Scissors and books and excuses, oh my!

Yes, I've been scarce.  Many good excuses I won't bore you with.  But, new scissors and books found a home with me! And they are all so different.  Bunching them together like this really shows the diversity in the needlework world that can be found if you care to look.

New Gingher Alicia!

I love the blues so couldn't resist.  You can't really see it in this photo, but the design on the blue background appears to be tiny little peacock feathers.  The Alicias are resting on the completed half of a new piece I'm working of my kids' hands.  If I ever finish the second half (and I must, before my son's hand grows much more) I will do a real post showing off both.  Someday!

And pretty little dovo gold handle scallops. 

Aren't they sweet?  They are resting on one of my new book acquisitions, Scandinavian Needlecraft by Claire Young. 

I love the simple elegance of the Scandinavian folk art-inspired projects in this book!  Some of the embroidered felt swedish horses may make in onto the Christmas tree this year.  Or these charming stockings onto the mantel:

My other two new books, Makoto's Cross-Stitch Super Collection and Drawn to Stitch could not be more different.  Probably the only thing they have in common is that cotton fibers are frequently used.

Makoto's Cross-stitch Super Collection by Makoto Oozu is chock-full of quick little cross stitch motifs.  Many are very non-traditional and quirky, like insects, robots, space creatures, electronic gadgets, and other fun stuff like that.  My daughter quickly declared it one of her favorites and wants some of the brightly colored little dinosaurs and monsters stitched on everything, she says.

Drawn to Stitch: Line, Drawing and Mark-Making in Textile Art by Gwen Hedley is 180 degrees in the opposite direction.  It is full of ideas for the experimental and artistic end of the stitching landscape, using a variety of techniques including resists, transfers, and printing in addition to stiches to explore "innovative uses of line".  Now, I am not a trained artist, nor do I have the resources to explore many of these techniques, but reading this type of book does help get my creative juices flowing.  This page alone, I think may have blown my mind a little:

Those beige squiggles, were stitched using padding and wrapping techniques with fibers of different weights, to imitate worm casts in a rock.  Amazing!  Many of the pieces shown in this book were inspired by rocks or landscapes or even things like eroded walls, so this was a title I had to have.  Gorgeous.  Now if I could only find a little more time for the inspiration to carry through into execution.