Needlepoint For Everyone Author:Mary Brooks Picken and Doris White This is a copiously illustrated book about a fast-growing handicraft and hobby. At once encyclopedic in scope and practical, it contains not only all the useful information you need to get started and follow through to handsome and satisfying pieces of needlepoint, but also a great deal about needlepoint in our American heritage. The authors b... more »egin by showing outstanding examples of needlepoint at Gracie Mansion, the home of New York City's mayor; Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts; Boscobel on the Hudson; and Mount Vernon and Williamsburg in Virginia. There's a full chapter with many pictures on the needlepoint at Blair House, our guest White House.
Mrs. Picken and Mrs. White give practical instructions on how to select and buy the supplies you need, choose the design, measure and estimate yarn needs. Then follows a section of needlepoint essentials--how to follow instructions, handling yarn, starting and ending a needleful of yarn, how to work the canvas, etc.
Claire Valentine, who needlepointed her own designs for the jacket and end papers, has a section on design and color that includes instructions on developing your own designs and transferring them to canvas. Both traditional and modern designs are treated. About a dozen different stitches are described and pictured in detail, with the advantages of each for certain work. There is useful information on ripping out and replacing mistakes, and on piecing. Then the reader learns how to block and finish.
There are many suggestions on how to use needlepoint to enhance your home--on benches and chairs, cushions, book covers, screens, hassocks and stools, in pictures and panels and maps, as rugs, as bell pulls and luggage racks, as doorstops and wastebaskets. Fashion accessories co me in for their share too--eyeglass cases, billfolds, belts, handbags and traveling bags, vests, slippers. There's a chapter on samplers, monograms and mottoes. There is one on the wide use of needlepoint in churches--and how to organize community efforts on such projects. There are sections devoted to needlepoint for men, children, left-handed people, as recreational therapy, and teaching.
Mrs. Picken, Mrs. White, and Claire Valentine are experts in needlepoint, and they transfer their enthusiasm to the reader. Mrs. Picken has written over niety books on sewing and allied subjects. Mrs. White travels to major cities throughout the country lecturing to members of women's clubs and religious organizations and winning converts to a fascinating craft.
Introduction by Russell Lynes. 120 drawings, 325 photographs. Full-color end papers and four pages of color in the book.« less