Two New(ish) Books

Some of you will remember, and will have purchased, my needle lace and needle weaving stitch guide books. 

I put those books together as a teaching tool, a place where all of the techniques relating to either needle lace or needle weaving, as one would use them in hand embroidery, were in one place with easy access.  I then sent a copy of each to Mary Corbet who reviewed them on her blog.  If you want to read that review (and its update) you'll find it here.

And things went crazy! As they always do when Mary Corbet says something about anything. With justification of course. Mary is always worth listening to, no matter how clever you are (or think you are).

As a result of Mary's post, Search Press asked me if they could publish them on my behalf. I have a great relationship with Search Press in the UK, because they publish my other books in conjunction with Metz Press in South Africa. They redesigned the books to suit their regular format and those books are now available.

Actually, they're been available for a while but as I have only just received stock of them, I have held back on writing about them until now.

So, what do you need to know if you already have them in the old format?

The content of each book is identical to what it was before. If you buy the new editions you won't find any additional stitches or information but what you will find is strong binding, books that are really well put together. I really am not trying to tempt you here, just raving a bit because they really are nice.

The way they have been put together allows you to be able to put a magnetic board and ruler under each page, having folded the covers back. This makes it easy to keep track of where you are. I will be putting together a short video clip of how this works, so watch out for that.

For those of you that would like to order them from me, you will find them here and here on my website.

If you are in South Africa, then it would probably be where you would want to order them from. You will also be able to find them at places like Exclusive Books, Bargain Books, CNA and, of course, on Takealot.com.

If, however, you are elsewhere in the world you will find it cheaper from the shipping point of view to order them from places like Amazon (here and here), Book Depository (here and here) or, of course, you local needle work supplier. I know that a lot of the needle work suppliers that I deal with in Australia and New Zealand have got them in already, so it's a good idea to check with them first if you're in that part of the world.

Unlike my other books and also my forthcoming book, Crewel Creatures, these two books are stitch and technique guides. They do not include any projects, are a reference for you to use in your own embroidery, rather like those stitch guide books from days gone by (the TH de Dillmont book, Mary Thomas's book, the Weldon's book) and those from recent times, my favourites being the A-Z guides put together by Inspirations Magazine and now published by Search Press.

I have already received a couple of emails from those who have enjoyed my other books asking me how they're going to use these books and to this end I have spent the afternoon putting a lot of information onto the product pages for these books on my website. That information includes the designs that, in each instance, use the techniques described in these new books.

So, even if you are going to order from a supplier close to you, it might be worth looking at the product pages here and here. When you get to these pages scroll down to where there are lists of designs. Each one has a link ascribed to it and a simple click will take you to the page for each of those designs that use either needle lace or needle weaving techniques - or both in many cases.

It goes without saying that my forthcoming book, Crewel Creatures, features quite a few needle lace and needle weaving stitches. When that is ready for launch, I will add the relevant designs to the product pages for these two books.

The most useful way to use all of these stitches is in crazy patchwork either in conjunction my own book, Hand Stitched Crazy Patchwork, or any other crazy patchwork that you'd like to try.

So, having inundated you with information today, I promise to shut up for a while. Life is busy and somehow, becomes compartmentalised. I stitch every single day, but then I'm also doing diagrams, writing, dealing with order issues, couriers, post office, website.........and so it goes on. Then just when everything seems to be going smoothly, a dog gets sick (two of them last week because I have altogether far too many dogs), so they have to go to the vet.

'm sorry that both of these got done on the same day and I hope I haven't (in the words of my wonderful son) cooked your collective brains. If I have, I apologise.

Till next time (which will be a while, I promise)

Hazel