The book covers giving to deserving charities as well as using quilts as an activist tool. There are patterns and projects to replicate those the organizations make as well as where to donate your creation if you so choose.

From veterans to kids, Quilting for Peace covers a wide range of issues in which sewing has brought people together for a cause. We asked Katherine to stop by talk a bit about her book and quilting from an environmental perspective.

The following is written by Katherine:

Quilts can change people’s minds and alter the course of history. That was the idea behind 19th century quilts promoting prohibition and abolition, the 1,293,300-square-foot, 54-ton AIDS Memorial Quilt, and The Ribbon, a project that wrapped the Pentagon and Hiroshima’s Atomic Bomb Dome in miles of quilts to protest the nuclear arms race. Now a new generation is using patchwork to call attention to an existential threat – this time it’s climate change. Here are three ways you can join them.

Read more of this story »

Life, Money and Illuision: Living on Earth as if we want to stay (New Society, 2009) by Mike Nickerson is a driving tome that reconciles how our economy operates in relationship to the ecological and social systems on which we all depend.

In this second revised edition of Life, Money and Illusion, Nickerson explains that “Life” refers to the biological processes by which living things maintain themselves over time. “Money” represents our economic ideology that claims that as long as the volume of money changing hands increases, all will be well. “Illusion” refers to the fact that these two perspectives are directly opposed in terms of how they would solve current problems.

As one might imagine, a book of this stature and ambition — if providing meaningful analysis and argumentation (which it does superbly) — is not a cursory or a casual read. Running 448 pages, Life, Money and Illusion is meticulously fashioned in easy-to-understand language that makes Nickerson’s arguments and ideas both compelling and provocative. It draws from numerous fields, including ecology, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and, of course, economics.

Read more of this story »

If you are starting to feel inspired to create some simple, affordable, tasty meals from locally available seasonal food, but are a bit clueless how to begin, Lisa Jervis‘ new book, Cook Food: A Manualfesto for Easy, Healthy, Local Eating, may provide just the help that you need.

Read more of this story »

Thank you to everyone who entered. We here at CAGW have been rejuvenated and inspired by all of your upcycling ideas! Don’t forget your other chances to win this beautiful book, you can find out where to enter here.

I know you’ve waited with bated breath so here it is, your chance to win a copy of Sewing Green, the latest and greatest book by Betz White, author of Warm Fuzzies.

Sewing Green offers 25 cute projects made from repurposed or organic materials. Learn how to make aprons and wallets from dress shirts, and sandwich wraps, and lounge pants from organic and thrifted fabrics. The projects are are direct and easy to follow even for this crafter who likes to skip ahead and tweak things. I especially like the sandwich wrap project and the use of PUL - a material that is not vinyl and one that I need to look into more.

White’s favorite project from the book is the woodland draft buster, a much more refined version of the draft catcher that I created a while back. This version looks like an adorable tree branch that helps you save money on your heating bill. White wanted everything in the book to have a good purpose without being preachy. She wanted everything to be fun and easy and show that any one can do these projects and be eco-friendly. “You don’t have to suffer,” she said. “Suffering is not involved.”

Continue reading to enter the contest!

Read more of this story »

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily talks about attachment and natural parenting concepts and resources with Attachment Parenting International (API) founders Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker, who also co-authored the upcoming book “Attached at the Heart”.

Click Play Below,or

This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

Sewing Green is chock full of fun diy projects made from repurposed materials or organic fabrics. And if you’re like me, you can’t wait to get your hands on it! Well here on Crafting a Green World we’ll be giving a copy of this book away to one lucky reader! That’s right you can win Sewing Green! Woo hoo!

So how do you enter? Read the directions over on the Giveaway post. It’s that easy.

Want even more chance to win?

Read more of this story »

For some people, The Nation’s Guide to the Nation by Richard Lingeman and the editors of The Nation could be mistaken for a guidebook for “Cultural Creatives,” we citizens living in America (and abroad) who deeply care about the environment and fellow humankind, where sustainable living is sensible living.  Edited by The Nation’s former executive editor, Richard Lingeman, one might even suspect that The Nation’s Guide to the Nation is a harbinger of the changes yet to come under the new Barack Obama administration, addressing climate change (finally), human rights and community.  It’s no coincidence that the pub date for the guide was Obama’s inauguration date.

“The Nation’s Guide to the Nation,” writes Victor Navasky and Katrina Vanden Heuvel in the book’s Introduction, “is for and about a community of committed, passionate people who have active consciences and a lively sense of social justice.”

