Customer Reviews

Julie Hasler's Fantasy Cross Stitch

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have found this book to be wonderful. I bought it whilst on holiday in England, (New Zealand is my home)and have used several of the designs already. The Pegasus and Unicorn are very good with only using 3 colours for the main design (4 if you count the one accent in black) The star signs are really wonderful, very courful. The oriental Dragon is striking, the wizard is, though just the top half,good to do in any fantasy background. I love Frey and Sif the Vikings, then of course there is the mermaid as well,I just hope I get time to do more of Julie Hasler's talented work.

Julie Hasler's renditions of the zodiac symbols are WONDERFUL!!! I have not seen better anywhere else (and I've looked!) However, my praise must be tempered by the rest of the book. Except for one chart of the moon,the rest of the designs were no where near the quality of the zodiac, and at almost $28 this was a pricey buy!

I really wanted to like this book, and I love most of the designs themselves. What I have an extreme difficulty with is the horrific charts. The small projects are fine. The larger ones are dreadful, being that in order to squeeze them all in, they are so reduced in size that they are nearly illegible. The lack of stitch-counts (or none that I could find, anyway) is also a minus for me; for those of us who rarely use the "recommended" fabric (particularly Aida, which I loathe and never use), this creates the necessity of hand counting the projects (and some of them are massive) in order to calculate fabric size--a hassle and very annoying.

So the book as a whole gets 3 stars based on the designs themselves and the pretty pictures. The charting gets a 0.

Julie Hasler's Fantasy Cross Stitch book contains a broad variety of fantasy designs. The patterns are in full colour and contain a materials list and an explanation regarding the significance of each fantasy icon.

The book is divided into 3 fantasy themes:
Celestial Heavens - signs of the Zodiac, Sun, Moon & Planets.

Mythical Beasts - Unicorn, Pegasus, Oriental Dragon, Egyptian Mythology, Heraldic Beasts.

Wizards and Warlocks - Wizard, Viking and Greek Mythology, Mermaid.

There is also a 'Symbol Library' with an assortment of 34 symbols ranging from Ying-Yang to the Eye of Horus.

Nearly half of this book is dedicated to the Zodiac Patterns, these designs are by far the most detailed and richly coloured I have seen. However they are all circular - which may or may not be a problem for people looking to frame their work.

If you are looking for Cross stitch book covering Signs of the Zodiac then this is a fantastic source. However if you are looking for cross stitch patterns covering other themes such a Dragons, Wizards and Unicorns, then this book is fairly limited.

this is a brilliant book if you are fed up with stitching teddies and other "cute" images. the designs are charted using symbols and colour together which make them easy to follow whichever method you prefer. The designs range from huge fantasy figures such as mermaids and vikings to tiny symbols from various religions and cultures both ancient and modern.

Julie is a bit of a maverick in the world of cross stitch. She started stitching while laid up from a serious motorcycle accident. she must be the only cross stitch designer with a shaved head and tatoos.

so if you are looking for something different this one is a must.

The designs in "Julie Hasler's Fantasy Cross Stitch" are rich and textured looking, without using difficult stitches, blended threads, or backstitch. Indeed, Hasler keeps backstitch to a minimum, using darker stitches for outlines and detail. The zodiac signs are particularly appealing. The Pegasus and Unicorn designs are also lovely. The use of darker stitches instead of backstitching gives the feeling of painting to these designs (rather than pen and ink!) I would highly recommend this book, both for the ease of stitching and for the unusual designs.

This book seems to have been created by two people.
The first half is dedicated to charts depicting the signs of the zodiac and the results are stunning. I have rarely seen such powerful cross-stitch designs.
The second half of the book is disappointing, substandard figures of wizards, unicorns and viking gods. The sun/moon design is ok, but not better than other such designs out there.

Overall, I would recommend the book highly because you'll never find anything like the first half - it's worth the wasted back pages.

I was looking for a good fantasy cross stitch book, and after checking out the three most popular at the local book store, I bought this one. It has the widest range of patterns and with a little practice one can adapt them to suit one's needs. I also thought that the patterns in this book were the nicest. Some of the other books had good patterns for some things and really ugly ones for others. Julie Hasler's book has very nice patterns througout. I highly recomend it if fantasy cross stitch is what you are looking for.

I have started a "theme" for my cross stitches involving celestial and zodiac cross stitches. When I came across this book, I was thoroughly impressed. The zodiac cross stitches, though small (about 5-6 inches in 18 count) are very detailed, and they come with a smaller, simpler "border" that you can use for bookmarks or whatever you wish. What I love about this book is that they give you suggestions for the patterns in the work other than just hanging it up on your wall. Necklaces, ornaments, wind chimes, clothing, and so on are featured between the explanation of each pattern and the patterns themselves. Though I do disagree with the title a bit. It's a little misleading since most of the book is devoted to the zodiac with only a couple each of Norse and Egyptian mythology, unicorns, chinese dragon, and little pattens of various mythological and religious symbols. If you are looking for zodiac patterns, then you must buy this book. It's difficult to come by since I believe it's out of print, but it's worth the money.

Although the desgns in here are quite good, it should be called Julie halsers Zodiac Cross Stitch & Mythical characters. The Zodiac patterns are brilliant and if that is what you are lookng for then buy this book. If you are after Mythical Beasts, then you'll probably be disappointed. with half the book dedicated to the Zodiac symbols (note that this does not include any of the chinese horoscope symbols) then the rest of the mythical beasts and characters feel as if you get the "Cook's Tour" version. There is one wizard chart, a unicorn and winged horse (all shown on the front cover) as well as a couple of nordic characters. The are also some much smaller charts including 2 forgettable heraldic images. Then the rest is just symbols. If you love zodiac images then you'll love this book. If you want the charts for the images on the front cover then buy this book (although don't expect too much more along those lines). Otherwise you may find yourself disappointed. Not really what I'd call a book of fantasy images, but if you are Ok with that, then you'll enjoy this book.