Bend-the-rules Sewing


Book Description

A clear, common-sense guide to sewing presents twenty-five innovative projects for the home or wardrobe along with information on basic equipment, techniques, and supplies and tips on selecting and using fabrics.




Rebecca Ringquist's Embroidery Workshops


Book Description

For the embroiderer who appreciates the value of beautiful stitches but also likes to break a few rules along the way, Rebecca Ringquist’s Embroidery Workshops is a refreshing new resource for both standard and out-of-the-box techniques. Based on the popular classes Ringquist leads across the country, Rebecca Ringquist’s Embroidery Workshops teaches everything from the “proper” way to form a French knot and transfer a design to a canvas to new ways to stitch three-dimensionally, work with nontraditional threads and fabrics, draw with thread freeform, and mix and match machine- and hand-stitching. Also featured are instructions for 20 innovative projects, including a cloth sampler designed especially for the book (and packaged in an envelope at the back), table linens, wall art, and clothing embellishments. Includes color photographs by Johnny Miller




Handmade Style


Book Description

Handmade Style is a thoughtful collection of a variety of sewing projects to stretch your skills and keep you enjoying the process of creating throughout the year. Each project builds upon the other and is designed to help any sewist create a complete cohesive handmade simple and sophisticated look.




Singer Perfect Plus


Book Description

Kathleen Cheetham presents her original garment patterns and detailed sewing instruction so plus-size women can create a closetful of flattering shapes and silhouettes. By working with the 4 enclosed patterns, step-bystep construction, and fitting instruction, readers can create a wardrobe of versatile and stylish garments—which can be adapted for office wear, casual wear, or evening wear, just by varying the colors, fabrics, and finishing details. The four enclosed patterns are for pants, a blouse, skirt, and jacket—to create 20 unique garments. Each garment is shown in petite to full sizes, from size 14 to 24. The author also includes her patented Perfect Fit guide for each garment style, based on grading rules she has developed herself for her own line of commercial patterns. Author also provides a gallery of 51 outfits for a wardrobe made with the four patterns.




Bend the Rules with Fabric


Book Description

In Bend the Rules with Fabric, Amy Karol explores dyeing, silk screening, stamping, appliqué, transferring photographs and many other techniques, providing an array of fun and fabulous projects for crafters to get their teeth into. Whether readers use Bend the Rules with Fabric as a how-to for making t-shirts, a workbook for their kids weekend projects, a manual for making their own products to sell, a guide for seeing old clothes in a new way, or as a fun resource for making custom gifts for family and friends, this comprehensive and creative book is sure to inspire! With 25 projects and 18 techniques to learn there s plenty for all crafters. Also features 9 no-sew projects!




Sew Retro


Book Description

Sewing never goes out of style, and today it is more popular than ever! Sew Retro offers twenty-five stylish, vintage-inspired sewing projects—beautiful bags, essential skirts, unique pillows, and more—that are a pleasure to sew, thanks to easy instructions, helpful diagrams, and a pocket of ten full-size patterns. This fun, inspirational book also uncovers sewing’s colorful history, from the introduction of the sewing machine to the modern DIY movement, and features interviews with today’s hottest fabric and pattern designers, including Amy Butler, Betz White, Barbara Brackman, Emma Brennan, Judie Rothermel, and Kathy Miller of Michael Miller Fabrics. Filled with gorgeous project photography and quirky vintage illustrations that bring the 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, and beyond to life, Sew Retro celebrates sewing yesterday and today. Learn more about Sew Retro and enjoy bonus projects and tutorials at www.sewretrothebook.com!




Sew a Bag


Book Description

Offering easy-to-learn instructions and techniques that will have you sewing your first bag in no time Sewing is a time-honored tradition that's functional and purposeful, and is the foundation for almost all clothing and accessories as we know them today. While most books dedicated to this topic focus on machine-sewing, there's a simpler side to this craft, and learning the techniques and skills needed to hand-sew open up a wide world of possibilities from hemming your own garments to sewing on buttons to repairing beloved closet items to making your own new pieces, like the fold-over clutch featured here. Sew a Bag will introduce readers to hand-sewing, focusing on the basics and the techniques most applicable to sewing that can then be extended to a wide variety of projects in the future. Establishing the building blocks here will encourage crafters to try new ideas and develop their own style as they progress, but it all will start with a simple pattern.




