Customer Reviews

Celtic Charted Designs (Dover Embroidery, Needlepoint)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Book includes knotwork designs, borders, background patterns,and suggests ways to combine these patterns. There are alsoseveral pages of Celtic animal motifs as well as repeat borders that have animals as the main subject. Clear graphs in general, although they do pack a lot per page. No color suggestions. Excellent resource.

This book has many excellent designs. As an avid cross stitcher I love to pick up books. This book has many, and I do mean many designs with over 100 to its credit. The designs are flexible enough that they can make pictures, pillows, or a special addition to a favor. One draw back, be prepared to go to a copy shop and blow up the designs, they can be very small. I give it 5 stars despite this major draw back. The quantity of designs, the quality of the designs, and the fantastic price, well they can't be matched.

This is, bar none, the most useful pattern book I have ever owned. The knotwork is beautifully intricate, the animal forms are amusing, and the triskeles are gorgeous. I have used dozens of the hundreds of patterns offered here. If you cross-stitch (or do needlepoint, or whatever) you WILL be inspired by the contents of this book.

While I have heard complaints that this book is in black and white, I find that to be an advantage. I find colored charts are sometimes distracting, especially if you are trying to use the charted design for something like filet crochet. I love the variety of the designs and how one design leads to the evolution of another. Highly recommend this book for any type of celtic design work!!

This compact book contains over 350 charted designs. While I primarily work these designs as counted cross stitch, they could be incorporated into a range of handcrafts.

As commented by others, the charts are small and many of us would need to magnify charts for ease of use.

From a personal perspective, I find that photocopying the chart at around 150% also provides me with a working copy I can write on in terms of yarn colour choices.

Recommended to those who love Celtic and Celtic inspired designs and can see a range of possible applications.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

I have purchased both Celtic design books from Dover. Good designs, but the lack of color in the designs and the hard to read black and white charts are a hindrance. The one thing they really have going for them is that it's just hard to find other designs like these in color. So for the price, you can always enlarge these charts and play around with the color on your own.

When my son got married, I told him to go through my crochet books and find a pattern that he would like for an afghan. Instead, he found this book and chose one of these counted cross stitch designs. I converted it to crochet, paring it down to just two colors, using the single crochet stitch, and it turned out beautifully. The patterns are a bit small, but if you can figure out how to enlarge them with your scanner and printer, this book is a definitely "must have" for the Celtic design lover.

If i realized it was in black and white, i would not have bought it!

I obtained a copy of this book at some point in my youth, though now I cannot remember if it was a gift or a thrift store find or how I got it. However, that was many years ago, and I STILL love this book. I've been cross stitching from the time I was 10 and some of my favorite pieces came out of this book. The designs turn out quite large most of the time, even with smaller count aidas such as 18 and smaller. The black and which charts in the book lend themselves well to copying which allows for color play. I will regularly copy a chart I'm considering making, about 3 or 4 times and play with coloring it in with different schemes. It is a very versatile book, with charts that would be great for table cloth borders, wall hangings, book covers, anything really. The best part is that the knots are accurate too, all of the unders and overs are right, it's not a bunch of random lines like you find on a lot of the 'knotwork' tapestries and some jewelry. It also includes one or two step charts and spirals as well. All in all, if you are a stitcher and a fan of celtic knotwork, this in a very cheap and very worthwhile purchase.

If you are an expert stitcher this book is easy to follow. Makes great designs for those that enjoy puzzle artwork.