This guide covers it all, revealing progressive film festivals to exploring the explosive growth of organic and slow food restaurants.  By what is included in the listing, the guide examines solutions to our energy crisis (not to mention financial crisis) in ways that do not involve transporting stuff around the world and burning lots of oil.  It logs in the latest collection of progressive (and some left-leaning) websites as well as locally owned bookstores that carry what many of the chain stores don’t.  All done with a touch of humor, when necessary.

Read more of this story »

 I decided to go big with the event.  Host it at a nightclub.  Provide hors d’ouvres.  Co-host with a non-profit group and raise money for them during the evening as well.  Solicit over $2,000 worth of gift certificates to raffle away.  Send out invitations to over 2,000 people. 

In other words, we were ready for success. 

Read more of this story »

According to recently discovered NASA satellite data, more than 2 trillion tons of land ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted since 2003 and have caused alarming global climate changes.

So melting icebergs are not just the stuff of fiction. Yet, one hopes that what transpires in Freezing Point (think toxic drinking water, corporate monopolies of icebergs and large-scale eco-terrorism) never becomes reality.

In our conversation, Karen Dionne, who wrote a Huffington Post column titled “Can a Novel Change the World?”, spoke with me about the power of the written word, killer rats, and environmental activism:

How did you become interested in the global water crisis?

My interest in water issues goes back pretty far. My husband and I were part of the “back to land” movement in the ‘70s. We wanted to not be so dependent on the system, so we lived in nature, grew our own food, got our water from nearby wells. I remember reading the book Silent Spring and one thing I took away from it is that there is no pristine place left on earth. I learned that DDT was showing up in bird eggs and that toxins were everywhere. For my generation, it was an awakening of how severe the problem was. So I’ve always been concerned about what man is doing to the environment.

Read more of this story »

In this day and age of highly processed, artificial ingredient-infested “food products”, fermentation offers a beautifully simple, healthy, and delicious alternative to preserving some of our favorite foods. Fermentation is a natural food preservation process typically requiring nothing more than very simple ingredients and time. Many popular, everyday foods would not exist without magical fermentation processes: sauerkraut, cheese, yogurt, miso, soy sauce, beer, and wine, just to name a few.

Fermentation not only preserves food, it makes food more nutritious and digestible, and the practice has spanned thousands of years. (Just one example: over 1000 years ago, Icelandic Vikings transformed milk cultured with rennet into skyr, a kind of thick yogurt-like cheese for later consumption.) It is a transformation made possible by bacteria and fungi. (I like to call it “controlled rotting”). For example: Salt some cabbage and throw it in a crock in the corner of your kitchen, and within a few weeks you’ll have delicious, aromatic sauerkraut, the result of a magical lactic acid fermentation.

Read more of this story »

Those are some of the introductory words of Lou Dematteis, one of the authors and photographers of the new photo book Crude Reflections: Oil, Ruin, and Resistance in the Amazon Rainforest.

Read more of this story »

Garth Johnson over at Extreme Craft just signed a book deal with Quarry Publishing, and he needs your help! The book is called 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse, and he is putting out a call for entries! Garth is looking for all sorts of craft project ideas that involve “repurposed, reused and recycled materials.” Check out the entry categories after the jump!

Read more of this story »

Globe, we have a problem. With an increasingly crowded planet, how can we achieve sustainable development? And do it in time? Our book today might be of assistance, providing the keys to face the global challenges that will take center stage in the 21st century and shape mankind future. Our book for today is:

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet

Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs.Jeffrey D. Sachs is director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and special adviser to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller The End of Poverty, and is internationally renowned for his work as an economic adviser to governments around the world.

Publisher: Penguin Press

Published on: March 18, 2008

What it is about (from Powell’s Books website):
The global economic system now faces a sustainability crisis, Jeffrey Sachs argues, that will overturn many of our basic assumptions about economic life. The changes will be deeper than a rebalancing of economics and politics among different parts of the world; the very idea of competing nation-states scrambling for power, resources, and markets will, in some crucial respects, become passe. The only question is how bad it will have to get before we face the unavoidable. We will have to learn on a global scale some of the hard lessons that successful societies have gradually and grudgingly learned within national borders: that there must be common ground between rich and poor, among competing ethnic groups, and between society and nature.

Read more of this story »

Do you envision yourself the next Thoreau? Or Emerson? Or maybe you just really want to tell someone about your pet polar bear, your fight to save your favorite tree, or your terrifying bike ride to work in the name of the environment?

If you can shape the future of the fight on global warming in just 200-500 words, then submit your personal essay to the anthology Thoreau’s Legacy: American Stories About Global Warming.

