Country Comforts

Warm and welcoming, each quilt in this book invites quilters to let go of the "rules" and find joy in the journey. The 12 projects feature traditional blocks such as Log Cabin, Bear's Paw, and Churn Dash, with a twist that makes them fresh and new. Choose from quilts and wall hangings, many featuring folksy applique for added flair. Quilters of all levels will enjoy the relaxed nature of these scrappy projects--imperfections only add to their personality and charm!

Warm and welcoming, each quilt in this book invites quilters to let go of the "rules" and find joy in the journey. The 12 projects feature traditional blocks such as Log Cabin, Bear's Paw, and Churn Dash, with a twist that makes them fresh and new. Choose from quilts and wall hangings, many featuring folksy applique for added flair. Quilters of all levels will enjoy the relaxed nature of these scrappy projects--imperfections only add to their personality and charm!

Country houses were grand statements of power and status, but they were also places where people lived. This book traces the changes in layout, the new technologies, and the innovations in furniture that made them more convenient and comfortable. It argues that these material changes were just one aspect of comfort in the country house: feeling comfortable was just as important as being comfortable. Achieving this involved the comfort and solace to be found in daily routines, religious faith and, above all, relationships with family and friends. Such emotional comforts, and the attachment to things and places that embodied and memorialized them, made country houses into homes.

At Home with Country celebrates the romance of Cabbages & Roses and shows how Christina Strutt's evocative vintage style is equally at home in city apartments, rural retreats and seaside cottages. From urban high-rises to coastal hideaways, the great manor homes of England to the smallest beach house on the other side of the Atlantic, the beauty of the Cabbages & Roses brand is the gentle but highly visible vintage design. This lavish book embodies all locations—country, city and coast. Chapters encompass Classic Country, Modern City, Island Country and Outdoor Country. Homes that bring together the old and the new, evoking the atmosphere of each season, sit beside city spaces where urban living combines with vintage style—think faded florals and ticking fabrics softening an industrial space, splashes of colour to enliven it and contrasting textures to add interest. Coastal dwellings are fresh, breezy and dreamy—beautifully suited for beach living. The book shows that the country can come to the city, that the city can benefit from coastal settings and that the Cabbages & Roses style is a gentle, unassuming and, above all, beautiful asset to any home as it easily complements all environments.

Comfort, both physical and affective, is a key aspect in our conceptualization of the home as a place of emotional attachment, yet its study remains under-developed in the context of the European house. In this volume, Jon Stobart has assembled an international cast of contributors to discuss the ways in which architectural and spatial innovations coupled with the emotional assemblage of objects to create comfortable homes in early modern Europe. The book features a two-section structure focusing on the historiography of architectural and spatial innovations and material culture in the early modern home. It also includes 10 case studies which draw on specific examples, from water closets in Georgian Dublin to wallpapers in 19th-century Cambridge, to illustrate how people made use of and responded to the technological improvements and the emotional assemblage of objects which made the home comfortable. In addition, it explores the role of memory and memorialisation in the domestic space, and the extent to which home comforts could be carried about by travellers or reproduced in places far removed from the home. The Comforts of Home in Western Europe, 1700-1900 offers a fresh contribution to the study of comfort in the early modern home and will be vital reading for academics and students interested in early modern history, material culture and the history of interior architecture.