The traditional arts of cutwork, tambour work, punch needle, applique, crochet, embroidery, and patchwork are adapted to the making of contemporary, ethnic clothing

Gathers patterns for rugs, cushions, pillowcases, and footstools featuring designs based on ethnic textiles

Now in paperback, The Needlepoint Book is the only needlework guide you’ll ever need—now including 436 stitches and 1,680 illustrations. Since its original publication in 1976, The Needlepoint Book has become known as the bible for all stitching enthusiasts—the one resource for every needlepoint aficionado. Whether you’re new to the craft or have been practicing for years, this guide covers your sewing journey from inspiration to achievement with specific guidelines on how to make the painted canvas yours. Featuring all-new projects and stitch patterns for every level of expertise, you will learn practical skills, such as how to: -Choose your project with purpose -Tell its story with stitches and fibers -Create mood with color and texture -Fill that blank background -Select and use embellishments such as beads and sequins Included in this revised and expanded edition is a crash course on how to use new fibers; updated information on materials, as well as how to work with and care for them; dozens of new stitches; and diagrams and stitch guides for select projects included in the book. Also featured are thirty-two pages of color photographs with all-new projects; dozens of new stitches explained with photos and drawings; and a new ribbon stitch chapter. The Needlepoint Book is the one book to own on the topic. In one comprehensive volume, it has everything you'll need to create your own artistic, high-quality heirloom.

Exploring a contemporary Judaism rich with the textures of family, memory, and fellowship, Jodi Eichler-Levine takes readers inside a flourishing American Jewish crafting movement. As she traveled across the country to homes, craft conventions, synagogue knitting circles, and craftivist actions, she joined in the making, asked questions, and contemplated her own family stories. Jewish Americans, many of them women, are creating ritual challah covers and prayer shawls, ink, clay, or wood pieces, and other articles for family, friends, or Jewish charities. But they are doing much more: armed with perhaps only a needle and thread, they are reckoning with Jewish identity in a fragile and dangerous world. The work of these crafters embodies a vital Judaism that may lie outside traditional notions of Jewishness, but, Eichler-Levine argues, these crafters are as much engaged as any Jews in honoring and nurturing the fortitude, memory, and community of the Jewish people. Craftmaking is nothing less than an act of generative resilience that fosters survival. Whether taking place in such groups as the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework or the Jewish Hearts for Pittsburgh, or in a home studio, these everyday acts of creativity—yielding a needlepoint rabbi, say, or a handkerchief embroidered with the Hebrew words tikkun olam—are a crucial part what makes a religious life.

Needlework serves functional purposes, such as providing warmth, but has also communicated individual and social identity, spiritual beliefs, and aesthetic ideals throughout time and geography. Needlework traditions are often associated with rituals and celebrations of life events. Often-overlooked by historians, practicing needlework and creating needlework objects provides insights to the history of everyday life. Needlework techniques traveled with merchants and explorers, creating a legacy of cross-cultural exchange. Some techniques are virtually universal and others are limited to a small geographical area. Settlers brought traditions which were sometimes re-invented as indigenous arts. This volume of approximately 75 entries is a comprehensive resource on techniques and cultural traditions for students, information professionals, and collectors.

Designs from the Islamic countries of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.