Living Hell: The Prisoners of Santo Tomas (Based on the Diaries of Isla Corfield)


Celia Lucas - 2013
    But to the women locked up there it was something else. A Living Hell. More than 4,000 internees were held there from January 1942 until February 1945.'Living Hell' is their harrowing story. The book is based on the diaries of Isla Corfield. An Englishwoman whose comfortable life in Shanghai was suddenly disrupted by the outbreak of World War Two, she fled with her daughter Gill on an evacuee ship.But the ship was captured by the Japanese -- and Isla and Gill would have to struggle to survive as prisoners of war in both Santo Tomas and Los Banos internment camps.In the communities of the camps, Isla and her daughter experienced the extremes of both friendship and loss. Cut-off from information about the war and with no end to their internment in sight, the pair experience starvation, disease and desperation.Finally liberated by the Americans after four years, Isla's story is both humbling and life-affirming - the story of one brave Englishwomen's battle to survive against terrible odds.It is one of the great untold stories of World War Two. "An incredible story of bravery and will-power." - Robert Foster, best-selling author of 'The Lunar Code'. Celia Lucas is a writer of children’s fiction and biography. She is a journalist, feature writer and public relations consultant. Winner of Tir na Nog Prize 1988 she has also collaborated on a TV series with husband Ian Skidmore. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher.

The Golden Thread: How Fabric Changed History


Kassia St. Clair - 2018
    Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization—from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole). She peoples her story with a motley cast of characters, including Xiling, the ancient Chinese empress credited with inventing silk, to Richard the Lionhearted and Bing Crosby. Offering insights into the economic and social dimensions of clothmaking—and countering the enduring, often demeaning, association of textiles as “merely women’s work”—The Golden Thread offers an alternative guide to our past, present, and future.

In Sheep's Clothing


Nola Fournier - 1995
    Essential reading for handspinners, wool growers, and other fiber craft enthusiasts, this guide gives special attention to fleece characteristics, methods of preparation and spinning, and best end use. Everything from baby-soft merino to silky lincoln to sturdy karakul--the full range of nature's miracle fiber--is represented here with expert advice on selecting top-quality fleeces; cleaning wool efficiently and thoroughly; teasing, flicking, combing, carding, and other preparation methods; and spinning and plying a variety of yarn styles. Actual fleece locks are shown in full-size photographs. Knitting, crochet, weaving, and other techniques illustrate the importance of matching wool type to end use.

Hands on Rigid Heddle Weaving


Betty Linn Davenport - 1987
    Both beginners and experienced weavers will value its thriftiness and versatility.

Tasha Tudor's Heirloom Crafts


Tovah Martin - 1995
    Brown revisit Corgi Cottage, this time taking us inside to watch Tasha create the handmade items that are an integral part of her legendary nineteenth-century lifestyle. Surrounded by authentic American antiques and collectibles and using original tools and almost forgotten techniques, Tasha spins flax, dyes wool, and weaves on one of her seven looms. With the help of friends, she dips candles, makes soap, and concocts herbal creams and lotions. She harvests wood for making baskets and fruit for canning, presses cider, and dries herbs and flowers. Her Nubian goats supply her with milk for cheese and butter. Her bantam hens offer eggs for cooking and decorating. Stray feathers from her guinea hens end up as part of her toy owls. Her rambling cottage has its own marionette theatre and a built-in dollhouse, and all of the puppets and the dollhouse inhabitants were made by Tasha. Whether Tasha is crocheting a piece of lace to edge her petticoat, sewing a dress copied from an 1830s pattern, knitting intricately designed mittens and socks, or working on a quilt, her hands are never idle. For this book, she has created a series of new paintings in the style that has made her one of America’s best-loved children’s book illustrators.

When Saturday Mattered Most: The Last Golden Season of Army Football


Mark Beech - 2012
    That fall, the Black Knights of Army were the class of the nation. Mark Beech, a second-generation West Pointer, recounts this memorable and never-to-be-repeated season with:- Pete Dawkins, the Heisman Trophy winner who rose to the rank of Brigadier General - The long-reclusive Bill Carpenter, the fabled "lonesome end" who earned the Distinguished Service Cross for saving his company in Vietnam - Red Blaik, who led Army back to glory after the cribbing scandal and had the field at Michie Stadium named in his honorCombining the triumph of The Junction Boys with the heroics of The Long Gray Line, Beech captures a unique period in the history of football, the military, and mid-twentieth-century America.

PatternReview.com 1,000 Clever Sewing Shortcuts and Tips: Top-Rated Favorites from Sewing Fans and Master Teachers


Deepika Prakash - 2010
    The entries are collected from the website’s enormous database of members’ shared comments and advice, rated by hits and reviews. Also included are five special how-to features by PatternReview.com's master teachers and pattern designers, who regularly conduct online chats and workshops (including Kenneth King, Susan Khalje, Sarah Veblen, Shannon Gifford, and Anna Mazur).

