French Girl Knits


Kristeen Griffin-Grimes - 2008
    Each section features dramatically different types of yarns, colors, and stitch patterns combined with timeless, figure flattering silhouettes that are suitable for knitters of all skill levels. Using innovative seamless construction methods, the need for sewing seams has been nearly eliminated by fashioning patterns in one piece from start to finish, easily allowing for adjustments for a custom fit. A handy design workshop features in-depth tutorials that teach seamless construction methods and provide valuable technical information for both beginning and seasoned knitters. Perfect for all body types, the designs are figure flattering with curve friendly waist shaping, empire waist detailing, and stitch details such as lacing, openwork, lace edgings, and bell sleeves that highlight the silhouette.

Make It Fizz: A Guide to Making Bathtub Treats


Holly Port - 2014
    Chock full of easy to understand instructions and full color pictures for the 24 recipes included, you are sure to succeed with this book, regardless of your skill level. With a few simple ingredients, and a little bit of time, you’ll be making bath bombs in an afternoon. You’re in good hands with this quick and easy guide to showing you not only the basics, but also more fun and challenging recipes like the Fizzy Pops, designed to look like tasty cake pop treats. Taking it a step further she has also included cupcake bath bombs with a sugar scrub topping. Who wouldn't love to make these? This book can be a project for yourself, a gift for a friend, or an enhancement to your knowledge in the world of bath and body crafts. Whatever the purpose, the reader will enjoy!

EcoBeauty: Scrubs, Rubs, Masks, Rinses, and Bath Bombs for You and Your Friends


Lauren Cox - 2009
    Crafty types will love the gift ideas, and even those of us who can barely make toast will be able to handle these recipes. Making beauty products at home is a great way to save money and help the environment, and these recipes will do all that plus give you gorgeous skin and hair. --Beth Mayall-Traglia, editor in chief of TotalBeauty.comFun, fresh bath and body recipes that are great for gifts, girls' nights, or everyday use!--Jill and Megan Carle, coauthors of Teens Cook and College CookingAttention DIYers! Finally, the ultimate natural-beauty "cookbook" packed with deliciously easy, eco-friendly recipes for getting gorgeous with fresh ingredients from the kitchen. A must-have for anyone who wants to be healthy, save money, and make the world a more eco-beautiful place.--Rona Berg, editor in chief of Organic Beauty magazine and author of Fast BeautyLotions and Toners and Soaps, Oh My!What's the hippest way to be green? When you whip up a batch of Avocado Hair Conditioner, not only will your hair be green (for about twenty minutes) but your lifestyle will, too. Natural beauty maven Lauren Cox is bringing bath and body into the eco-friendly future with 100 easy and economical projects, featuring au courant ingredients--hemp oil, green tea, soy milk, powdered kelp, goat's milk, and more--that are increasingly easy to find. Recycled bottling and green gift-giving ideas round out this stylish how-to manual for the DIY generation. So whether you are a crafty chica revitalizing your skin with an Espresso Yourself Facial Mask, a penny-pinching diva rocking some simple Green Tea Toner, or a chocoholic with a craving for Chocolate Brownie Lip Gloss, EcoBeauty has a money-saving, planet-loving, skin-pleasing creation for you.

Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom


Deborah Madison - 2013
    Destined to become the new standard reference for cooking vegetables, Vegetable Literacy shows cooks that, because of their shared characteristics, vegetables within the same family can be used interchangeably in cooking. It presents an entirely new way of looking at vegetables, drawing on Madison’s deep knowledge of cooking, gardening, and botany. For example, knowing that dill, chervil, cumin, parsley, coriander, anise, lovage, and caraway come from the umbellifer family makes it clear why they’re such good matches for carrots, also a member of that family. With more than 300 classic and exquisitely simple recipes, Madison brings this wealth of information together in dishes that highlight a world of complementary flavors. Griddled Artichokes with Tarragon Mayonnaise, Tomato Soup and Cilantro with Black Quinoa, Tuscan Kale Salad with Slivered Brussels Sprouts and Sesame Dressing, Kohlrabi Slaw with Frizzy Mustard Greens, and Fresh Peas with Sage on Baked Ricotta showcase combinations that are simultaneously familiar and revelatory.Inspiring improvisation in the kitchen and curiosity in the garden, Vegetable Literacy—an unparalleled look at culinary vegetables and plants—will forever change the way we eat and cook.

