Whether you are at home or out enjoying a walk on a wooded path, you can add a touch of color and comfort to your daily routines with one or more of the twenty-six projects featured here. By using the patchwork placemats to enliven your dining experience or by taking the hexagon patchwork bag on a picnic in a meadow, you never have to stray too far from the comfort of patchwork. The simple and traditional patchwork styles used in this book are paired with retro fabrics and contemporary designs to create everyday items. Detailed diagrams and instructions are provided for each project. In addition, six mini-lessons on patchwork sewing are offered, making the projects here perfect for beginner and intermediate sewers. Make the projects in this book and add the warmth of handmade to your home and nature outings.

"Like a quilt, each habitat in nature is composed of many interdependent pieces that form grand patterns and webs. The text introduces numerous key concepts in natural science, and the back material offers activities and ideas for teaching"--Provided by the publisher.

The tradition of patchwork and quilted items goes back hundreds of years and most often conveys a sense of warmth and comfort. While the bold and bright designs in this book are meant for the modern crafter, that inherent sense of warmth is still expressed in these unique and stunning projects. Created in the distinctive Japanese craft style--and published in English for the first time--the projects in this book offer a look that is minimal, yet vibrant and full of life. Explore the techniques of patchwork sewing, appliqu , and machine quilting through thirty-five simple and stunning projects. With beautiful photographs, step-by-step instructions, and detailed diagrams, the pouches and handbags, quilts and pillowcases, tissue cases and pot holders are perfect projects for beginner and intermediate sewers. Make the projects in this book and add a little bit of warmth and patchwork style to your life.

The key to perfect patchwork is getting all of the points to match up — which is no easy feat! Set yourself up for success with the rediscovered technique of English paper piecing. Using paper templates to guide your pattern, you can expertly fit your quilting shapes together before you even start sewing. All Points Patchwork takes you far beyond traditional hexagons and accommodates triangles, diamonds, octagons, and even curved shapes. Simple instructions for decorating clothing, bedding, and home decor open up astounding possibilities for quilters of all levels.

Create 10 glorious designs from nature, including Trumpeter Swans, Herons, and Tree Birds. Full-size templates and clearly illustrated cutting and piecing directions are provided.

Bring on the bling! A step-by-step guide to achieving expert color-work with fabrics to create dynamic, glittering gemstone-themed quilts Quilting expert Andrea Tsang Jackson guides readers through transforming the beauty, allure, and power of natural stones into glittering complex patchwork quilts. She provides a master plan for the color work required to achieve effective transparency and light with fabric selection. Readers will be able to paper piece their way to a jewelry box of blocks. Beginning with nine traditional gemstone shapes, such as teardrop, marquis, and emerald cuts, each block progresses in complexity so quilters can hone their skills as they work their way through the book. Then, quilters will be inspired to use their blocks in a series of projects, both large and small. Created with intermediate quilters in mind, the book includes: Jackson's speedy chain-piecing technique for paper piecing; graded patterns to create the perfect finished block size; traditional and modern settings; watercolor illustrations of gemstones.

Create beautiful landscape quilts using strips and scraps with these 15 lovely projects! In Lovely Landscape Quilts, Cathy Geier walks you through the process of creating amazing landscape quilts using simple techniques that anyone can try. Learn how to find inspiration and choose you fabrics, how to design and lay out your quilt, and how to use angles to create skies, water, hills and mountains. Learn tricks for embellishing your quilts with applique, marker and fabric to create shadows and highlights that will give your landscape quilts depth and perspective. Finally, learn the tips for finishing and quilting before trying any of the 15 beautiful projects designed by Cathy.

Infuse your quilts with love--how to add your personal story and more meaning to your handmade quilts. In Wise Craft Quilts, celebrated quilt designer and crafter Blair Stocker shares ways to use cherished fabrics to make quilts with more meaning. Each of the twenty-one quilts featured here gathers a special collection of fabric, outlines a new technique, and spins a story. By using special fabrics as the starting point for each project—from a wedding dress to baby’s first clothes, worn denim, Tyvek race numbers, and more—the finished quilt is made even more special. Create quilts that have a story to tell and you’ll find a whole new level of appreciation for what they represent in your life and the lives of the ones you love.

From the New York Times columnist, a portrait of a family and the cycles of joy and grief that mark the natural world: “Has the makings of an American classic.” —Ann Patchett Growing up in Alabama, Margaret Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver. And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds—the natural one and our own—“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.” Gorgeously illustrated by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations is an assured and memorable debut. “Magnificent . . . Readers will savor each page and the many gems of wisdom they contain.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Quilting basics with modern flair—with twelve projects for beginners, confident beginners, and intermediates. Winner of the Next Generation Indie Book Award Try a fresh, relaxed approach to making quilts with this new book. The bright aesthetic and clear, simple instructions guide beginners and intermediates alike through the entire process of creating fun and useful quilts that they’ll be proud to call their own. Explore different options for each project in this book—make it with just two colors or scrappy, make it vintage or mod, make it soft or playful. Alternate colorways included with each project show you how swapping out fabrics can change the look of the same block. Learn how to cut, piece, appliqué, machine quilt, bind, and finish. Pick up helpful tips and tricks to stay organized and master the methods.