Instead of having to meticulously plan every seam, paper piecing gives you a little more freedom and it’s a lot less intimidating to begin.

One of my favorite books on the subject is “Paper Piece a Flower Garden” by Jodie Davis.

The book is filled with patterns for leaves, flowers, bugs, birds and animals – in short, anything that you could find living in a flower garden!  It doesn’t give you a set pattern for putting the blocks together, instead the book encourages you to be creative by making your own design.

I’ve made quite a few motifs from the book and have had excellent results with the finished blocks.  You have to be careful with paying attention to the numbered seams, but I highly recommend this book – it’s a great way to get an intricate quilt.

image: Amazon

disclaimer: This is not an affiliate link, nor do I receive any benefit from posting this review

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Book Review: Paper Piece a Flower Garden

The patterns are simple in style, and then provide templates where you can make the accessories that go with each doll. Many of the accessories are made of felt or eyes you can sew on. The author gives you the idea but lets you choose how you want to accessorize. All in all, a very fun book.

Image: Amazon

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Review: Creepy Cute Crochet

While I appreciated the effort, however, I was underwhelmed by the book. Buckingham uses several examples of different types of women in order to make his points, and I found these a bit off-putting. I had hoped to be inspired by finding out what successful women do, and instead found this advice condescending.

The book also has a “strong life test” to help women discover their purpose. Again, I did not find that this helped me. Mr. Buckingham has written several other wonderful books that do inspire women. I would recommend reading First, Break All the Rules which is geared toward business life. I think women will actually be able to get a lot of inspiration for their personal life with that book, rather than Find Your Strongest Life.

Image: Amazon

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Review: Find Your Strongest Life

Everything…Ex* is written in a witty, colloquial, and organized style.  It is filled with short anecdotes, tons of pop culture references, and bullet points that break down the problems and solutions of the most common problems that the authors have witnessed in their studies of relationships, yet is still fun and easy to read.  And yes, I did say solutions!  I was extremely happy to see that Belle and Fiordaliso took strong stances on so many issues that could be debated and actually offered detailed proposals for dealing with ex-relationship challenges.  While I was reading Everything…Ex*, I really felt like I was getting educated and reliable advice from my inner circle of girlfriends…and they just happened to be professional psychotherapists.

Belle and Fiordaliso do a wonderful job of recognizing the complicated personal issues like feelings of abandonment, fear, a desire to please others and low self esteem that come to the surface when ending relationships.  The insightful way that they diagnose and offer antidotes to these personal insecurities can be extrapolated to address larger issues that may be causing problems in other areas of someone’s life.  These women really understand the deep underlying issues that can make it so devastatingly hard to deal with the end of a relationship.

If you are single and have an ex in your life, this book is a MUST READ.  If you are in any other situation, I still recommend this book because it has so much helpful information about diagnosing personal insecurities and finding ways to focus on yourself so that you can be happy and loving.  This fun little book is just spilling over with answers to why women feel the way that they do in so many situations.

You can visit the Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Ex* (*a former spouse, lover, fling or “friend”) website at Everything Ex to find out more about the authors and read their pop culture relationship blog.  The book is available online and in stores starting September 1.

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Review: A Smart Book About Relationships

I’ve got a copy of Interweave Press’s new fabric arts book to give away! Fabricate: 17 innovative sewing projects that make fabric the star can be yours just for leaving a comment below. Tell me what the last fabric project you did was, or what you’d like it to be if you’ve never worked with fabric before. Next Tuesday, I’ll randomly choose a winner from the comments list. You can read a review of Fabricate here.

FREE STUFF ALERT***FREE STUFF ALERT!!

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Giveaway: Fabricate

And I am a fan of Bethenny’s. I appreciate her attitude toward things and think she’s certainly interesting to watch! So I was very excited to see what she had to say about eating and living, because when you’re talking about being “naturally thin,” that’s just what you’re speaking to.

A naturally thin person, in her eyes, is someone who eats whatever they want (they don’t deprive themselves) and they don’t obsess about food. They don’t beat themselves up when they mess up, but they are good to themselves and don’t binge eat or act as if every meal is going to be their last, either.

