The Painted Apron

This book shows how to make everyday a celebration with art, beautiful tables and fabulous, yet easy food

“Hot sex, looking good, scoring journalistic triumphs . . . nothing made Alyssa love herself enough until she learned to cook. There's a racy plot and a surprising moral in this intimate and delicious book.” --Gael Greene, creator of Insatiable-Critic.com and author of Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess Apron Anxiety is the hilarious and heartfelt memoir of quintessential city girl Alyssa Shelasky and her crazy, complicated love affair with...the kitchen. Three months into a relationship with her TV-chef crush, celebrity journalist Alyssa Shelasky left her highly social life in New York City to live with him in D.C. But what followed was no fairy tale: Chef hours are tough on a relationship. Surrounded by foodies yet unable to make a cup of tea, she was displaced and discouraged. Motivated at first by self-preservation rather than culinary passion, Shelasky embarked on a journey to master the kitchen, and she created the blog Apron Anxiety (ApronAnxiety.com) to share her stories. This is a memoir (with recipes) about learning to cook, the ups and downs of love, and entering the world of food full throttle. Readers will delight in her infectious voice as she dishes on everything from the sexy chef scene to the unexpected inner calm of tying on an apron.

Create Pinterest-worthy clothing, accessories, and more with this how-to guide and memoir featuring 20 meditative sewing projects, plus inspiring stories that promote creativity, happiness, and fulfillment. When Sanae Ishida was diagnosed with a chronic illness and lost her corporate job, she felt like her whole life was falling apart. Inspired to succeed at just one thing, Ishida vowed to sew all of her daughter’s clothes—and most of her own—for one full year. In Sewing Happiness, Ishida recounts her incredible journey, reflecting on how sewing helped her survive such a difficult time in her life. Sewing Happiness features twenty simple sewing projects (with variations) organized by season and tied together with a thread of memoir that tells the story Ishida’s unexpected transformation and how sewing brought her profound happiness. Each seasonal project—from Japanese-inspired home goods to children’s and women’s clothing—is specially designed to promote health, creativity, and relationships and to provide gentle inspiration to live your best life. Complete with photos and easy-to-follow steps, Sewing Happiness is at once a guide to the craft of sewing and a guide to enjoying life in all its beautiful imperfections.

The Apron Book showcases full-color photos of new and vintage aprons from Geisel's vast collection, patterns for four basic apron styles and myriad variations, recipes, tips on collecting and preserving vintage aprons, and heart-tugging stories from the traveling apron exhibit. The book also explores the history and heyday of aprons and looks at the various roles aprons still play when worn in the kitchen, around the house, by the backyard grill, on the job, or for a special occasion.

A South African girl describes her pet chicken, painting special designs on her house, dressing up for school, and her mischievous brother.

Push your watercolor painting to the next level by mastering the use of color, light, and shadows. Go beyond trying to copy what you see by designing with shapes, shadows, and highlights. Deepen the expressive nature of your paintings as you capture the subject's luminosity. Master painter William B. Lawrence offers hands-on techniques and insights for intermediate to advanced artists. Light and color take the viewer on a journey. Properly harnessed, they can convey emotion, create a mood, or tell a story. Whether your work is realistic, expressive, or abstract, the options are unlimited. Lawrence explores pattern, hue, contrast, and texture in this treasured classic. Using a combination of theory, demonstration, and practical suggestions this new arsenal of tools, will help you grow as an artist. Other techniques covered include: How to design with light and shadow The use of overlapping patterns How light can express movement Learning to use light and dark to add drama and intensity to your work Discover how to guide the viewer's eye through floodlights, spotlights, and other advanced light-manipulation techniques. Painting Light and Shadow in Watercolor will help you create radiant watercolor paintings and give you greater painting pleasure as you develop new skills which bring your imagination to life.

"You will learn how to: ask for business advice and help; listen to others objectively and filter the information received; transform criticism, opposition, and negativity into positive action; move forward and do what's needed to be successful; trust yourself at all times."--p. [4] of cover.

Resurrecting the art of applique--a technique in which pieces of fabric are sewn onto clothing, bags, quilts, and other creations--this enlightening resource provides today's generation of "sewists" with a technique that can be combined with embroidery, beadwork, buttons, ribbons, and more to imbue works with a creative and personal style. Ideal for those with some sewing experience looking to break away from the restrictions of traditional patterns, this guide offers the details for both hand and machine applique techniques, as well as a history of applique and how it was rediscovered in the fiber arts. Featured are 20 modern, stylish sewing projects ranging from aprons, skirts, pillows, and totes to a duvet cover, wall clock, blouse, baby quilt, and scarf. With step-by-step instructions, color photographs, and comprehensive how-to embroidery instructions, this is an all-in-one resource and guide.