Thank you for downloading this Touchstone eBook. Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Touchstone and Simon & Schuster. CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP or visit us online to sign up at eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com CONTENTS Epigraph Foreword by Amy Bunger Preface A Word of Thanks PART ONE: GETTING STARTED 1. Basic Information 2. Basic Procedures PART TWO: INTERPRETING THE PAINTED CANVAS 3. Choosing a Design 4. Choosing Colors 5. Choosing Stitch Techniques 6. Choosing Fibers and Threads 7. Choosing Stitches 8. Choosing Background Treatments 9. Choosing Embellishments 10. Putting It All Together PART THREE: BLOCKING AND FINISHING 11. Blocking 12. Finishing PART FOUR: THE STITCHES 13. Straight Stitches 14. Diagonal Stitches 16. Cross Stitches 17. Tied Stitches 18. Eyelet Stitches 19. Leaf Stitches 20. Line Stitches 21. Decorative Stitches 22. Ribbon Stitches 23. Open Stitches Appendix Plates About Jo Ippolito Christensen Bibliography General Index Stitch Index THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO Perry Rosenthal, M.D., ophthalmologist, Founder, Boston Foundation for Sight For his gift of vision PERRY ROSENTHAL, M.D., is the award-winning founder and former director of the Boston Foundation for Sight, Inc. He is also an assistant clinical professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. His career has been devoted to the study of contact lenses and corneal diseases that rob patients of vision. Dr. Rosenthal invented the plastic now used to make rigid gas permeable contact lenses. In so doing, he co-founded Polymer Technology Corporation, now a subsidiary of Bausch & Lomb. Dr. Rosenthal developed the ocular surface prosthesis at the Boston Foundation for Sight; it restores vision to those suffering from a range of debilitating corneal conditions, such as keratoconus, Stevens-Johnson syndrome, graft-versus-host disease, extreme dry eye, failed Lasik surgery, and others. While I was at the foundation’s offices one summer, a woman came in for treatment, unable to even see light. Within two hours of being fitted for the device, she was seeing 20/40, and she left two days later with 20/20 vision. The only laboratory in the world that makes the ocular surface prosthesis is located on site, in the Boston area. There, two special lathes that cost nearly a million dollars apiece produce these miracle appliances. The lathes were generously donated by Bausch & Lomb. The Boston Foundation for Sight, a nonprofit organization founded in 1992, relies on tax-deductible donations to treat everyone, including those unable to pay the high cost of the device. I was diagnosed with keratoconus in 1972, while I was doing the research for The Needlepoint Book. I have had four corneal transplants since. In 1982, my third corneal graft took the close vision that I need for stitching. By 2007, the disease in my corneas had advanced to the point where contact lenses would no longer reliably stay on my lumpy corneas; the contacts popped out regularly, sometimes irretrievably. Without them, I was legally blind. In spite of the fact that my eye condition continues to decline, my vision with Dr. Rosenthal’s ocular surface prosthesis is now 20/20 in both eyes! Truly a miracle! Though no longer seeing patients, Dr. Perry Rosenthal continues his research into eye pain through Boston Eye Pain Foundation, also nonprofit. Canvassing Cuties! Life-sized soft sculpture. Designed and stitched by Elaine Warner. THE HUSBAND’S COMPLAINT I’ve heard of wives too musical—too talkative—too quiet Of scolding and of gaming wives and those too fond of riot; But yet of all the errors I know, which to the women fall; For ever doing fancy work, I think exceeds them all. The other day when I went home no dinner was for me, I asked my wife the reason; she answered, “One, two, three.” I told her I was hungry and stamped upon the floor. She never even looked at me, but murmured “One green more.” If any lady comes to tea, her bag is first surveyed, And if the pattern pleases her, a copy there is made. She stares too at the gentlemen, and when I ask her why, ’Tis, “Oh my love, the pattern of his waistcoat struck my eye.” Ah? The misery of a working wife, with fancy work run wild; And hands that never do aught else for husband or for child; Our clothes are rent, our bills unpaid; my house is in disorder; And all because my lady wife has taken to embroider. —M. T. MORRALL, A History of Needlemaking, 1852 FOREWORD