Hand illustrated

Knots: useful & ornamental, George Russell Shaw

 A delightful book find in the 25 cent bin recently - a reprint of the hand illustrated Knots: useful & ornamental by George Russell Shaw. From sailor's knots, to macrame and Japanese temple knots, all clearly illustrated how-to's and finished knots. I will try some of these soon - tricky to know where to start!!

All with hand drawn illustrations

And then I noticed several of the books in my browsing stack have hand-drawn illustrations.
From Living on the Earth by Alicia Bay Laurel, to an uncorrected proof copy of Amy Dacyczyn's The Tightwad Gazette III, and then for stitch reference Marion Scoular's Advice is... for listening to - not necessarily taking!!

Marion Scoular's impeccable hand written text

The latter title used to refresh my memory of the difference between Blanket stitch and Buttonhole stitch. This week on Take A Stitch 2012 the Blanket stitch is the focus.

Marion Scoular not only hand illustrated, but hand wrote her book - yes! That is her incredible handwriting on the critque letter above from an Embroiderer's  Guild course I completed ages ago.
(Notice how I conveniently covered up the "you did this wrong" section!!!)