Little Birds: 26 Handmade Projects To Sew, Stitch, Quilt & Love


Design Collective - 2010
    • 26 one-of-a-kind projects, from artistic to folksy to whimsical• The variety of materials and embellishments is sure to inspire you to make every bird in the book • These little sweeties make delightful gifts…and the perfect pets!• Beginner-friendly projects work well with scraps, fat quarters, and upcycled fabrics This adorable book is all about the birds! From budgies to owls to peacocks, these projects will pique your curiousity and make your heart sing! Many talented designers bring you soft sculptures, quilts, ornaments, and more.The first in a series of titles called Design Collective, this book features designs by a group of clever and talented fabric artists from Canada and around the world who all share a love of cute little birds. Included are patterns for 26 hand-made projects to sew, stitch and quilt.contents:Susanne Woods INTRODUCTION Bari J. Ackerman LITTLE BIRD MOBILE Amy Adams FANCY PEACOCK Amy Adams STORK WITH A HEART MOBILE Heidi Allred OUR FLOCK EMBROIDERY Heidi Allred TWEET BIRDS APRON Abigail Brown BIRDHOUSE Eleanor Bruce FRED THE CARDINAL Eleanor Bruce EDWARD THE OWL (AND FRIENDS) Jamie Christina BIRD IN A CAGE Laura Clempson LITTLE ROUND BLUEBIRD Laura Clempson BLUEBIRD WALLETS Samantha Cotterill MILDRED THE DOVE WITH BAGUETTES Alicia Diane Durand BIRDS ON A WIRE QUILT Lisa Fell EMBROIDERED DOORKNOB ORNAMENT Nancy DeWeir Geaney MID-CENTURY SCRAP QUILT Melanie Hurlston PIKKU THE PENGUIN Robin Kingsley GARDEN OF BIRDS EMBROIDERY Kimberly Laws BIRD’S NEST JOURNAL Margaret Oomen BIRD IN A RAG NEST Anita Peluso LITTLE BIRDS QUILT Sharon Smith OWL WALLHANGING Jantze Tullett BUDGIE Noor van Krimpen WREATH WITH A BIRD Monika Wintermantel BIRD ON A BRANCH MAKEUP BAG Mika Yamamura CHEWY THE OWL ORNAMENT PATTERNS EMBROIDERY STITCHES

52 Projects: Random Acts of Everyday Creativity


Jeffrey Yamaguchi - 2005
    52 Projects chronicles the author's artistic journey over the course of one year and how it changed his life-and also offers 52 jumping-off points for the reader's own creative inspiration: - Frame a picture you've drawn, painted, or photographed-and hang it up in a public environment - Write the story of why you moved to the city in which you currently live - Ask your grandparents to tell you their stories-and document them - Create something while your laundry is washing and drying - Make the perfect margarita-and drink it - Send a friend a Chinese take-out menu and chopsticks - Stay up all night-and make the most of it

The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write with Emotional Power, Develop Achingly Real Characters, Move Your Readers, and Create Riveting Moral Stakes


Donald Maass - 2016
    The reader's experience must be an emotional journey of its own, one as involving as your characters' struggles, discoveries, and triumphs are for you.That's where The Emotional Craft of Fiction comes in. Veteran literary agent and expert fiction instructor Donald Maass shows you how to use story to provoke a visceral and emotional experience in readers. Topics covered include: emotional modes of writing beyond showing versus telling your story's emotional world moral stakes connecting the inner and outer journeys plot as emotional opportunities invoking higher emotions, symbols, and emotional language cascading change story as emotional mirror positive spirit and magnanimous writing the hidden current that makes stories move Readers can simply read a novel...or they can experience it. The Emotional Craft of Fiction shows you how to make that happen.

Writers and Their Notebooks


Diana Raab - 2010
    For these diverse writers, the journal also serves as an ideal forum to develop their writing voice, whether crafting fiction, nonfiction, or poetry. Some entries include sample journal entries that have since developed into published pieces. Through their individual approaches to keeping a notebook, the contributors offer valuable advice, personal recollections, and a hardy endorsement of the value of using notebooks to document, develop, and nurture a writer's creative spark. Designed for writers of all genres and all levels of experience, Writers and Their Notebooks celebrates the notebook as a vital tool in a writer's personal and literary life.

Listography Journal: Your Life in Lists


Lisa Nola - 2007
    Some lists are obvious (greatest accomplishments, best friends, favorite food), others obscure (guiltiest pleasures, greatest acts of kindness, personal fashion trends), and each list is accompanied by hilarious illustrations.Listography is perfect for getting down all the details of a life less ordinary.

Linocut for Artists & Designers


Nick Morley - 2016
    Whether you are printing by hand on your kitchen table or on a press in a print studio, this book gets you started and goes on to explore the myriad creative applications of linocut. It encourages you to experiment with different approaches to image making and explores new ways of thinking about how linocut can be used. Nick Morley shares his experience and specialist knowledge to make this practical guide an essential companion for everyone interested in this addictive and absorbing medium.

