Happy Home brims with useful ideas for transforming a ho-hum home with relaxed contemporary style featuring bright colors, cheerful patterns, and varying textures and scale inspired by designer Charlotte Hedeman Gueniau and her home furnishings company Rice, which are well-known among design fans for innovative home furnishings and houseware collections featuring ethically sourced and produced products. The book shows how the basics of everyday life can be enlivened by bringing color and a sense of fun to daily living, whether by using brightly colored accessories or by introducing fabrics with patterns, textures, and hints of humor throughout the home. Included are practical suggestions that add informal charm to any room, as well as do-it-yourself projects ranging from brightly colored throws and cushions, storage ideas to hide clutter, hand-painted furniture, and decorative motifs for walls and other surfaces.

    She is a thread artist. And in Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing, she'll show how to harness the power of her fearless kamikaze sewing style–just dive in and give it 100 percent. Here you'll not only find out the nuts and bolts of sewing, but learn to have confidence to blaze your own sewing trail with confidence and flair. (And sprinkle of glitter!) The Crafty Chica is here to bring out the thread artist in you. Whether you can hardly sew on a button or are already threading bobbins like a champ, Kathy's got a project just for you. From place mat totes to embellished skirts, Crafty Chica's Guide to Artful Sewing proves that you're in charge of your sewing machine, not the other way around. With these 30 fun fabu-low-sew projects to carry, wear, and use around the home, you can leave the ordinary behind and channel your own Crafty Chica within.

    Using step-by-step directions and irresistible photography, Bonnie shows you how to master this intricate technique to make: Sophisticated sweaters, ponchos and shawls Stylish hats, scarves, and gloves A hip messenger bag with a contrasting fabric liner and a snappy shrug that's perfect for a night out with friends Celtic Cable Crochet even includes a visual stitch dictionary that takes the guesswork out of each pattern. From start to finish, this all-in-one guide will get you hooked on crocheting contemporary, Celtic-inspired stitches.

    In Uncommon Crochet, designer Julie Armstrong Holetz applies new ideas and unconventional materials--like wire, raffia, jute, sisal, recycled belts, fabric strips, and felted beads--to twenty-five patterns for bins, baskets, totes, handbags, clutches, jewelry, and more. Step-by-step instructions, detailed how-to photographs, and essential advice about creativity, design, and experi-mentation encourage you to play with fiber, add funky embellishments, and use your creative spirit to customize any pattern--even the ones in this book! From practical containers like Red's Goodie Basket (a stylish home for your WIP--works in progress) and Vintage Satchel (a sturdy retro messenger bag) to just plain fun projects like Petite Fleur Vases (tiny bud vases that hold water) and Sushi (crocheted California rolls, anyone?), Uncommon Crochet offers fresh twists on old-school techniques that turn simple projects into gift-worthy creations.

    The introduction gives the reader a candid look into the knitting world of the daughter of America’s first famous knitter and author, Elizabeth Zimmerman. Full of original designs, this book includes instructions and charts for 22 sweaters, three vests, four fitted-arch socks, and three convertible-top mittens, each rendered in four-color fashion photography taken on-site at Meg’s home. A section on techniques includes a glossary of relevant knitting terms, the famous EZ Percentage System, and various ways to cast on, bind off, increase, and decrease.

    The Pop-Up Book offers a clear and practical guide to the pop-up papercrafts for all levels of artist, from home hobbyists to professional graphic designers and architects.Illustrated with specially comissioned photography, it includes specific projects with easy-to-follow steps, general techniques for greater personal experimentation and creativity, and a gallery of designs created by some of today's best pop-up artists for an inspirational finish.The forms and folds, scores and creases, that Jackson transforms into striking shapes and designs truly deserve acknowledgment.--Booklist

    A rundown on equipment introduces the drop spindle, supported spindle, niddy-noddy, McMorran balance, and yarn meter, while the following sections include choosing wool and other fibers, presenting knitting patterns suitable for handspun yarn, and in-depth profiles of real urban spinners. For crafters who want to experiment with spinning but don't want to sacrifice too much of their knitting time, there are lots of ideas for jazzing up a thrift-store cardigan with handspun trim or knitting a boatneck pullover in a combination of commercial and handspun yarns. Methods for incorporating beads and threads into yarn and a technique for dyeing yarn in the dishwasher are also featured.

