「It Is About Darn Time」針繡書

I'd been stuck on what to do with large background areas, and the hints on where to place darning stitches finally made it click for me. The section on how to actually work each stitch is clear enough that I didn't have to keep flipping back and forth.

The sheer number of patterns here—over 125 darning stitches—is amazing, and the hints for where to place each one save so much trial and error.

The 125+ darning stitches in here finally solved my background problem — I used to just default to basketweave everywhere. Each stitch comes with placement hints, which is way more useful than the stitch diagrams alone.