Mary Martin's Needlepoint Author:Mary Martin In this book Mary Martin remembers South Pacific as the show during which she started her first piece of needlepoint--a 5 1/2- by 7 1/2-foot rug, which she finished two and a half years later in London while she was still playing in the same show. — Mary Martin's Needlepoint recalls highlights of her life onstage and off, as she tells about makin... more »g needlepoint for everyone from her children to Rodgers and Hammerstein, designing pieces for her homes in New York and Brazil, and working on it wherever career or private life have taken her--anyplace from Vietnam on a Far Eastern tour to freighter trips which are her favorite kind of vacation travel.
She has planned and stitched dozens of designs for husband and family, for many friends including producers and directors, composers, and fellow actors, and has concluded that the chief pleasure of needlepoint is to know to whom you will give it when it is done. She has also made many pillows and rugs for her New York apartment, where they were photographed for this book. These are unusual pictures, for needlepoint is seldom shown as an integral part of interior decoration as it logically should be. Some of the most helpful information here concerns the planning of needlepoint designs for particular rooms.
In her engagingly personal and practical way, Mary Martin is frank to say that one good reason for doing needlepoint is that it is easy. At the end of the book is an illustrated how-to section written especially for beginners, but containing as much as anyone needs to know to work on designs that range from simple first efforts to satisfyingly elaborate projects. The secret is that only minor variations on one basic stitch are used, even for the most complicated designs.
The never-to-be-forgotten Peter Pan on both Broadway and TV, One Touch of Venus, South Pacific, The Sound of Music, I Do! I Do!--these are just a few of Mary Martin's great shows. With the same outgoing enthusiasm that has made her such a beloved star in all of them, she gives here an offstage account of the pleasures of needlepoint that will make still more converts to the most popular kind of needlework being done today.
ISBN 0688070604 has since been reused by the publisher for a different book.« less
An entertainer by trade, Mary Martin loved to needlepoint. These are some of her projects and she helps you do them and in turn, learn to needlepoint. Traditional but still loved by many.