The winner of the needlepoint purse pieces and materials is Ukka (#4 as picked by random.org). Please send me your snail-mail address and I'll send the package off.
This first book is very 1960s and looks to be reprints from past books and articles. I can't tell yet if it will have any gems of wisdom. It's pretty unprepossessing.
This one is very, very 1970s. Since that's "my" era, I rather like it. It's another one I'm hoping will have more depth than it looks like right now.
This next book isn't crewel. I came upon it on my way to the crewel books and pulled it out to consider passing on. It's a keeper. It's not necessarily about blackwork, it's about design and design development and I'd forgotten how wonderful it was.
So, I pulled it out for another review.
I just love the images in it and the line drawings for inspiration.
This last one is also more current. I've taken EGA group correspondence courses with Judy Jeroy and I love her style. I recommend her courses--they're quite detailed. It's likely I have much of the content of this book in the various course materials from her, but here it is all in one place (and not scribbled on). 
International Quilt Festival
Preview Night: Thurs April 15th
April 16-18,2010
Donald E. Stephens Convention Center
Rosemont, IL
I've been reading a lot again lately. I finished the other books I'd pulled out of the piles to read. This time I pulled out several crewel books. I've been browsing them a bit, picking up one and reading a bit and then picking up the other. Rather like my spotty stitching this weekend. I try to focus on one in the mornings before and during breakfast (I can't stitch weekday mornings or I'd never go to work). Most of these books are older--1960s and 70s.
This is based on Winterthur collections and looks to be well researched.
This one is also well researched and museum based. It focuses on design and not type of stitching and does not have many samplers nor much whitework. So far it's talking about the inspiration for designs and the practical reasons (lack of thread in the colonies) for some designs.
I finished it! It's far from perfect but I'm happy and I learned a lot.
This weekend I dug into my Japanese Embroidery case and snapped a shot of progress on my piece.
I was rather crestfallen when I saw it. It doesn't look like I've done anything but I have, really. Mostly I'm looking at this focusing on tiny details, not the overall. I saw a photo of this design in progress online recently and realized I need to get some more colorful flower petals done--it'll look like more then.
This page laments our campus news paper (the official one). It's no longer published in a paper version and the online calendar of events just isn't as nice as the printed one. The articles are okay online. I miss my paper. At least the student paper is still publishing. The background is folded paper cutouts from the newspaper that I had made when I began the journal.
These are some backgrounds for journaling. Right now I don't have much to say but I'll go back and write in them later. The left-hand page is just paint. The right-hand page is printed tissue paper torn and glued on and painted.
The campus itself is mostly neo Gothic but the Law School was designed by Eero Saarinen and the design a diamond motif and sharp angles are used throughout. The brown page below is layers of masking tape painted.
My sister had finished this runner (I love her fabric selection), worked on a dress and began sewing the binding on a wall hanging. She also sorted her fabrics for a new wall hanging.
We had fun sorting through N's UFOs. It looks like one will become a diaper bag, one a vest, some random granny squares have been delegated to a long scarf and a pillow top. After all that speculation she worked at changing a round neck sweater into a v-neck. She finished it before we left. She's holding the neck apart so it looks bigger than it is--it's a perfect brother size (my brother-her husband).
I enlisted the others as guinea pigs to help me test a project I plan to teach next fall. I pulled it together the night before and only brought one color of paint. I got the home-made silk screen painted and dried in time and we silkscreened needle books. They came out pretty nice. My sister took them to her sewing machine and added the felt inner pages and they popped their needles in for safe keeping.
Here are some extra unfinished samples. We rather liked the look of the shadowy second pull (running the squeegee over the screen without adding ink). I did learn that nice paint clogs the screen--cheap paint is the way to go!
