Celtic Cross Stitch: Over 40 Small, Exciting and Innovative Projects

I bought this book a few years ago, and I still use it today. It is clearly not the best Celtic cross stitch book out there, but definitely one worth mentioning. There are some pros and cons to buying this book and I will list them below. Before I do that, I should mention these are quite simple to do for any stitcher and you can easily use the designs for your own items. What I am trying to say is, just because they used the salmons to decorate greeting cards you can still use them as potpourri sachets, bookmarks, pillow borders and pretty much anything else. The book is split into four sections: water, fire, air and earth which are of course the four main elements. Each of the elements are symbolically represented by a main idea such as water being represented by salmons, fire is being represented by dragons, earth by grape vines and air by birds and angels. PROS of buying this book: *It is cheap! I mean for approximately $[...] you can't go wrong. *The designs are versatile and can be incorporated into anything. *There is lack of color, but that really opens a new door for the stitcher to use your own color scheme. *The stitching is simple and can be completed within a day or two. *No tough designs! Meaning, all of this can be done quite easily and you don't need to be an expert or a seamstress to get these done. *Materials used are widely available, so you don't need anything from specialty stores. *The back of the book contains a color chart of all of the DMC flosses available. *The designs can easily be photocopied without wasting ink. CONS of buying this book: *The charts are NOT in color. Personally this is bad for me because I tend to be a visual stitcher so I know to count all the purple squares, but here it all seems to blend together. *The designs are pretty much similar and not too much variety. *The projects are not necessarily completed to their advantage. What I mean by this for example: the salmons themselves don't necessarily look too good on baby blue cardstock or the sachet seems a bit unfinished to me. This is a con mostly if you like to complete projects as is from the book. *Too much salmon in here! Seriously, there is way too many salmon projects. I could understand this as perhaps the author being thoroughly water obsessed or just likes fish. Either way, not the best way to start the book.

This stitchery book is misnamed perhaps? Perhaps not. The title says that it has over 40 small, exciting and innovative projects. What it doesn't say is that many use variations of exactly the same design.This book centers on the themes of water, fire, air, and earth. One water theme that repeated far too often for my liking with salmon - the identical salmon design was used on a scented pillow, a salmon cushion, a salmon tissue sachet, salmon card, and salmon gift tag. Now that all having been said, there are a few stunning designs that made buying this book worth every penny. A particularly beautiful design in the water category is that of a "water jewel purse" - it's a beautiful little jewel tone purse designed in alternating stripes of Celtic knots in alternating colors. The design could easily be used, with a little imagination, to create a larger purse. There are also a few other fish designs, a sea serpent design, a knotwork bookmark, knot key rings, a dragon eyeglass case, a Celtic angel pincushion, an eagle bookmark, a triskele box (a sort of spiral design), a saint and birds, a durrow saint sachet, a durrow know clothes hanger, a bird headed triskele scissor keep, a grape vineyard design used on several projects, a design for a chessboard and fabric case for chessmen, a Celtic cross picture design, and most beautiful of all the designs - a Celtic swan needle case.In the final analysis, this book was well worth buying for two reasons - 1. there were enough beautiful designs inside to make it worth it, and 2. with a little imagination and the instructions for a few types of projects, a crafter could create their own designs.