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods


Sandor Ellix Katz - 2001
    Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation."Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me," writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. "I invite you to join me along this effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food production."The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes-some familiar, others exotic-that are easy to make at home.The book covers vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir, and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making; other grain fermentations from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-, and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes, this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever published.

Quilting with a Modern Slant: People, Patterns, and Techniques Inspiring the Modern Quilt Community


Rachel May - 2014
    In Quilting with a Modern Slant, Rachel May introduces you to more than 70 modern quilters who have developed their own styles, methods, and aesthetics. Their ideas, their quilts, and their tips, tutorials, and techniques will inspire you to try something new and follow your own creativity wherever it leads.

Organic Body Care Recipes


Stephanie Tourles - 2007
    Stephanie Tourles shows you how to use fruit, flowers, herbs, and minerals to craft healthy products that promote radiant skin, strong nails, shiny hair, and an elevated mood. Pamper yourself from head to toe with products like Strawberry Cleanser, Pineapple Sunflower Scrub, and Almond Rose Body Lotion. Gentle on your skin and free of harsh chemicals found in commercial products, you’ll want to indulge yourself over and over with these luxuriously aromatic bath blends, face masks, and body scrubs.

JoAnn and Vickie's Favorite Recipes


Gooseberry Patch - 2012
    From Jo Ann's Cowboy Cookies and Vickie's Tomato Pie to scrumptious Chicken Casserole Supreme and Comfort Corn Pudding, this new collection features 25 of Vickie and Jo Ann's most delicious recipes for sharing with family & friends!

Simple Knitting: A Complete How-To-Knit Workshop with 20 Projects


Erika Knight - 2010
    Each of the 20 projects in the book teaches a new skill, as well as building upon and consolidating those knitting techniques already learned through preceding projects. With a series of workshop-style masterclasses Erika Knight explains all the essential information--from achieving a perfect tension and substituting yarns or stitch textures, to more advanced cables and shaping--alongside broader design principles, such as building a color palette.Providing a unique opportunity to learn the design secrets of one of the world's most highly-respected knitwear designers, Erika shares her special tricks of the trade within this book. Erika's signature style, for which she has become renowned worldwide, is her sophisticated simplicity. Simple Knitting is the embodiment of that elegant reductivism. Her designs prove that you can make wonderful, original items for your home and yourself--as well as gifts for family and friends--at the same time as mastering a repertoire of skills. Likewise, her preference for a refined natural palette of earthy shades with the odd highlight hue is perfectly in tune with the current mood for relaxed, homely interiors.With inspiring photography by Yuki Sugiura that showcases each of the beautiful designs, supported with clear charts and artwork, Simple Knitting is the ultimate learn-to-knit book.

The Backyard Homestead Guide To Raising Farm Animals


Gail Damerow - 2011
    Gail Damerow covers everything you need to successfully raise your own farm animals, from selecting the right breeds to producing delicious fresh milk, cheese, honey, eggs, and meat. Even with just a small plot of land, you can become more self-sufficient, save money, and enjoy healthy, delicious animal products. Also available in this series: The Backyard Homestead, The Backyard Homestead Book of Building Projects, The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner, and The Backyard Homestead Book of Kitchen Know-How.

Projects to Get You Off the Grid: Rain Barrels, Chicken Coops, and Solar Panels


Instructables.com - 2010
    Twenty Instructables illustrate just how simple it can be to make your own backyard chicken coop, or turn a wine barrel into a rainwater collector.Illustrated with dozens of full-color photographs per project accompanying easy-to-follow instructions, this Instructables collection utilizes the best that the online community has to offer, turning a far-reaching group of people into a mammoth database churning out ideas to make life better, easier, and in this case, greener, as this volume exemplifies.

