Heaps of stuff to post today!

I have a variety of things I want to share with my stitching friends - everything happened yesterday! I spent the day at the Embroiderer's Guild, and I was given a bag of old linens to finish (ha ha..). The Guild's current exhibition is of quilts made by the members, and I took heaps of photos. Too many to post here, so I've started a temporary blog for you to have a look at them if you wish. As well as all that, two books arrived from Amazon, I started my first Biscornu, and another swap textile ATC arrived.
I'll start with my biscornu. I've been itching to make one of these, ever since I saw them on other people's websites and blogs. I finally committed myself to doing one by putting my name down for a swap in the Cross Stitchin Fingers Group on Stitchin Fingers.. It is only a simple design on 14ct Aida, but once I've mastered the technique, I hope to make some more on linen, which looks much nicer. I have had these two books on my Amazon.com Wish List for ages, and decided I'd better order them while they are still available. I'm looking forward to sitting down with this one for a good hour or so; it is full of pictures of my kind of vintage linens - tea-towels, aprons, and so on! The author's first book was all about aprons, and I bought that as soon as I saw it, a year or so ago. Now this one is the most unusual book I've ever seen on crazy quilting! The author has made everything out of men's ties! Barb of Woof Nanny is a great one for utilising ties in her craft work, and I can't remember if I saw this book on her blog, or whether I just found it by a happy accident on Amazon.com. This textile ATC is from Maya in India. She is one of the five people I have been receiving ATCs from in an exchange group. Like the others, Maya is very creative, and uses all kinds of hand stitching on her work. I love this one particularly because she has personalised it just for me (G for Gina!) And here is what I was given by one of the Guild members (Thank you, J!) I couldn't get them all in, but there are two duchess(dresser) sets and a doiley in this lot. The dresser sets have been just started.
This was very difficult to photograph - a "Bride's Trousseau". One large piece of linen, with a complete set of tea cloths printed on it, which could be cut into individual pieces to stitch. It comprises a supper cloth, sandwich tray doiley, two other doilies, four napkins, a tray cloth and a tea cosy. One napkin has been started.
This is another set, obviously produced by the same women's magazine (New Idea). They called this set a Napery set, and it comprises a tray cloth and tea cosy, and four placemats. The design is the well known Blue Willow Pattern.