Martha Stewart's Encyclopedia of Crafts: An A-to-Z Guide with Detailed Instructions and Endless Inspiration


Martha Stewart - 2009
    Now, the best of those projects, including step-by-step instructions and full-color photographs, have been collected into a single encyclopedia. Organized by topic from A to Z, Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Crafts contains complete instructions and brief histories for more than 30 techniques, detailed descriptions of the necessary tools and materials, and easy-to-copy templates. Martha and her team of crafts editors guide readers through each subject, from botanical pressing and decoupage to rubber stamping and wreaths, with characteristic clarity and unparalleled attention to detail. Crafters of all skill and experience levels will appreciate the many variations presented for each technique. For example, candlemaking presents a comprehensive array of poured, rolled, and cutout candles, including instructions for making your own one-of-a-kind rubber candle molds, floating candles, sand candles, and more. Each craft in the book takes on charming new dimensions with innovations that could come only from the team behind Martha Stewart Living.In addition, each entry in Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Crafts is chock-full of tips and advice. Handy glossaries in the entries–such as a comprehensive gem glossary, a glitter glossary, and a color glossary for making tinted wax–are valuable references that crafters will refer to again and again. What’s more, the Tools and Materials section outlines the best essential supplies that every crafter needs to have on hand, and the Sources pages clue readers in to the vendors and suppliers that the magazine’s crafts editors rely on most.Filled with solid technical know-how, and presented with gorgeous color photographs, this handy guide can be read page by page and kept as a lasting reference by crafters and artisans alike.

Beginner's Guide to Free-Motion Quilting: 50+ Visual Tutorials to Get You Started Professional-Quality Results on Your Home Machine


Natalia Bonner - 2012
    Learn how to quilt all-over, as filler, on borders, and on individual blocks…using loops and swirls, feathers and flames, flowers and vines, pebbles and more! Includes tips for choosing batting and thread, layering and basting, starting and stopping, and prepping your machine are included. After you've practiced, show off your new skills with six geometric quilt projects.

Unf*ck Your Habitat: You're Better Than Your Mess


Rachel Hoffman - 2017
    Unf*ck Your Habitat is for anyone who has been left behind by traditional aspirational systems: The ones that ignore single people with full-time jobs; people without kids but living with roommates; and people with mental illnesses or physical limitations, and many others. Most organizational books are aimed at traditional homemakers, DIYers, and people who seem to have unimaginable amounts of free time. They assume we all iron our sheets, have linen napkins to match our table runners, and can keep plants alive for longer than a week. Basically, they ignore most of us living here in the real world.Interspersed with lists and challenges, this practical, no-nonsense advice relies on a 20/10 system (20 minutes of cleaning followed by a 10-minute break; no marathon cleaning allowed) to help you develop lifelong habits. It motivates you to embrace a new lifestyle in manageable sections so you can actually start applying the tactics as you progress. For everyone stuck between The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Adulting, this philosophy is decidedly more realistic than aspirational, but the goal is the same: not everyone will have a showcase of a home, but whatever your habitat, you deserve one that brings you happiness, not stress.

How to Knit Socks That Fit: Techniques for Toe-Up and Cuff-Down Styles. A Storey BASICS® Title


Donna Druchunas - 2015
    You’ll learn several approaches for getting started, and you’ll also discover how to shape comfortable toes, create heels that fit, and ensure stretchy cuffs that can be counted on to keep your socks up. Druchunas’s useful tips and tricks include working confidently with double-pointed needles, knitting socks on one or two circular needles, and even knitting two socks at the same time. Once you’ve mastered these basic techniques, you can adapt them to create your own custom sock designs.

Knitting for Peace: Make the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time


Betty Christiansen - 2006
    They call the work they do charity knitting. This work tells the stories of 28 knitting-for-peace endeavours, with smaller, more anecdotal stories shared in corresponding sidebars. It also offers practicial, hands-on information, including 15 patterns for easy-to-knit charity projects.

How to Be a Heroine


Samantha Ellis - 2014
    From early obsessions with the March sisters to her later idolization of Sylvia Plath, Ellis evaluates how her heroines stack up today. And, just as she excavates the stories of her favorite characters, Ellis also shares a frank, often humorous account of her own life growing up in a tight-knit Iraqi Jewish community in London. Here a life-long reader explores how heroines shape all our lives.

