Christmas Gifts to ME!

This year's gift from me to me is books! I started ordering books in late November to use up a couple of Chapters/Indigo gift cards I got with my accumulated Air Miles and I think I will keep doing that. I also saw some books on the Quilt Art List and the The Thread Society Yahoo group that interested me. Some I ordered from Amazon.com as they were not available and much less expensive (even with the exchange than Amazon.ca) and had sent to my dd's place and who forwarded them to me. When they arrived, I put them in the living room in a designated place (where I tree might have gone - it never did get up this year) and left them alone (it's true).


Where possible I like to buy the books from the authors on their website, since they then get the "middleman" share of the sale plus they will often autograph them to you which makes the whole thing more personal to me.



This pic shows the whole batch - altogether. Quite an assortment of technique books, inspiration books, art books, and art promotion.

These should help me with my plan to immerse myself in studio work for 2009 to further continue my journey of exploration with the tools" I acquired over the summer and fall.






These books are the ones I expect to have the greatest influence on this year's work:
From L to R, Top to Bottom:

From Image to Stitch by Maggie Grey
Digital Images by Gloria Hansen
Creative Quilts Inspiration Texture Stitch by Sandra Meech
The Painted Quilt by Laura and Linda Kemshall
Color and Composition for the Creative Quilter AND Design Exploration for the Creative Quilter both by Katie Pasquini Masopust



I confess, I've flipped through them but not immersed myself in the techniques yet. I wore a bib to prevent drooling marks though.

Among the things I want to work on this year is improving the quality of my work. These books were mentioned on the The Thread Society Yahoo group as good references and I managed to track down a couple of used copies at reasonable prices. Although I've been sewing for many years on a variety of machines, I find it helpful to have reference books to fall back on when I am trying to decide on a particular technique. These books are by Robbie Fanning:

Decorative Machine Stitching
The Complete Book of Machine Embroidery (with Tony Fanning).

I also want to work on my machine quilting. The AQS puts out a nice series of books called Quilt Savvy and I bought Diane Gaudynski's Machine Quilting Guidebook. So far it appears to be a great reference to put right beside the machine.

I also purchased the Janome Needle Felting Machine and wanted a good reference book coverning a variety of felting styles - I have seen several but this one explores quite an array of methods/styles:

Designer Needle Felting by Tery Taylor & Candie Cooper

And last, but certainly not least, I bought several books on being a studio artist, developing good creative work habits and routines to make the work ACTUALLY happen.

These include (from L to Right, top row, bottom row):

The View from the Studio Door by Ted Orland
Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland
The Creative Habit by Twila Tharp
I'd Rather be in the Studio by Alison Stanfield

I expect to be reading and absorbing these books starting with the Creative Habit before delving too much into the technique books mentioned previously.

In fact, I've already started reading the Creative Habit and will be progressing through the exercises before reading much else.

I apologize for not giving links for all the books........ they can all be found by searching via their titles or authors. I do not remember at this point which books were ordered from where. I did order both Gloria's and Alyson's books from their websites. Bpth were offering a Holiday special price that helped to compensate for the current exchange rate between the Canadian and US dollar.