Keys to Canvas Embellishment, Julia Snyder, self-published, 2016, no ISBN
There’s lots of great information in this new book, the eleventh, by noted teacher Julia Snyder. There are new stitches and new stitch patterns, there are lots of tips. If all this is here and good, then why am I so hesitant to recommend it?
I think it’s because it is flawed, enough so to make it less helpful for those looking for help to stitch a canvas.
The book is short, just over 60 pages. Of this only about 8 pages are text. Instead of giving you organized ideas about how to go about stitching a canvas, something I think would be key, it’s a jumble of miscellaneous tips. Yes these tips are good, yes they’ll help you with many troubling spots on your canvas. But without headings, or an index to them, you’ll be hard-pressed to check this information again quickly.
I was disappointed this section was short. I was disappointed that it had the feel of a casual brain dump. Stitchers who are looking for help in creating great projects and who can’t get to Julia’s popular embellishment classes deserve more and better help than this.
What could have been a great contribution to needlepoint books comes off as almost an afterthought.
The Stitches
The bulk of the book is given over to stitches, most of which are newly charted for the book. They cover a wide range of stitches and techniques. Often, but not always, the stitches are numbered. Sometimes, when you’d really like to see multiple diagrams or numbers, there are none. I’m still wondering how some of the stitches are made.
There are many Tent Stitch patterns in the book, some really great and they reveal another problem that has been present in many of the books. Many (more than half) of the diagrams are too small to be seen clearly. This is largely the fault of the tall thin format she uses. While it’s great that I can carry the book in a project bag, if I have to make an enlargement of the stitch I want to use, doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
Furthermore the book is very light on text after the first eight pages. Only rarely do you see a suggestion of where or how a stitch can be used. If I’m supposed to be seeing how to embellish a canvas wouldn’t it be nice if Julia suggested where she would uses each stitch or pattern? After all, she’s seen many more canvases than her readers will have, I know we’d learn lots if she had added them here as she has done in other books.
Last, the book has signs of being hastily put together. It hasn’t been proofread: there are mistakes often in text and titles. The charts haven’t been checked either, I found obvious missed stitches and items that were referred to in one of those bits of text that were not in the diagram although they appeared essential to do the stitch.
I’m not asking for perfection here, just a bit of thought and care. In a world where stitchers are becoming more adventurous, there is a need for good books teaching stitchers how to embellish a canvas. But at a cost of nearly 71 cents a page, this book isn’t the one.
It’s worth it to get some great stitch ideas, but if you are looking for a book to unlock the secrets of stitching a great canvas, don’t look here.
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
Thank you for an honest review. Terrific teachers make more money teaching than selling books. This is not the only person to disappoint her followers
True, but the books have a much wider (and longer) reach. Teachers, even the most active, can only see a limited number of people and, even then, can only help them with a canvas per class.
But if you write a book, you have something any stitcher can use and can apply these ideas to any canvas. And this doesn’t include the people who learn better from books. . .
Keep stitching,
Janet