Everything Is an Emergency: An OCD Story in Words Pictures


Jason Adam Katzenstein - 2020
    Mundane events like shaking hands or sharing a drink snowball into absolute catastrophes. Jason has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a mental illness that compels him to perform rituals in order to protect himself from dangers that don’t really exist. He checks, washes, over-thinks, rinse, repeat. He does his best to hide his embarrassing compulsions, and sometimes this even works. He grows up, worries about his first kiss, falls in love with making cartoons, moves to New York City — which is magical and gross, etc. All the while, half his energy goes into living his life, while the other half is devoted to the increasingly ridiculous rituals he’s decided to maintain to keep himself from fully short-circuiting, Then, he fully short-circuits. At his absolute lowest, Jason finally decides to do the things he’s always been told to do to get better: exposure therapy and medication. These are the things that have always freaked him out, and they continue to freak him out. Also, they help him recover. Everything is an Emergency is a comic about all the self-destructive stories someone tells himself, over and over, until they start to seem true. In images surreal, witty, and confessional, Jason shows us that OCD can be funny, even when it feels like it’s ruining your life.

Cozy Minimalist Home: More Style, Less Stuff


Myquillyn Smith - 2018
    Myquillyn Smith's first book, The Nesting Place, teaches us that our homes don't have to be perfect to be beautiful. But how can we apply that lesson to our actual, day-to-day design decisions?Cozy Minimalist Home is the answer to that question. Writing for the hands-on woman who'd rather move her own furniture than hire a designer, Smith helps you think through every room in your house, one purposeful design decision at a time. With people, priorities, and purpose in mind, you can create a warm, inviting, and timeless home that transcends the latest trends and centers around your personal style.You'll have the tools to create a home you're proud of in a way that honors your unique priorities, budget, and taste. And best of all, you can completely transform your home starting with furniture and décor that you already have!In Cozy Minimalist Home, Smith helps you:Recognize your role as the curator of your home who makes smart, style-impacting design choicesKnow what to focus on and what not to worry aboutDiscover the real secret to finding your unique styleFind a sofa you won't hate tomorrowDeconstruct each room and re-create it step by stepCreate a pretty home with more style and less stuffMake your home look the way you've always hoped so you can use it the way you've always dreamed Fall in love with the space you've createdDiscover how creating a cozy minimalist home goes beyond pretty and sets the stage for the true connection, relationship, and rest that you deserve.

Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own


Kate Bolick - 2015
    So begins Spinster, a revelatory and slyly erudite look at the pleasures and possibilities of remaining single. Using her own experiences as a starting point, journalist and cultural critic Kate Bolick invites us into her carefully considered, passionately lived life, weaving together the past and present to examine why­ she - along with over 100 million American women, whose ranks keep growing - remains unmarried. This unprecedented demographic shift, Bolick explains, is the logical outcome of hundreds of years of change that has neither been fully understood, nor appreciated. Spinster introduces a cast of pioneering women from the last century whose genius, tenacity, and flair for drama have emboldened Bolick to fashion her life on her own terms: columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton. By animating their unconventional ideas and choices, Bolick shows us that contemporary debates about settling down, and having it all, are timeless - the crucible upon which all thoughtful women have tried for centuries to forge a good life. Intellectually substantial and deeply personal, Spinster is both an unreservedly inquisitive memoir and a broader cultural exploration that asks us to acknowledge the opportunities within ourselves to live authentically. Bolick offers us a way back into our own lives - a chance to see those splendid years when we were young and unencumbered, or middle-aged and finally left to our own devices, for what they really are: unbounded and our own to savor.

Steampunk Gear, Gadgets, and Gizmos: A Maker's Guide to Creating Modern Artifacts


Thomas Willeford - 2011
    Filled with do-it-yourself projects, Steampunk Gear, Gadgets, and Gizmos: A Maker's Guide to Creating Modern Artifacts shows you how to build exquisite, ingenious contraptions on a budget.Learn from Lord Featherstone as he distills his wealth of hard-learned skills, describes how to use the readily available tools of the modern mad scientist, and expounds on the art and philosophy of scavenging unique components and raw materials. The perfect companion for the hobbyist and advanced machinist alike, this inventive volume will guide you through the creation of your very own infernal devices.Get steamed with these provocative projects: Aetheric ray deflector solid brass gogglesCalibrated indicator gaugesFerromagnetic self-scribing automated encyclopedia (or, the Steampunk book drive)High voltage electro-static cannon (or, the lamp gun)Tesla-pod chrono-static insulating field generator (or, the mobile device enclosure)Altitude mask with integrated respiratory augmentationArmoured pith helmetMark I superior replacement arm with integrated Gatling gun attachmentVisit the companion website, www.mhprofessional.com/steampunk, for videos, images, and more bonus content!Make Great Stuff!TAB, an imprint of McGraw-Hill Professional, is a leading publisher of DIY technology books for makers, hackers, and electronics hobbyists.

