Last week, I had one of those Gee, Why Am I So Dumb? days.
It was the day I showed you my favorite old publication, Embroidery, put out by Pearsall’s in the early 1900’s.
Why so dumb? Oh, let me tell you…
A number of you wrote to bring to my attention the fact that all the issues of Embroidery are already available online, in one complete book, which is indeed how the magazines were later published. There were only six of them published in all, and they were compiled into one book, edited by Grace Christie (Mrs. Archibald Christie – not to be confused with Agatha Christie, who was also married to an Archibald Christie).
There I sat, in deep reverie, and I said to myself, Self, you already knew that. You’ve already written about it.
And not only have you written about it, but you have the book on your bookshelf.
You see, I was going through my old periodicals one day last week – you know, one of those bouts of organization – when I came across that particular one, found myself glued to it for an hour, then I got all fired up with enthusiasm over it, and just had share it with you. I was sure I hadn’t shared it before, because it’s in a box of old publications that I haven’t photographed or scanned.
I was so entranced by the copy of the magazine that I never connected it to the book. It wasn’t until some of you mentioned the online version to me, that the light went off.
The upshot is that you don’t have to wait for me to copy the magazine. You’ll find my previous article about the book, available online to download, here.
You can also find Embroidery online at Internet Archives, where you can download a full color PDF, or browse through the book right on your computer. There are also other formats available – if you have a Kindle, for example, they even offer it formatted for a Kindle.
You’ll find the Opus Anglicanum article in there, along with all the other ones I mentioned, plus all the articles from the other five issues of the serial. And they’re nicely scanned and formatted – much better than I could do for you!
And that, my friends, is that. One of those forehead-slapping moments. I suppose we all have them now and then…. don’t we?
More Embroidery Books by Grace Christie
If you’re new to the whole free-online-out-of-copyright-books scene, you might also enjoy Samplers and Stitches by Grace Christie, as well as Embroidery and Tapestry Weaving by the same.
Some of the content repeats across the books, but all of her books are excellent for instruction. They may not have the abundance of color and images that we have in today’s publications, but the depth and quality of her knowledge and her good taste in general are really unsurpassed!
And now I’m going to go look for my brain…which is probably tucked away on my messy bookshelf somewhere…
Tomorrow, an update on a project that’s been around for a loooong while! Bet you can’t guess what it is!
