Explore personal transformation through the stitching of dreams and intentions. Anything but ordinary, Mystical Stitches combines the beloved and accessible craft of embroidery with a spiritual element, introducing a rich treasury of 200 magical symbols you can use to set an intention and create personal icons to wear or embellish items in the home. Christi Johnson offers unique patterns inspired by botanicals, animals, numbers, the cosmos, earth elements, zodiac signs, and mythical beasts, for novice or well-practiced crafters to combine into talismans with personal meaning. Johnson’s folk art style is vibrant and unintimidating and provides a framework for bringing spiritual elements into physical form. This publication conforms to the EPUB Accessibility specification at WCAG 2.0 Level AA.
Course objectives: Recognize relationship as an emotional healer; identify triggers, move through them, and come back into ease and alivenessDiscover how intimacy in relationship requires curiosity, wonder, and the ability to find the truth of one's experience deep in one's bodyDiscuss how to speak the "unarguable truth"; utilizing the eight step moving emotions process—moving from stuckness into emotional flowDefine three toxic habits within relationships and their antidotes—transforming our own behavior, as well as those around us through positive attentionSummarize how to move out of power struggles within relationships and into agreements which allow everyone to get everything they wantDiscuss how to live within the relationship you really want moving between contractiona and expansiveness—welcoming appreciations, creativity, play, aliveness, as well as love for self and otherUtilize checklists, tools, and journaling exercises as a way to engage, reflect and explore relationship skills and self-growth What are the ingredients of a successful and enduring relationship? Love, passion, and commitment are all vital—yet without certain basic skills, even the most devoted partners can find themselves descending into arguments, power struggles, and disillusionment. With The Relationship Skills Workbook, Dr. Julia Colwell presents a practical guide for building a conscious partnership based on cooperation and trust—offering relationship-saving techniques and on-the-spot conflict resolution tools for disarming the explosive clashes that most commonly break couples apart. In this friendly and easy-to-use resource, Dr. Colwell teaches you essential tools for: Crisis and conflict first aid—communication strategies and emotional mastery techniques to stop arguing and start connectingGetting unstuck from power struggles—how to shift from deadlock to mutual responsibility and supportEnding the blame game—letting go of accusation and resentment to create win-win agreementsSupporting each other's growth and success—how to retain your personal autonomy while fully committing to your partner's happinessMoving from reactivity to creative solutions—techniques to keep your brain's flight-or-fight instinct from undermining your heart's desiresSustaining love, passion, and romance—how you can choose to create a magnificent relationship together "Relationships, while seemingly complicated, don't have to be so mysterious," Dr. Colwell says. "What I've learned from my decades of personal and professional experiences is that a few elegantly simple concepts and skills can help any couple through the most difficult spots—and help us transform conflict into intimacy, passion, and ever-deepening love."
In her inspiring book, Love in Every Stitch: Stories of Knitting and Healing, master knitter, teacher, and widely published knitwear designer Lee Gant shares real-life stories about the power of knitting. As an employee of three different yarn stores, a teacher of countless knitting classes, and a volunteer with at-risk youth, Lee has had the opportunity to gather diverse stories. The stories Lee shares about herself and fellow knitters from around the world illustrate how each stitch and purl can comfort and calm, heal and renew. A suicidal teenager crochets through pregnancy. A dying woman finds comfort in the company of knitters. A woman finds the courage to face her estranged parents. A woman going blind realizes she can still knit — and experience life. And Lee’s life, riddled with more than just anxiety, has at last become stable and productive. This book includes stories of women, men, and teens who have experienced profound change and enlightenment through knitting and crochet.
This how-to guide and personal memoir features 20 meditative sewing projects and 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.
Expert crafter, Lisa Comfort shares the secrets of her sewing passion. She guides you through all the basics of sewing by hand and machine, as well as providing you with the skills you need to follow her simple but stylish projects.
Stitching together memories of motherhood and daughterhood, the writers in this anthology use the metaphor of quilt making to explore the textures and nuances of these sometimes joyful, sometimes turbulent relationships. This confluence of fiction, personal narrative, essay, and poetry offers generous views into the heart of these women's unromanticized struggles with the cycle of poverty, sexism, racism, incest, alcoholism in the family, and their struggle to discover their own identities in a white patriarchal society. Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Bell Hooks, Sonia Sanchez, and 43 other women stitch together personally revealing and empowering memories of the legacy of strength, determination, and spirituality cultivated by years of learning to survive, passed down from mother to daughter. The introduction familiarizes the reader with the significance of quilt making in African American society. ISBN 0-8070-0910-5: $19.95.
Just a Dropped Stitch is a memoir told in interlocking short stories. It's a family photo album; each snapshot tells a mini-story. You're sure you understand what you're seeing, but it's not until you've finished flipping through the entire album that you develop an intimate sense of who this family is. You thought you knew them, understood all the subtleties and dynamics, but, change the angle, soften the focus, flip the page; there's a different story. Jesse, the narrator, is on a search. She's trying to identify the "dropped stitches" in her own life, to name them, and reknit them into a whole. As the book opens Jesse's mother is dying, but Jesse and her father find it impossible to face the inevitable. Turn the page: Jesse desperately wants to have children; she's a lesbian; she has to figure out how to make that happen. Later we meet her children, Noah and Sophie; we're introduced to Anna, who becomes Jesse's spouse, before the world has caught up with the concept. We meet grandparents, and learn that in Jesse's family writing is revered, but infused with unspoken taboos. And we meet her brothers who each has a particular place to stand in the family portrait. Jesse has a story to tell, and she isn't sure it's safe to tell it. Loss and grief, being silenced and silencing oneself, becoming frozen, and the heat-generating, melting power of love, these are the themes in Just a Dropped Stitch. The importance of naming, the redemption that comes from breaking silences, these are the interwoven threads. Meanwhile, keep flipping through the album and you see snapshots of everyday life: hiking with Noah, shopping with Sophie for a bat mitzvah dress. And Jesse's mother, who refuses to completely disappear, makes a surprise appearance, embarrassing Jesse at a job interview. As we close the album, we're keeping vigil with Jesse in the hospital while she waits to hear whether she has the disease that killed her mother. And, then, there's a final snapshot: a handmade Chinese box, with sides that drop open, revealing a blood-red interior where there's nothing to hide.
Ever since she moved to Sweet Briar, South Carolina, Yankee librarian Tori Sinclair has been the talk of the tiny town. But she's been so busy at work, winning over the sewing circle, and trying to forget her cheating ex that she hasn't even had time to baste together a pillow, let alone mind local gossip. Then she finds the hometown sweetheart dead at her back door... Everyone believes the police investigator, who's just fixin' to link Tori to the murder in a love triangle gone bad. To clear her name, Tori will have to rely on her new sewing sisters and stitch together the truth- or be darned.