The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making


Alana Chernila - 2012
    Come on in, but be prepared—it might not be quite what you expect. There is flour on the counter, oats that overflowed onto the floor, chocolate-encrusted spoons in the sink. There is Joey, the husband, exhausted by the thirty-five preschoolers who were hanging on him all day, and he is stuffing granola into his mouth to ease his five o’clock starvation. There are two little girls trying to show me cartwheels in that miniscule space between the refrigerator and the counter where I really need to be.” In her debut cookbook, Alana Chernila inspires you to step inside your kitchen, take a look around, and change the way you relate to food. The Homemade Pantry was born of a tight budget, Alana’s love for sharing recipes with her farmers’ market customers, and a desire to enjoy a happy cooking and eating life with her young family. On a mission to kick their packaged-food habit, she learned that with a little determination, anything she could buy at the store could be made in her kitchen, and her homemade versions were more satisfying, easier to make than she expected, and tastier.              Here are her very approachable recipes for 101 everyday staples, organized by supermarket aisle—from crackers to cheese, pesto to sauerkraut, and mayonnaise to toaster pastries. The Homemade Pantry is a celebration of food made by hand—warm mozzarella that is stretched, thick lasagna noodles rolled from flour and egg, fresh tomato sauce that bubbles on the stove. Whether you are trying a recipe for butter, potato chips, spice mixes, or ketchup, you will discover the magic and thrill that comes with the homemade pantry.            Alana captures the humor and messiness of everyday family life, too. A true friend to the home cook, she shares her “tense moments” to help you get through your own. With stories offering patient, humble advice, tips for storing the homemade foods, and rich four-color photography throughout, The Homemade Pantry will quickly become the go-to source for how to make delicious staples in your home kitchen.

Good Clean Fun: Misadventures in Sawdust at Offerman Woodshop


Nick Offerman - 2016
    Captained by hirsute woodworker, actor, comedian, and writer Nick Offerman, the shop produces not only fine handcrafted furniture, but also fun stuff—kazoos, baseball bats, ukuleles, even mustache combs.Now Nick and his ragtag crew of champions want to share their experiences of working at the Woodshop, tell you all about their passion for the discipline of woodworking, and teach you how to make a handful of their most popular projects along the way. This book will take readers behind the scenes of the woodshop, both inspiring and teaching them to make their own projects and besotting them with the infectious spirit behind the shop and its complement of dusty wood-elves.In these pages you will find a variety of projects for every skill level, with personal, accessible instructions by the OWS woodworkers themselves; and, what’s more, this tutelage will be augmented by mouth-watering color photos (Nick calls it "wood porn"). You will also find writings by Nick, offering recipes for both comestibles and mirth, humorous essays, odes to his own woodworking heroes, insights into the ethos of woodworking in modern America, and other assorted tomfoolery.Whether you’ve been working in your own shop for years, or if holding this stack of compressed wood pulp is as close as you’ve ever come to milling lumber, or even if you just love Nick Offerman’s brand of bucolic yet worldly wisdom, you’ll find Good Clean Fun full of useful, illuminating, and entertaining information.

Visible Mending: Artful Stitchery to Repair and Refresh Your Favorite Things


Jenny Wilding Cardon - 2018
    Then rev up the sewing machine for fast mends that put the pedal to the metal. Even with a limited budget and not much time to spare, you can create eye-catching repairs with visible mending--35 examples and more than 150 photos make it easy to put your unique mark on everything you mend!

The Sewing Book


Alison Smith - 2009
    Every tool and every technique you require for making your own home furnishings or clothing is closely and sharply photographed, carefully annotated, and clearly explained. The Tools section begins with the basic toolkit, opening up into everything you could possibly need every type of cutting tool and machine foot is shown. This section also includes information on patterns how to measure, how to use, and how to adjust them. Gallery spreads appear throughout the substantial Techniques section and showcase darts, zips, pleats etc, as well as showing key stitches. Plus, you can bring your acquired and refined skills to fruition as you make some of the 25 home decor and clothing projects at the back of the book. With "The Sewing Book" on your shelf, you've got every sewing question covered. Written by a passionate stitcher and teacher, with her own sewing school, eager to produce a one-stop sewing bible for her students, this book leaves no hem unturned. You can dip in at any level whether you're new to sewing or refining your art, whether you want to repair an old skirt or create a new one, whether you want to spruce up a curtain or design one from scratch. And with a Foreword by U.S. sewing teacher, Diana Rupp, this book has it all sewn up."