Backgrounds: The Finishing Touch – book review

Updated August8, 2022.
BACKGROUNDS: THE FINISHING TOUCH by Ann Strite-Kurz

The choice of a background which is both appropriate for the design and beautiful is a decision that often perplexes stitchers. But all stitchers agree that the right choice can really make the design.

Ann Strite-Kurz’s teaching projects project packs and stitching are well known for their wonderful open backgrounds. No matter what the design, you will find innovative open backgrounds enhancing her work.

In this book, Ann has taken canvases (of her own and by many others) and used them as the basis for a book about open background techniques. It is comprehensive and dense with information.

The first chapter opens with a short history of needlepoint and then has what I think of as the heart of the book. Well over 100 canvases are pictured and the backgrounds are analyzed. Each design is pictured in black and white in the book and then in color on the accompanying CD. The second picture of a detailed section of the background is also on the CD. Each canvas is analyzed and information is given about how the background was developed or why it is an appropriate choice. In the section, Ann classifies the different types of backgrounds into classes such as mat backgrounds, painted backgrounds, or partial backgrounds.

Following this chapter are six chapters of techniques that show you how to do many of the techniques seen in the pictured canvases. The second chapter covers the planning and execution of open backgrounds including detailed suggestions for starting and stopping threads so they won’t show and how to plan a background to work with the design.

The remaining chapters are all devoted to specific techniques. In each chapter, there is an explanation on how to work the technique (if needed) and then the patterns are discussed. Anyone who has read Ann’s previous books knows how thorough her diagrams and explanations are, and this book is no exception. For example, Pattern 11, Diamond Outlines in Tied Oblong Crosses has a large diagram of the over all pattern, a detailed explanation of the pattern and when to use it (it is a large scale pattern with oblique stitches, so it needs to be planned carefully). Then there is another explanation with diagrams of how to stitch the pattern. The section ends with some suggestions (accompanied by diagrams) on how to make the pattern denser.

Because the book is packed densely with information, it is a book to be savored and read over and over again. Pick a canvas, page through the CD to find ideas, then through the book to find a background you like, everything you need to know to make these open patterns an asset to your canvas is there.

We are so lucky to have Ann and her wonderful way of analyzing patterns available to us.