From fabric strips to completed rugs - it's all in the twist! Traditional crafting and green crafting come together with impressive results in Twist & Twine. Author Bobbie Irwin guides you through the age-old art of rug twining to create beautiful, durable objects for your home, all with strips of new or recycled fabric. You'll begin with a twining sampler to learn the basic methods you'll need to make rugs, baskets, placemats, even a photo album. Clearly presented techniques and project instructions include color diagrams and photos. Learn to make your own twining frames, and discover nonframe projects that use boxes, cardboard tubes and bowls as forms for twining. In Twist & Twine you'll get: an illustrated guide to twining methods detailed instructions for 7 rugs and 11 home decor items created with a variety of techniques and looms thorough discussions of fabric - new or recycled - to use for warps and wefts a review of twining equipment, including instructions for constructing looms and frames lists of twining references and resources

Every weaver weaves a rag rug—or two, or three. In this long-awaited book, well-known weaver and teacher Tom Knisely shares his knowledge and expertise in this collection of favorite rag rug patterns. • The first comprehensive book on weaving rag rugs in a generation • Color planning and design advice for rag rugs • Step-by-step instructions on warping and weaving for your rag rug • More than 30 rag rug projects, from simple to advanced

Vivian Gornick’s Fierce Attachments—hailed by the New York Times for the renowned feminist author’s “mesmerizing, thrilling” truths within its pages—has been selected by the publication’s book critics as the #1 Best Memoir of the Past 50 Years. In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. There have been numerous books about mother and daughter, but none has dealt with this closest of filial relations as directly or as ruthlessly. Gornick’s groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O’Brien has called “the principal crux of female despair”: the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of “urban peasants,” Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother’s romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian. These women with their opposing models of femininity continue, well into adulthood, to affect Gornick’s struggle to find herself in love and in work. As Gornick walks with her aged mother through the streets of New York, arguing and remembering the past, each wins the reader’s admiration: the caustic and clear-thinking daughter, for her courage and tenacity in really talking to her mother about the most basic issues of their lives, and the still powerful and intuitively-wise old woman, who again and again proves herself her daughter’s mother. Unsparing, deeply courageous, Fierce Attachments is one of the most remarkable documents of family feeling that has been written, a classic that helped start the memoir boom and remains one of the most moving examples of the genre. “[Gornick] stares unflinchingly at all that is hidden, difficult, strange, unresolvable in herself and others—at loneliness, sexual malice and the devouring, claustral closeness of mothers and daughters...[Fierce Attachments is] a portrait of the artist as she finds a language—original, allergic to euphemism and therapeutic banalities—worthy of the women that raised her.”—The New York Times

If an entire nation could seek its freedom, why not a girl? As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight...for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom. From acclaimed author Laurie Halse Anderson comes this compelling, impeccably researched novel that shows the lengths we can go to cast off our chains, both physical and spiritual.

The fourth of the five Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan. Here we find our hero Richard Hannay living a quiet life in the countryside with a wife and young child but his past comes back to haunt him and he once more must face up to an arch-enemy.

The classic guide to an enduring American craft gets an eye-catching revision. Fantastic to look at and easy to follow, this expanded version of The Braided Rug Book will win a new audience and also appeal to those who own the previous edition. It features thoroughly updated information, brand-new gallery images, two additional rug techniques to try, and a comprehensive primer on planning a project. Beginners will learn about wools and other materials, how to care for finished rugs, and how to recognize a quality rug. Plus, there are several new color plans and entirely new directions and illustrations for building a rug-braiding stand, complete with a finished photo.

Elspeth Jackson reinvents the traditional craft of rag rugging to create contemporary and sustainable homeware items from leftover fabrics. You’ll be amazed at how simple and enjoyable it is to upcycle old and well-loved garments into beautiful rugs, pillows, artworks, bags, and other gifts, using just a few basic tools and some simple techniques. The book is arranged into three chapters: Home includes a selection of projects for fun and easy rugs in a range of colours and styles, as well as a shaggy pillow, draught excluder, wall hanging and chalkboard frame. Gifts has wonderful ideas for unique items that you can make for friends and family, from a clutch purse to flower hair clips and even a brooch. Finally, Seasonal will inspire you to turn your strips of fabric into decorations and gifts to use at certain times of the year, from a rag-rugged heart for Valentine’s Day, to an unusual spring wreath and some gorgeous Christmas baubles. With lavish color photographs and clear, step-by-step instructions and artworks, crafters of all ages will enjoy making these projects. A comprehensive section at the start of the book covers everything you need to know about which fabrics to choose, what tools you will need, and the essential techniques, allowing you to discover how to update this traditional craft with endless possibilities of color and fabric combinations.

Illustrated with 200 stunning photographs and encompassing objects from furniture and ceramics to jewelry and metal, this definitive work from Jo Lauria and Steve Fenton showcases some of the greatest pieces of American crafts of the last two centuries. Potter Craft

Braided-in rugs only look complicated! With a few old T-shirts, a pair of scissors and a handful of safety pins, you can create stunning braided-in rugs. This lost folk art comes alive with simple step-by-step directions. These durable, reversible rugs are made in a single step, which automatically forms swirling lines for big visual impact. The author walks the first-time rug maker through the process and shows how to make rugs with two, four, six and even eight strands. Directions for right- and left-handers, plus no-sew options make the rugs suitable for all skill levels. With a dozen projects in various shapes, you can create your own heirloom rugs and baskets with fabrics ranging from light cotton to heavy wool.