More a wellspring of delicious inspiration than a true how-to book, Jill Gordon's Needlepoint is filled with exquisite ideas and loads of colorful photos of her luscious designs. In their subtle shadings and even their subject matter, they resemble paintings more than traditional needlework--not surprising, since the author confesses a lifelong love of painting and uses watercolor sketches as templates for her tapestries. Some are wonderfully clever (a formal garden depicted as seen through a window, with a brightly cushioned windowseat as the scene's foreground), some are almost abstract in their eloquent repetitions (six flamingos clustered together become a series of salmony-orange nuances); all are highly poetic interpretations of the lush beauty of the natural world: flowers, landscapes, fruits and vegetables, fish, lizards, birds. Gordon explains the origin of each of the 20 designs and lists the canvas and yarns used; she also provides full (and necessarily complex) charts and stitching instructions for 13 of them. These projects are definitely not for the less-experienced needleworker (even intermediate-level stitchers may experience some frustration), but the designs are so lovely and the colors so vibrant that crafters of any skill level will enjoy them, and may even want this volume as a design sourcebook for adaptation to other crafts. --Amy Handy