PREFACE

We should like to take you into our confidence and tell you our purpose in compiling this book. To some people, adventure can only be found in a trip to romantic, faraway places. To others —and it is to these people we dedicate our book—it lies within the four walls of home, in the familiar tasks of daily living, in the odd moments of leisure in which to create with needle and thread, the unparalleled beauty of handwork. In compiling "The Needlework Library" we were thinking of the thousands of women who appreciate and admire beautiful handwork and who are forever wistfully longing to "learn how." In this book, we embrace several branches of needlework, cramming it full of lovely and useful things to make and to own. We hope it will prove an irresistible temptation to the novice to learn a handcraft that will surely repay her with a lifetime of pleasure. We hope, too, that many women who are skilled at knitting or crochet will be induced to try their hands at quilt­ing, embroidery, tatting or rug making. In other words, we have tried to make our own modest contribution to the renaissance of needlework arts. Explanatory steps have been included in the chapters on Crochet, Knitting and Tatting, so that the timid steps of the beginner will soon become the masterful strides of the expert.

We hope that "The Needlework Library" will provide the necessary incentive and instruction for the novice and fresh inspiration for the accomplished needlewoman . . . we shall feel it our greatest reward if we have been able to give our readers a key to treasure — and many future hours of pleasure!

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