To get to this miraculous point (and for some, it is truly miraculous), Bethenny offers ten tips to act, think, and live as a naturally thin person. The tips are all common sense things (such as: “you can have it all, you just can’t have it all at once” and “check yourself before you wreck yourself.”) The tips are not the secret to this book, however. To me, it’s Bethenny’s explanation of each and her approach. You will definitely appreciate her realistic take on life! She doesn’t, for example, believe in counting calories or carbs or weighing food because it just doesn’t make people stick on a “diet” long-term. She talks about never dieting again, but instead looking at food as something you balance, making good choices, and being realistic.

The thing women will find very helpful is the attitude and spirit of this book, because it will change your life.

If I had one criticism at all, it would be for the second half of the book where Bethenny talks about the ten tips in practice by showing us what she ate during a typical week. I found this confusing and sometimes a bit aggravating. There were a couple times she mentioned skipping meals due to her busy schedule (she doesn’t recommend people do this, it was a circumstance of her own doing) and then just fluffed it off like “I didn’t eat lunch, but you know what, I didn’t miss it.” To me this was like sitting with a thin person who tells you they forget to eat. When you are struggling to eat normally and lose weight, you don’t want to hear how people forget to eat.

So rather than hear how Bethenny put this plan into practice for a typical week, I would have left it entirely out of the book or put more of a structured plan into place so people could see what she was talking about. Part of the reason she didn’t do that, of course, is because she doesn’t want to give us hard and fast measurements for food. She wants us to develop our real hunger and learn to eat based on what our individual bodies need. (So I understood what she was trying to do at the end but it didn’t work for me.)

Still, if you read nothing but the first half of this book alone, your life will change for the better. It’s truly positive and smart, and it will help change your thinking about food and your body. I highly recommend for every woman on the planet to read it!

Image: Amazon.com

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Naturally Thin: A Review

Notes on Cooking
by Lauren Braun Costello

Here are all the essential things that we used to either learn from our mothers (or possibly in school during home ec class), but that just aren’t necessarily passed on anymore.

Author Lauren Braun Costello say that “A recipe is like a road map.  A road map shows you where to go and how to get there, but does not teach you how to drive.”  The “how to drive” part is what this clever book covers, the knowledge that will help you to think like a chef.

Some of the advice is practical (such as add butter to a cold pan, oil to a hot pan, and why) and some is philosophical.  Here’s my favorite so far:

Embrace the mundane.
Do not bemoan the pedestrian tasks.  Find pleasure in peeling a carrot, steaming rice, searing a steak, prepping, cleaning.  Your reward is in the work, not around it.

Cooking is not about convenience, but the pleasure earned through creation and in giveing pleasure to others.  Shortcuts are tempting, even necessary from time to time.  But it you rely on pre-cut vegetables, pre-marinated meats, and canned sauces, you are not cooking.  You are assembling.

I don’t want to be an assembler.  I want to be a cook.

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Book review: Notes on Cooking

The new book is Fabric Art Projects, and my supposition is that it is an expansion of the last book.  The description says that it teaches techniques and provides projects to use them in.  I’m thinking that perhaps it would be best to take a look at the book first if you’ve already bought the first one, but if not, this one might be a nice alternative.

I’ve not seen a copy of this book yet, but I’m very much looking forward to it!

Image: Amazon

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Book review: Fabric Art Projects

In Food & Wine Cocktails ‘09, the 150 recipes included here are the deemed the best of the best, with a wonderful at-a-glance type of guide to let you know how complicated, what type of liquor, and what shape of glass for each.  There is also an entire section of Mocktails, which I really appreciate since I found out anew that I am a lightweight when it comes to mixed drinks!

Being a Campari lover, I decided to try out the Negroni (page 123), a delightful mixture of gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari.  My only problem was that the drink ended up being 3 full ounces, with no fillers, and that was TOO MUCH for me!  Next time, I’ll mix it up and split it with my sweetie instead of making us one each 

Negroni

Check out The Bookshop for more links to books about fine food in addition to this excellent guide!

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Book review: Cocktails ‘09

Fabricate
by Susan Wasinger

Fabricate shows how to create unique effects by using both classic and modern techniques: pleats, crinkles, cut and fray, laminates, layers, applique, crazy stitch, burn out, etching, and more. My goodness!

Check out The Bookshop for lots more links to books about mixed media art in addition to this fine guide!

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Book review: Fabricate