Read more of this story »

For those of us who grew up reading the Little House on the Prairie books, those images of independent Laura, the vast beauty of the prairie and butter churning prompted a generation of ten year old girls who wanted to hitch up the covered wagon and homestead. What would Laura think if she knew some of us actually did? As I re-read the books as a forty- something adult - surrounded by my five acre farmstead Inn Serendipity, my abundant gardens, pile of wood for the woodstove and starry open skies above - I realize what an impact those books had on me decades ago. Laura Ingalls went beyond my third grade Halloween costume; her words inspired me, in my own way, to become Laura Ingalls (minus the butter churning. I’ll let Organic Valley handle that).

Books also inspired my fellow farmer friend, Kriss Marion, who traded the Chicago scene in 2005 to launch Circle M Farm in Blanchardville, Wisconsin, running a CSA (community supported agriculture) and a fiber business. “People often ask me how it happened that we uprooted our city family and came to be market farming in southwest Wisconsin,” explains Marion. “The answer, plain and simple, is books.”

Read more of this story »

Warning: Reading such literature can prompt you to quit your day job, follow new dreams and move to a farm in southwestern Wisconsin – or other paths of change that may not currently be in your big picture life plan. That’s exactly what happened to my fellow farmer friend, Kriss Marion, who traded the Chicago scene in 2005 to launch Circle M Farm in Blanchardville, Wisconsin, running a CSA (community supported agriculture) and a fiber business. “People often ask me how it happened that we uprooted our city family and came to be market farming in southwest Wisconsin,” explains Marion. “The answer, plain and simple, is books.”

Read more of this story »

On June 23, 1988, NASA Scientist James E. Hansen testified on Capitol Hill before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Hansen told the Senate committee that global warming was real – and was happening now.

Other news sources also had articles and coverage of the 20th anniversary of ‘global warming.’ Links to some of those stories can also be found on the Island Press site.

Read more of this story »

For the first book on our Top 5 Must-Have DIY Crochet Tomes list, most knitters will recognize Debbie Stoller as the editor-in-chief of Bust Magazine and the writer of all three Stitch ‘N Bitch books. Crafters were both surprised and delighted when she released Stitch ‘N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker in 2006.

Similar to her first Stitch ‘N Bitch book about knitting, The Happy Hooker is an introduction to the history and process of crochet as well as a kick-ass pattern book. Whether you are an experienced knitter or new to fiber crafts all together, The Happy Hooker is the perfect first crochet book for everyone.

Crochet shares some similarities with knitting. One major likeness is that the more you know, the more likely you are to make a mistake. No crocheters’ bookshelf would be complete without The Crochet Answer Book: Solutions to Every Problem You’ll Ever Face; Answers to Every Question You’ll Ever Ask by Edie Eckman.

With line illustration, charts, details on tools, specific techniques, standard crochet abbreviations, common crochet terms and phrases, standard body measurements and sizing, suggested sizes for accessories and household items, and yarn care symbols; this is the only book you will need when your loops and hooks don’t look right.

Answers to detailed questions about all aspects of crochet is the feature element of the book, with chapters on gauge, circles, edges, and finishing. Thanks to Edie’s support, you will feel more confident to progress into more detailed crochet patterns and projects.

Read more of this story »

With the first tome based around the element of earth, the second tome is all about water (as the title suggests). Miho’s scientist parents were lost at sea and she now has to move to Japan to live with her uncle. Though she speaks no Japanese and has never met her uncle, she has no other choice but to move in with her only living relative.

While visiting the beach house of her grandparents (who have already passed on), Miho meets the already infamous otter, Gaia. Miho is quickly swept up in the excitement of being able to talk to all the creatures of the sea and makes friends with a large group of dolphins. Of course, her adult uncle thinks she is nuts and simply can’t follow orders when he tells her to be home at a certain time and she continues to come home dripping wet.

Read more of this story »

During my last creative brainstorm I relocated a favorite journal of mine (pictured). I acquired my cowboy journal at the last large indie craft fair in my area called Crafty Bastards. The journal, by Ex Libris Anonymous, is made from an old library book. It is hand made and one of a kind. Snippets of text from the original book are sprinkled throughout the blank pages of acid free paper.

I recall that Ex Libris Anonymous’ booth at Crafty Bastards was constantly packed that day. I elbowed my way in to sort through bins and bins of great vintage book covers. After coming back twice, I finally settled on a small journal with the shell of the Spiderweb Trail by Eugene Cunningham.

The vintage books that make up Ex Libris’ journals are cute, charming and have a kitschy vibe. The hard cover is a perfect writing surface and the spiral binding makes it easy to flip to the next blank page and the select passages can make for quick inspiration. I use mine to jot down notes and make quick sketches.

Read more of this story »