No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting


Anne Macdonald - 1988
    . . What is remarkable about this book is that a history of knitting can function so well as a survey of the changes in women's roles over time."--The New York Times Book ReviewAn historian and lifelong knitter, Anne Macdonald expertly guides readers on a revealing tour of the history of knitting in America. In No Idle Hands, Macdonald considers how the necessity--and the pleasure--of knitting has shaped women's lives.Here is the Colonial woman for whom idleness was a sin, and her Victorian counterpart, who enjoyed the pleasure of knitting while visiting with friends; the war wife eager to provide her man with warmth and comfort, and the modern woman busy creating fashionable handknits for herself and her family. Macdonald examines each phase of American history and gives us a clear and compelling look at life, then and now. And through it all, we see how knitting has played an important part in the way society has viewed women--and how women have viewed themselves.Assembled from articles in magazines, knitting brochures, newspaper clippings and other primary sources, and featuring reproductions of advertisements, illustrations, and photographs from each period, No Idle Hands capture the texture of women's domestic lives throughout history with great wit and insight."Colorful and revealing . . . vivid . . . This book will intrigue needlewomen and students of domestic history alike."--The Washington Post Book World

100 Nasty Women of History


Hannah Jewell - 2017
    When you learn about women in history, it's hard not to wonder: why do they all seem so prim and proper? The truth is, you're probably not being told the whole story. Also, (mostly male) historians keep leaving out or glossing over some of the most badass women who ever walked the surface of this planet. Fake news! But fret not. Former Buzzfeed senior writer and Washington Post pop culture host Hannah Jewell has got you covered. In 100 Nasty Women of History, Hannah will spill the tea on:-the women with impressive kill counts-the women who wrote dangerous things-the women who fought empires and racists-the women who knew how to have a good-ass time-the women who punched Nazis (metaphorically but also not)And that's just half of the women in this book. That's pretty metal.So, if you think that Nasty Women are a new thing, think again. They've always been around - you just haven't always heard of them. Take these stories and tell them to your friends. Write them on a wall. Sneakily tell them to your niece (who's old enough to hear the bad words, of course). Post them to your local MP (especially if it's a man). Make your friends dress up as Nasty Women for Halloween. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who gave zero f*cks whatsoever. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History who made a difference. These are the 100 Nasty Women of History whom everyone needs to know about, right now.

The Handmade Marketplace: How to Sell Your Crafts Locally, Globally, and On-Line


Kari Chapin - 2010
    Learn to determine your cost of goods, set prices, identify the competition, and understand the ins and outs of wholesale and retail sales. Explore the various sales venues available, including independent craft fairs, Web sites such as Etsy, and traditional stores, and learn to maximize your visibility and sales in each one. Want to start your own website? Chapin shows you how to style and prop your crafts for photography and explains how the most popular Web marketplaces operate. You’ll find everything you need to turn your talent into profits.

F*ck No!: How to Stop Saying Yes When You Can't, You Shouldn't, or You Just Don't Want To


Sarah Knight - 2019
    Whether you're a People-Pleaser, Overachiever, Pushover, or have serious FOMO, bestselling "anti-guru" Sarah Knight helps you say what you really mean without being really mean--or burning out for fear of missing out.Life is so much better when you say no with confidence--and without guilt, fear, or regret. F*ck No! delivers practical strategies that give you the power to decline, and concrete examples that put the words right into your mouth. You'll discover:The joy of noNo-Tips for all occasionsHow to set boundariesFill-in-the-blank F*ckNotesThe No-and-Switch, the Power No--and how to take no for an answer yourselfAnd much more!Praise for Sarah Knight and the No F*cks Given Guides"Self-help to swear by." --Boston Globe"Genius." --Vogue"Hilarious, irreverent, and no-nonsense." --Bustle

Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book


Vogue Knitting - 1989
    Need guidance on yarns, needles, tools, basic techniques, specialized applications, terminology? It’s in here—with lots more, from diagnostics to blocking to designs. “This indispensable reference has...up-to-the-minute designer patterns.”--Family Circle Homecrafts. “The ultimate reference guide.”--House & Garden Magazine.