Busy at Work

This has been a crazy month at work and I've been letting the stress get to me. Never a good thing.

I've been trying to work on an ornament for a gift. (which is why it's just a taste here) It's counted cross stitch over 1 and I really can't count. I realized about 1/3 of the way through that' I'd miscounted the design. I was able to redesign it to end up the right size, but, really! This is a pretty simple design to screw up!

This is another sort of screw up.  A short while ago Mary Corbet talked about The Craft of Embroidery, by Alison Liley (that bit's important here) on her blog. It looked great, so I went on-line and ordered it from a vendor in England. Waited patiently for it to arrive.

This is what I received.  Not quite the same thing. I double checked the order. I'd ordered the book by the correct author. The vendor was really nice about it and told me to keep the book, their mistake. And it's a nice book, just not what I ordered.

I tried again, but no copies were to be found. So I ordered it from the library (which is easy since there's a research library in the building where I work).  Which is how I got the photos from it above and below.  Since it was interlibrary loan, I've already had to return it, but I did take some notes and copy a page with a stitch I want to try. And gathered some inspiration along the way.

And the book I still have--it's got some pretty cool ideas, too.  The page below are simple sketches for things to do with variations on one stitch, something I enjoy.  The most obvious difference between the books is visual style--and while I love the look of the early years of the Twentieth Century, I have to say as a child of the 70s, I'm quite comfortable with that visual style, too.

The newer book is a bit more freely experimental, but both talk about design. The Liley book does have more of a textbook focus, which I like. But I also know that no matter how much those exercises and notebooks appeal to me, I'd never actually do it. And I did notice that I own all of the books in her bibliography section--so I have plenty of inspiration at hand.