Donna Kooler's 555 Cross-Stitch Designs for the Young at Heart

Rating:
Summary: Excellent resource for whimsical designs.
Review: I'm a beginning designer and bought this book by mistake since I don't do children's designs. What a happy mistake! While designing "House of Wimsey" (as in Lord Peter, the cat),this was an indespensible resource. The book is full of birds, bugs and bunnies, not to mention flowers, exotic animals, etc. The motifs range from very simple to slightly more complex, but all illustrate a joy for life. There are three pages of general instructions for the beginner and the rest of the book consists of charts, all in color and symbols. They are all easy to modify and incorporate into your own designs. My only complaint is that it is necssary to go through the entire book, some times several times, to find all of the different birds or cats due to its nursery rhyme theme layout. As a result, I end up with lots of little pieces of paper tucked into mine and do a lot of flipping. The upside is that I often get some new ideas that way. I am sure this will be a well-used references.