Alphabet Inspirations in Colored Bobbin Lace


Book Description

To create her stunning coloured bobbin lace designs, award-winning lacemaker Sandi Woods often takes inspiration from the letters of the alphabet, shaping, manipulating and combining them to form organic, sinuous shapes. She likens the process to the game 'Chinese Whispers' – a pattern starts as a simple letter, but is developed further, often until the original form is barely recognizable. Sandi's painterly use of coloured thread to suggest shape and form adds further beauty to her work. This fully illustrated book contains instructions for the exquisite 'Leafy Glade Alphabet'. Each letter has one basic template but two alternative designs, one using simple bobbin lace stitches, the other using more complex Milanese braids. Though each letter is worked in a different set of colours, all the colourways are interchangeable, and, of course, they can be worked in white. The book then goes on to include 24 more abstract designs, such as 'Chinese Seedling' and 'Blackthorn Sprig', all of which were originally developed from the letters of the alphabet. Comprehensive instructions are given for each pattern, including prickings, linear outlines, pin reference charts and full pin-by-pin directions.




The Bulletin


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Milanese Lace


Book Description

Using these magnificent instructions and patterns, create beautiful decorated braids like those used in early Milanese lace. Sew both traditional and modern pieces, and experiment with new ideas while you increase your skill.




Special Effects in Bobbin Lace


Book Description

Highly original designs mark this gorgeous collection of bobbin lace patterns using colored threads. Twenty designs, graded by complexity, will delight lacemakers of all skill ranges.







Wabi-Sabi Sewing


Book Description

Twenty sewing projects for home décor and accessories inspired by the Japanese aesthetic that appreciates the beauty of imperfection. Capture the essence of Japanese style in your sewing with this collection of projects inspired by the wabi-sabi concept of “perfect imperfection.” This collection of twenty sewing projects for home decor and accessories is based on the popular Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi which celebrates the beauty in the ordinary and imperfect. The projects are grouped according to how we live, for example: living; sleeping; eating and exploring. Sewing and quilting expert and fabric designer, Karen Lewis, has used a limited palette of earthy tones and the best quality natural fabrics including linen, cotton, denim and wool to create a stunning collection of simple, sewn projects. Try out some simple wabi-sabi style sewing techniques such as hand piecing, sashiko embroidery, big stitch quilting, and visible mending to create unique items for your home whether it’s a full-sized bed quilt, simple coasters for your favorite mug or a stunning scarf to wrap up in.




Vermeer's Women


Book Description

A visually stunning and seductive book that celebrates the mysterious and enigmatic world created by Vermeer in some of the best-loved and most characteristic works from late in his career.




Lace


Book Description




The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844


Book Description

The Condition of the Working Class in England is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels. Originally written in German as Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England, it is a study of the working class in Victorian England. It was also Engels' first book, written during his stay in Manchester from 1842 to 1844. Manchester was then at the very heart of the Industrial Revolution, and Engels compiled his study from his own observations and detailed contemporary reports. Engels argues that the Industrial Revolution made workers worse off. He shows, for example, that in large industrial cities mortality from disease, as well as death-rates for workers were higher than in the countryside. In cities like Manchester and Liverpool mortality from smallpox, measles, scarlet fever and whooping cough was four times as high as in the surrounding countryside, and mortality from convulsions was ten times as high as in the countryside. The overall death-rate in Manchester and Liverpool was significantly higher than the national average (one in 32.72 and one in 31.90 and even one in 29.90, compared with one in 45 or one in 46). An interesting example shows the increase in the overall death-rates in the industrial town of Carlisle where before the introduction of mills (1779–1787), 4,408 out of 10,000 children died before reaching the age of five, and after their introduction the figure rose to 4,738. Before the introduction of mills, 1,006 out of 10,000 adults died before reaching 39 years old, and after their introduction the death rate rose to 1,261 out of 10,000.




Wicked


Book Description

The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is established not only as a commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come. Wicked relishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film starring Margaret Hamilton (and Judy Garland). In this fast-paced, fantastically real, and supremely entertaining novel, Maguire has populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination. Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens. But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas. Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name—one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel’s distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, and sprawling nineteenth-century sagas of moral urgency, Maguire’s Wicked is as unique as its green-skinned witch.