Quilt As-You-Go Made Modern


Book Description

Learn to create modern quilts more quickly and easily than ever with this popular method, featuring thirteen projects and twenty-five bonus ideas. Do you believe rules were meant to be broken? If so, this improvisational quilt-as-you-go technique is for you. Instead of dealing with precise paper patterns and cutting measurements, you’ll learn how to piece fabric onto small, manageable batting blocks. Let your creative juices flow as you quilt directly on the blocks (not the whole quilt!), whether in large abstract zigzags or small structured stitches. After the blocks have been joined, all you need to do is add backing fabric and binding, and—voila—it’s finished! A modern approach to quilting that’s fresh, fun, and simpler than it sounds; it will change the way you quilt (for the better) Great for moms or anyone with a busy schedule—these thirteen projects are easy to transport because they make it simple to pick up where you left off Go your own way: This method allows you to use a pattern or improvise, creating a wide variety of design options Save money! Learn how to finish your own quilts without the use of a longarm professional “Quilting is easier than ever with Jera Brandvig’s modern spin on the popular quilt-as-you-go technique.” —Modern Quilts Unlimited “Quilt-as-you-go (QAYG) is one of those techniques that every quilter is curious about trying, but can be daunting as the process is so different to the traditional process of making a quilt top and then quilting it. . . . The book introduces the technique very thoroughly, so you can clearly understand the difference between traditional piecing and quilting and QAYG. Then there’s a great selection of gorgeous quilts that are sure to appeal to the modern quilter. A must if you’ve ever thought about trying QAYG and haven’t had a clue where to start.” —Make Modern Magazine




The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters


Book Description

An exciting new approach for beginning to advanced quilters who want to improvise on their own, with a friend, or with a community of fellow makers. Forget step-by-step instructions and copycat designs. In The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters, Sherri Lynn Wood presents a flexible approach to quilting that breaks free of old paradigms. Instead of traditional instructions, she presents 10 frameworks (or scores) that create a guiding, but not limiting, structure. To help quilters gain confidence, Wood also offers detailed lessons for stitching techniques key to improvisation, design and spontaneity exercises, and lessons on color. Every quilt made from one of Wood’s scores will have common threads, but each one will look different because it reflects the maker’s unique interpretation. Featured throughout the book are Wood’s own quilts and a gallery of contributor works chosen from among the hundreds submitted when she invited volunteers to test her scores during the making of this groundbreaking work. “Wood offers a series of techniques, guidelines and lessons on color choice for those ready to explore improvisational quilting. Her book is loaded with full-color photos and examples to inspire.” —Dallas Morning News “Despite how it may “seam,” quilting isn’t all about rules! Quilting can be an exhilarating way to channel your creativity and express yourself. This book is focused more on exploration than explanation—a perfect mindset for beginners!” —Powell’s Books Staff Pick




The Plot Against America


Book Description

Philip Roth's bestselling alternate history—the chilling story of what happens to one family when America elects a charismatic, isolationist president—is soon to be an HBO limited series. In an extraordinary feat of narrative invention, Philip Roth imagines an alternate history where Franklin D. Roosevelt loses the 1940 presidential election to heroic aviator and rabid isolationist Charles A. Lindbergh. Shortly thereafter, Lindbergh negotiates a cordial “understanding” with Adolf Hitler, while the new government embarks on a program of folksy anti-Semitism. For one boy growing up in Newark, Lindbergh’s election is the first in a series of ruptures that threaten to destroy his small, safe corner of America–and with it, his mother, his father, and his older brother. "A terrific political novel . . . Sinister, vivid, dreamlike . . . creepily plausible. . . You turn the pages, astonished and frightened.” — The New York Times Book Review