. In her first book she brings this style to three alphabets and three sets of numbers, along with basic instructions and a project gallery.
Compared to books that give you dozens of alphabets, this may not seem like much but they are big, much bigger than you will find elsewhere. THe alphabets are 80 threads square (two this size), and 48×55 threads. On 18-mesh canvas, even the small one is over 2.5 inches tall. The numbers, because of their shapes are more varied in width but have approximate heights of 80 threads (two here as well), and 55 threads.
Each offering differs in style from simple, the shadow alphabet, to wonderfully complex. The charts are mostly in color except one alphabet. That one is fully charted in black and white with color charts of the first three letters following.
The cover and project gallery give you even more ideas, although I would have liked to see more original uses for the letters (boxtops, iPad covers, monograms on backpacks, bookends, etc.)
The charts are large, usually 1 letter or number per page, and easy to read. Each pair of pages has a color key matched to DMC colors and occasional ideas appear on the chart pages as well.
At the end of the book is a conversion table, organized by chapter showing conversions for just the colors used into other threads.
The book also includes a short but helpful index that tells you the pages where each letter’s charts can be found.
This isn’t a book for everyone, but if you like alphabets and letters and want an unusual approach to them, seek it out.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Leave a Reply