    In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, protest, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the age-old, universal, and underexplored beauty and power of sewing. Threads of Life is an evocative and moving book about the need we have to tell our story.

    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.

    . . oh no, a dropped stitch three rows back! Help! If only there was a 24-hour hotline to answer every question a knitter might encounter. Well, now there is, with The Knitting Answer Book . The expert authors, Margaret Radcliffe and Edie Eckman, leave no question unanswered, no quandry unaddressed. Each book contains detailed, illustrated answers to literally hundreds of questions, from the common to the more unusual: - Are certain needles better for certain yarns? - What if I dropped a stitch several rows back? - Why do my edges tend to curl up? - Can you use a different weight yarn than the pattern calls for? - What can I do to keep my yarns from tangling up? - Oops, I see my ribbing is way too tight. Now what? Covering the whole range of situations a beginner is likely to face, along with the problems that may arise for those working more advanced patterns, this Answer Book will help knitters and crocheters of all levels. Each book is packaged in a small, take-along trim size, in a friendly-to-use Q&A format, and belongs in the bag of every knitter. Available 24/7, The Knitting Answer Book is always open, ready for yarn lovers to browse and consult to their heart's content.

    Part pattern collection, part resource book Ysolda shares all of her tips for successful sweaters that perfectly fit your body. Each of the seven inspiring designs is modelled by Ysolda herself and by her friend Amanda Allen, showing the garment in two different sizes and helping you envision how each design will look on your own shape. 15-17 sizes are included in each pattern, ranging from a 28-60 finished bust. With so many sizes to pick from, and guidance within each pattern on how to customise the fit, it should be easy to get a great result. The extensive reference section will equip you with all of the tools you need to achieve a perfect one.

    Handmade Gatherings offers:∙ 16 seasonal party ideas ∙ 52 recipes ∙ 32 crafts and activitiesFrom the décor, to the entertainment, on down to the recipes themselves, Handmade Gatherings presents inspired suggestions for thoughtful, flavorful, festive communal dining. Here you'll find sixteen parties built around the rhythm of the seasons. Frosty winter fetes, lush springtime soirees, sultry summer get-togethers, and crisp autumn affairs--it's all here. Food, décor, crafts, and more are part of each event, all collectively assembled and executed. Throw memorable gatherings with your loved ones, enjoy the food, connect with your community, and get caught up in the splendor of it all.

    This approach appeals now more than ever as stylish women are continuously looking for ways to fit their love of sewing into busy lives filled with family, work, school, and countless other obligations.Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses is Gretchen Hirsch’s modern reinvention of this simple idea, focusing on easily mastered sewing skills, minimal pattern pieces, and fabulous designs. And the best part? Readers will end up with a sparkling wardrobe of easy-to-wear, fun-to-style dresses that will fill busy modern lives with retro charm.

    Life is not always extraordinary in all its details, but it is the sum of those ordinary events that add up to extraordinary lives. The journal is no different.With Journal Fodder 365, the Journal Fodder Junkies will lead you on a year-long adventure in drawing and writing, in painting and collage, and in the flotsam and jetsam of your daily experiences. You will uncover simple strategies to make the visual journal a part of your life and you'll discover new techniques for refining your personal narrative in an authentic and unique voice.Inside You'll Find:12 themed chapters, ranging from Personal Mythologies and Histories to Connections and Relationships to Symbolically Speaking and beyondDozens of step-by-step demonstrations for painting, drawing, writing, and collage techniques12 suggested excursions for you and your journal12 exploded views showing real-life applications of the lessons and promptsLet your journal be a living, breathing document of your life, a personally meaningful and relevant artifact.

    A chapter on understanding color principles offers novice spinners the skills needed to easily work with color while providing advanced spinning techniques for the expert dyer. A gallery of finished pieces as well as appendixes on dye workshops and metric conversions are included.