Start with patchwork, add a few friends, and stitch it all together with gorgeous new quilt patterns from two beloved designers! Kim Diehl and Jo Morton first paired up for the best seller Simple Friendships; now they're back to share more showstopping quilts that reflect each designer's signature style. Every chapter showcases a classic quilt block; Kim and Jo each transform the block into a spectacular quilt. Discover fresh spins on Churn Dash, Ohio Star, Flock of Geese, and more. Instructions make it easy to create blocks on your own or as part of a group block exchange--and the sampler quilts are simply stunning.

It's hard to imagine authors Kim Diehl and Jo Morton could get any better--until they joined forces to share their signature looks. Enjoy stitching this creative blend of 14 spectacular quilts, all created from classic blocks. Discover fun ways to exchange blocks with friends or make a scrappy mix yourself Enjoy a wide variety of small- to medium-sized quilts, ranging from a table topper to wall hangings and lap quilts Ideal for quilters who love scrappy patchwork style and classic appliqueVideo

From Aristotle to contemporary soap operas, friendship has always been a subject of fascination. But scholarly investigation of the broad social relevance of friendship has been neglected. Rethinking Friendship describes the varied nature of personal relationships today, and also locates friendship in contemporary debates about individualization and the supposed "collapse of community." Exploring friendships with partners and family as well as "friends," the book reveals ways in which friends and friendlike ties are an important and unacknowledged source of social glue. Using a rigorous analysis of in-depth interviews, the authors develop a set of innovative concepts--friendship repertoires (the range of friendships people have); friendship modes (the way people make and maintain friendships over time); and patterns of suffusion (the extent to which boundaries between friends and family become blurred). These concepts form the basis of a typology of personal communities that vary in the roles played by friends, family, partners, and neighbors. Combining scholarly depth and rich description, this absorbing and accessible book will appeal to all those interested in informal social relationships, including students of methodology and policymakers. With its challenge to pessimistic commentators, Rethinking Friendship urges us to resist sweeping generalizations and to acknowledge the sheer diversity of social life today.

'Brilliantly empowering and truly life-changing ... a must-read for improving relationships.' - Gwyneth Paltrow 'Utterly fantastic. Read immediately' - Claudia Winkleman We all want to get on with people better. Consider this your personal toolkit to developing more productive and satisfying relationships in every aspect of your life. Do you long to have deeper, more meaningful connections with your loved ones? Do you want to resolve conflicts with friends and work effectively with colleagues? Having good relationships – from partners and family to your friends or colleagues – is the key to thriving. Research shows it impacts your health, well-being, financial security and happiness. But how do you get there? Leading psychologist Janet Reibstein shows you step by step how to 'learn' relationships, so you can make even the most difficult interaction a positive one. With case studies, practical advice and centred around four essential skills, Good Relations shows you how to harness healthy, successful relationships. You'll master how to communicate clearly, develop empathy and make crucial repairs when things go wrong.

Step into the enchanting world of Louisa May Alcott, one of America's most beloved authors, with this comprehensive collection of her timeless works. From the heartwarming tales of the March sisters in "Little Women" to the adventurous spirit of "Little Men" and "Jo's Boys", this anthology brings together Alcott's most cherished stories in one beautifully curated volume. Born in 1832, Alcott's life was a rich tapestry of experiences that deeply influenced her writing. Raised in the intellectually vibrant communities of Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, she was surrounded by literary luminaries such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Despite facing financial hardships, Alcott's determination and passion for storytelling led her to create works that have captivated readers for generations. This collection not only includes her famous novels but also features lesser-known gems and her early writing under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard. Each piece showcases Alcott's unique ability to weave compelling narratives with strong, independent characters and themes of family, love, and resilience. Celebrate the enduring legacy of Louisa May Alcott with this definitive collection. Whether you're a lifelong fan or discovering her work for the first time, these stories will inspire, entertain, and leave a lasting impression: Little Women - Little Men - Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy - An Old-Fashioned Girl - Jo's Boys - Eight Cousins - Rose in Bloom: Her Life, Letters, and Journals - Jack and Jill - Flower Fables - A Modern Cinderella; Or, The Little Old Shoe, and Other Stories - Hospital Sketches - Behind a Mask; or, a Woman's Power - The Mysterious Key and What It Opened - A Garland for Girls - Under the Lilacs - The Abbot's Ghost, or Maurice Treherne's Temptation: A Christmas Story - Work: A Story of Experience - Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag - - Kitty's Class Day and Other Stories - Comic Tragedies - The Louisa Alcott Reader: a Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School - Pauline's Passion and Punishment - Spinning-Wheel Stories - Moods - Eight Cousins - Marjorie's Three Gifts - Lulu's Library - The Candy Country - Rose in Bloom - Silver Pitchers: and Independence, a Centennial Love Story - Mountain-Laurel and Maidenhair - May Flowers - On Picket Duty, and Other Tales . etc.

Central to this book are Gbigbil women's experiences with different "reproductive interruptions": miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths, induced abortions, and infertility. Rather than consider these events as inherently dissimilar as women do in Western countries, the Gbigbil women of eastern Cameroon see them all as instances of "wasted wombs" that leave their reproductive trajectories hanging in the balance. The women must navigate this uncertainty while negotiating their social positions, aspirations for the future, and the current workings of their bodies. Providing an intimate look into these processes, Wasted Wombs shows how Gbigbil women constantly shift their interpretations of when a pregnancy starts, what it contains, and what is lost in case of a reproductive interruption, in contrast to Western conceptions of fertility and loss. Depending on the context and on their life aspirations--be it marriage and motherhood, or an educational trajectory and employment, or profitable sexual affairs with so-called "big fish"--women negotiate and manipulate the meanings and effects of reproductive interruptions. Paradoxically, they often do so while portraying themselves as powerless. Wasted Wombs carefully analyzes such tactics in relation to the various social predicaments that emerge around reproductive interruptions, as well as the capricious workings of women's physical bodies.

Interviewing is one of the most common techniques used to conduct qualitative research in the social sciences and humanities. As a result of globalization, researchers increasingly conduct interviews cross-, inter- and intra-nationally. This raises important questions about how differences and sameness are understood and negotiated within the interview situation, as well as the power structures at play within qualitative research, and the role that reflexivity plays in mediating these. What does it mean to interview Black women as a Black woman? How is ethnicity negotiated across various qualitative research encounters? How are differences bridged or asserted in feminist interviewing? These are just some of the questions explored in the chapters in this volume. Drawing on their recent research, the contributors detail their experiences of engaging in qualitative interviewing and examine how they negotiated the various dilemmas they encountered. The contributions challenge some of the assumptions made in early feminist work on interviewing, providing nuanced accounts of actual research experiences. This volume explores the practice and implications of conducting cross-, inter- and intra-cultural interviewing, bringing together researchers from a range of disciplines and countries to describe and analyse both its vicissitudes and its advantages.