Stitch by Cath Kidston

Following the runaway success of Sew!, Cath Kidston has turned her unique designer's eye to Stitch! Reinventing the arts of needlepoint and cross stitch for today's crafter, Cath has injected her own distinctive style of cheery, heartwarming, homemaking prints into these traditional crafts. Her blossom rose floral design worked in needlepoint creates the most fabulous clutch bag - not a million miles away from those seen on the Fendi catwalk this season - whilst her seventies inspired pop flowers print makes a funky needlepoint cushion that wouldn't look out of place in any teenager's bedroom. There are plenty of quick, accessible and highly achievable projects throughout the book - Cath's popular quartet of fruit motifs, including the delectable cherries and apples, lend themselves brilliantly to making small cross stitched patches or badges that can adorn anything from a satchel pocket to a parka sleeve. In many projects to complement the stitched pieces, Cath has injected one of her trademark prints - for example, her polka dot and floral reworking of the needlepoint Union Jack is made up into a cushion using her iconic red dot cotton duck fabric for a backing. The beauty of both needlepoint and cross stitch is that they are worked on a canvas made up of a grid of squares, so - just like painting-by-numbers - it is virtually foolproof and a great result is guaranteed. And, as with Sew!, this book will include a unique giveaway kit: an exclusive stitching project for a zip-up purse. With over 20 charted designs to make up in either needlepoint or cross stitch, and over 40 finished projects that incorporate those designs into a variety of stylish items, Stitch! is guaranteed to have Cath fans and crafters everywhere stocking up on tapestry yarns and embroidery silks ready to get stitching.

I love Cath Kidston's style and I have both of her previous books and so was excited when I heard a third book was in the pipeline. As one of hobbies, as well as reading, is cross stitch, I was itching to get my hands on it!!

As with her previous two books there is a great kit included for one project. This one is for a purse with a stitched design to add to the front. There is also a great section at the front of the book with a stitch glossary, great pictures and technique descriptions. There is also a section of how to start, sewing essentials and those all important finishing touches.

Many of the projects included within the book have been photographed and described as needlepoint designs (with tapestry wools) however, i will be trying many of these projects substituting with cross stitch threads.

I really like the projects in the book, although as previously stated, i will be swapping the needlepoint designs for cross stitch. I also like the full instructions which includes all the finishing techniques, I have so many finished cross stitch designs which I need to display in some way - what a lot of ideas i can try from this book.

The Union Jack Cushion and the Cowboy seat cushions or cowboy picture will be the first designs I will be stitching from this book.

The projects are all accompanied by excellent colour photographs and some of Cath's top tips.

The only suggestion I would like to make for this book was that it was a shame that although there was a conversion chart for each project in the back of the book for the different manufacture threads (i.e. anchor/dmc and maderia) it would have been nice to have a conversion chart for tapestry threads to embroidery threads for those, like me, who would like to swap the tapestry/needlepoint designs for cross stitch and vice versa.

I hope you can see that i absolutely adored this book and I will be using it regularly for my stitching inspiration.

Thank you to Quadrille Publishing for sending me the book to review.