"LOVE" proclaims Claire Bloom's favorite needlepoint, simply and boldly. The message is stitiched in large brown letters on a beige field, completely filling the fourteen-inch square pillow. "I love the simplicity of the design," says the petite English actress and, one presumes, the message as well.
The spare contemporary design of the pillow is adapted from a signed lithograph by the well-known artist Robert Indiana, which hangs in her daughter Anna's room. "Its colors are so bright- reds and oranges- and I didn't think they'd be good for a needlepoint pillow," Miss Bloom says, explaining the change of colors. "And I wanted to match the beige and brown bedroom." The finished pillow, backed in brown suede, rests in the bedroom of the elegant New York town house she shares with her husband, Hillard Elkins, producer of Oh! Calcutta!
Mr. Elkins is the recipient of another piece of his wife's needlepoint, a pair of slippers in a tiger pattern, also in brown and beige. "They're the colors that go best in our bedroom, explains Miss Bloom, "and they're the colors that he likes for his feet," she adds fondly. Although brown and beige would seem to be favorite colors, Miss Bloom shakes her head vigorously. "No, no. I really love flowers, but I think you can have just enough of them to a point. And I had done a lot of pillows and cushions."
Miss Bloom started to needlepoint on the set of an early film, finding, as many screen actresses do, that the waits between scenes seemed inteminable. "It can be so boring, and run on for hours and hours. You'd go crazy." That first project was a fruit design and, with over fiifteen films to her credit, including Limelignt, Charly, Look Back in anger, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, there has been ample opportunity for her to stitch a variety of floral pillows as well. The LOVE pillow was produced on the London set of The Severed Head.
While Miss Bloom has found needlepoint a productive way to pass the time on a film set, she does not take it to her theater dressing room, feeling that a stage play requires continuous concentration. With recent roles in a pair of Ibsen plays- Hedda gabler and A Doll's House- and the historical drama Vivat! Vivat Regina! she has not been able to work on any needlepoint currently. But she does have her next project at hand, a "mat" which she explains in her lovely British voice, "is simply not large enough to call a rug."

Favorite needlepoint: LOVE pillow, fourteen inches square

Design: Adapted from a Robert Indiana lithograph, in brown and beige

Canvas: No. 10 mono

Stitch: Continental