Stitch Your Story

From politics to poetry, the hottest trend in quilting today is using fabric and letters to say something on quilt tops. Quilters everywhere are excited to incorporate their favourite phrases, song lyrics, inspirational words, political statements, or just simple personalisation on a gifted quilt. And when creating heirloom quilts for family, quilters everywhere are looking for ways to personalise, customise, and use text to show their unique perspective. From award-winning quilts containing powerful messages to sweet portions of poetry for a baby's bedroom, these alphabets encourage complete freedom to piece one-of-a-kind quilts using the structure of the patterns Sarah Fielke provides. More than just a collection of letters, Sarah has been careful to provide something for everyone. From paper-piecing to applique to improv, her six alphabets allow readers to create symmetrical chunky block letters, sophisticated cursive, and whimsical improvisationally pieced letters - all supplied in both lower and upper case. It's the perfect blend: quilters will love having the structure and reliability of patterns with the possibility of total customisation.

From the blanket that his great-grandmother made for him as a boy, to the friends he gathered together in San Francisco as a young man, to the idea for a monument sewn of fabric and thread, Cleve Jones’ extraordinary life seems to have been stitched together bit by bit, piece by piece. Mentored by Harvey Milk, Jones first had the vision for what became the AIDS Memorial Quilt during a candlelight memorial for Milk in 1985. Along with friends, Cleve created the first panels for the quilt in 1987. The AIDS Memorial Quilt grew to be one of the largest public arts projects ever and helped grow awareness of HIV and AIDS. The Quilt is an iconic symbol of hope and remembrance and is Jones' shining achievement. It has since toured the world and been seen by millions. This evocative biography is a touching tribute to Jones' life of advocacy, the positive effects of a community working towards a common goal, and an inspiring story for young readers. Includes a timeline and extensive back matter.

The events of your life, from local walks to exotic trips, can provide endless inspiration for textile art. This inspiring book shows you how to record your experiences, using sketchbooks, journals and photography, to create personal narratives that can form a starting point for more finished stitched-textile pieces. Acclaimed textile artist and teacher Cas Holmes, whose work is often inspired by her life and the journeys she makes, helps you find inspiration through your own life and explains how to record what you see in sketchbooks and journals, which can often become beautiful objects in themselves. She explains how you can use photography, both as documentation and as inspiration, and sometimes incorporate it into the work itself, along with found objects and ephemera. Throughout the book are useful techniques that can be harnessed to add extra interest to your work, such as methods for making layered collages, how to 'sketch' with stitch, and advice on design and colour. If you want to create beautiful, unique work inspired by your life and travels, this is the perfect book for you.

Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction “[These stories] vibrate with originality, queerness, sensuality and the strange.”—Roxane Gay “In these formally brilliant and emotionally charged tales, Machado gives literal shape to women’s memories and hunger and desire. I couldn’t put it down.”—Karen Russell In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction.

Forget the dry color theory! This guide is fun, conversational, practical, and beautifully inspiring. The one-of-a-kind resource for modern quilters includes hands-on exercises with a true workbook approach to help evaluate color choices. A 150-color swatch card is included.

"The inspiring story of the American flag that flew over Ground Zero, traveled across all fifty states as it was repaired, and returned to New York, a restored symbol of unity"--

Adaptation of Tanko bole chhe, an animation documentary film for children.