9/11 Ordinary People: Extraordinary Heroes


Will G. Merrill Jr. - 2011
    

Forties Fashion: From Siren Suits to the New Look


Jonathan Walford - 2008
    The lively text by fashion specialist Jonathan Walford details how fashion was considered not a frivolity but an aesthetic expression of circumstances in the 1940s. While Fascist states tried to create “national” styles before the war began, by 1940 the pursuit of beauty was promoted on both sides of the conflict as a patriotic duty. From prewar to postwar, we see attitudes emerge from period advertisements, images of real clothes, and firsthand accounts in contemporary publications. The result is a celebration of everything from practical and smart-looking attire for air raids (hooded capes with large pockets and siren suits) to street fashion and the creation of Christian Dior’s “New Look” collection in 1947.

Everyday Fashions of the Thirties As Pictured in Sears Catalogs


Stella Blum - 1986
    An ambitious marketing operation, it could not afford to take chances on haute couture; its fashions were geared as closely as possible to the prevailing tastes of the American people. For this historically accurate sampling of authentic 1930s fashion, Stella Blum, former Curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, selected for reproduction 133 representative pages from rare Sears catalogs of the period (fall and spring catalog for each year from 1930 to 1939). Hundreds of illustrations record what men, women, and children were actually wearing in the 1930s when, as a copyline from the Fall 1930 catalog proclaimed: "Thrift is the spirit of the day. Reckless spending is a thing of the past."You'll see here how simpler women's fashion designs — of more traditional, affordable material — recaptured the feminine form with a more natural waistline and lower hemlines than seen in the twenties. For evening wear, longer dresses replaced flamboyant beaded short gowns while cloche hats, another twenties trademark, were replaced by berets, pillboxes, and turbans. The seriousness of the accessories and dresses endorsed by such Hollywood legends as Loretta Young, Claudette Colbert, and Fay Wray.For historians of costume, nostalgia buffs and casual browsers, these pages afford a rare picture of how the average American really dressed during the thirties. It is an essential resource for study of the clothing of an important era which designers cannot afford to be without.

This New Noise: The Extraordinary Birth and Troubled Life of the BBC


Charlotte Higgins - 2015
    Based on her hugely popular essay series, this personal journey answers the questions that rage around this vulnerable, maddening and uniquely British institution. Questions such as, what does the BBC mean to us now? What are the threats to its continued existence? Is it worth fighting for? Higgins traces its origins, celebrating the early pioneering spirit and unearthing forgotten characters whose imprint can still be seen on the BBC today. She explores how it forged ideas of Britishness both at home and abroad. She shows how controversy is in its DNA and brings us right up to date through interviews with grandees and loyalists, embattled press officers and high profile dissenters, and she sheds new light on recent feuds and scandals. This is a deeply researched, lyrically written, intriguing portrait of an institution at the heart of Britain.

Phantom Warriors: Book 2: More Extraordinary True Combat Stories from LRRPS, LRPS, and Rangers in Vietnam


Gary A. Linderer - 2001
    Vastly outnumbered, the patrols faced overwhelming odds as they fought to carry out their missions, from gathering intelligence, acting as hunter/killer teams, or engaging in infamous “Parakeet” flights– actions in which teams were dropped into enemy areas and expected to “develop” the situation. PHANTOM WARRIORS II presents heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat stories from individuals and teams. These elite warriors relive sudden deadly firefights, prolonged gun battles with large enemy forces, desperate attempts to help fallen comrades, and the sheer hell of bloody, no-quarter combat. The LRRP accounts here are a testament to the courage, guts, daring, and sacrifice of the men who willingly faced death every day of their lives in Vietnam.From the Paperback edition.

Make Do and Mend


Ministry of Information - 2007
    Now, republished in the twenty-first century, these tips can be used to spruce up your household and wardrobe on a dime. The book includes old-fashioned remedies for everything from washing silks to repelling the “moth menace,” as well as patterns and directions on how to patch holes in clothing with stylish fabric, and how to take scraps of wool to create new looks. The book also includes “grand ways to eke out dated or worn cloths” and provides ways of “re-making old garments which you have never considered.” References throughout to the scarcity of materials speaks to how valuable these tips and tricks were in wartime Britain. And in a section devoted to the corset, readers are reminded that “now that rubber is so scarce your corset is one of your most precious possessions.”       From the “too-tight blouse” to the “cure for bagginess”, Make Do and Mend is filled with the charm and wit of the 1940s and provides the time-tested, fail-safe solutions from generations past that will be a delight to nostalgia seekers and homemakers of today.

Quilts Made Modern: 10 Projects, Keys for Success with Color & Design, from the Funquilts Studio


Weeks Ringle - 2010
    This work teaches you everything you need to know about colour theory, fabric selection, and design, as well as providing expert advice on piecing, hand and machine applique, and finishing techniques."

The Real Midnight In Paris: A History of the Expatriate


Paul Brody - 2012
    Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and so many more collectively made up this artistic period in time. In this book, you will learn how and why the movement started, what it was like to be a writer in Paris, and what led to its fall.A list of essential reading from the period is also included in the book.