Modern Log Cabin Quilting: 25 Simple Quilts and Patchwork Projects


Susan Beal - 2011
    Cutting hundreds of pieces and joining angled seams can be tough work! But log cabin quilting—an artful and simple way to piece strips of fabric around a central square—is different. From the intuitive construction through the straight-line stitching, this style of quilting is simple as can be. In Modern Log Cabin Quilting, Susan Beal outlines the entire process from start to finish, including basic quilting how-to as well as extensive design, fabric, and embellishment information. Since all log cabin designs follow the same formula, once you master straight lines and right angles, any of the 25 projects in this book are possible. From stash-friendly designs like the Charming Camera Case to more ambitious undertakings like the Vintage Linens Quilt, there’s sure to be a project that will get you into (or bring you back to) quilting!

The Workbench Design Book: The Art & Philosophy of Building Better Benches


Christopher Schwarz - 2011
    The 9 workbench plans have a range suitable for all workshop needs, from handwork to power tools. A discussion of workbench design rules teach what's effective and why in a multitude of workshop situations. Additional workholding options—from shop-made jigs and commercial bench dogs to vise hardware—are also provided.

Elegant Stitches: An Illustrated Stitch Guide & Source Book of Inspiration


Judith Baker Montano - 1995
    Helps readers learn about silk ribbon stitches, crazy-quilt stitches, composite stitches, and left-handed stitches.

Young House Love: 243 Ways to Paint, Craft, Update Show Your Home Some Love


Sherry Petersik - 2012
    With two home renovations under their (tool) belts, 5 million blog hits per month, and an ever-growing audience since the launch of "Young House Love" in 2007, Sherry and John are home-improvement enthusiasts primed to pass on a slew of projects, tricks, and techniques to do-it-yourselfers of all levels. Whether an experienced decorator or a total novice, on a tight budget or with money to spend, any homeowner or apartment dweller will find ideas for his or her own home makeovers here. Learn to trick out a thrift-store mirror, spice up plain old roller shades, "hack" your Ikea table to create three distinct looks, and so much more.Packed with 243 tips and ideas--both classic and unexpected--every project pictured was exclusively executed for the book (so there are no photos that you've already seen on the blog). With more than 250 photographs and illustrations, this is a book that readers will return to again and again for the creative projects and easy-to-follow instructions in the relatable voice the Petersiks are known for. Adding a little wow factor to your home has never been more fun!

A Beautiful Anarchy, When the Life Creative Becomes the Life Created


David duChemin - 2014
    Our lives can be a bold, beautiful, deeply human experience that can ripple out and touch others, but they have to be our lives. A Beautiful Anarchy is a vulnerable, honest, and insightful book about the human longing to create, whether that’s a family, a business, a book or a photograph. Our greatest creation can be an intentional life lived on our terms. For those that already identify as creative people, this book is an invitation to more intentionally explore your creative process. For anyone that’s ever said, “but I’m not really creative,” it’s a call to exhume a part of yourself that desperately needs to get out and breathe.This book is available on ABeautifulAnarchy.com or as a Kindle version from Amazon.

The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers: A Guide to Making Unbelievably Realistic Paper Blooms


Livia Cetti - 2014
    The Exquisite Book of Paper Flowers is Cetti’s comprehensive how-to manual showcasing her until-now secret techniques for creating 27 popular blooms, including peonies, poppies, roses, and hibiscus. Clear instructions and stunning step-by-step photographs show crafters of all levels how to make individual flowers as well as how to combine blooms to form 20 exquisite garlands, centerpieces, wreaths, corsages, and boutonnieres.

The Simple Secret to Better Painting


Greg Albert - 2003
    It's an insightful artistic philosophy that boils down the many technical principles of composition into a single master rule that's easy to remember and apply: Never make any two intervals the same.You can make every painting more interesting, dynamic and technically sound by varying intervals of distance, length and space, as well as intervals of value and color. The rule also applies to balance, shape and the location of your painting's focal point.Greg Albert illustrates these lessons with eye-opening examples from both beginning and professional artists, including Frank Webb, Tony Couch, Kevin Macpherson, Charles Reid, Tony Van Hasselt and more.You'll discover that the ONE RULE is the only rule of composition you need to immediately improve your work - the moment your brush touches the canvas.

The Craft of Bookbinding


Manly Miles Banister - 1994
    Book sewing of all types (antique, flexible, lockstitch, whipstitch), plus how to make endpapers, attach headbands, case in, cover with cloth and other materials, add titling and decoration, much else. Updated list of suppliers. 254 illustrations and photographs.

Gertie Sews Vintage Casual: A Modern Guide to Sportswear Styles of the 1940s and 1950s


Gretchen Hirsch - 2014
    In this follow-up to Gertie’s New Book for Better Sewing, Gretchen “Gertie” Hirsch celebrates the classic casual styles that icons like Katharine Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, and Rosie the Riveter made famous—think wide-legged trousers, fitted capri pants, beach rompers, shorts, knit tops, jeans, and day dresses. In Part I, Hirsch introduces key techniques for sportswear construction—from working with knit fabrics to the intricacies of pant-making—and in Part II, she showcases a 30-plus-piece vintage-inspired casual wardrobe.