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Got fur balls?

Are your favorite sweaters covered with cat hair? Do you love to make quirky and one-of-a-kind crafting projects? If so, then it’s time to throw away your lint roller and curl up with your kitty! Crafting with Cat Hair shows readers how to transform stray clumps of fur into soft and adorable handicrafts. From kitty tote bags and finger puppets to fluffy cat toys, picture frames, and more, these projects are cat-friendly, eco-friendly, and require no special equipment or training. You can make most of these projects in under an hour—with a little help, of course, from your feline friends!

Sometimes you just want to cuddle up with a handmade doll of Mr. T! With Knitted Icons, you'll find patterns for creating dolls of the world s most beloved personalities everyone from Madonna and Jackie O to Chairman Mao and Che Guevara. Each doll measures a substantial 10 inches tall suitable for posing on your desk, bookshelf, or other doll display.

From Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley to Gandhi, Queen Elizabeth II, and even King Kong, Knitted Icons is full of memorable personalities and easy-to-use patterns. Every finished doll is photographed in glorious full color and accompanied by a brief biography, along with memorable quotes from the icons themselves.

Go ahead knit yourself a legend!

"The Museum of Kitschy Stitches’s hilarious tour through the annals of yarn history is a not-to-be-missed comedic cautionary tale.”-Debbie Stoller, author of Stitch ‘N Bitch

Hideous hats, ridiculous wraps, embarrassing neckties, and more-they’re all on display at The Museum of Kitschy Stitches, a photographic gallery of knitting and crocheting horrors. Want to see sci-fi inspired headgear from the 1940s? Gender-bending sweater sets from the ’50s and ’60s? Groovy outerwear from the ’70s? Museum curator Stitchy McYarnpants has sifted through decades of vintage catalogs, patterns, and advertisements to assemble this astonishingly awful collection. Along the way, she provides sidesplitting commentary about the models and their very unfortunate fashion choices. It’s essential reading for knitters and nostalgia buffs!

STITCHY MCYARNPANTS is the nom de plume of mild-mannered computer programmer Debbie Brisson, who has made a splash on the Web with her “confessions of a husband-neglecting, cat-shooing, yarn-hoarding knitaholic” blog and Museum of Kitschy Stitches. She lives in Chelsea, Massachusetts.

Julia Roberts does it. Madonna, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Hilary Swank all do it. We’re talking about knitting, a fiber art as old as time, and people across America are rediscovering the joy of stitching.

But how do you tell your knits from your purls? Your k2togs from your ssks? Your daisy stitches from your double basket patterns? All these answers and more can be found in Field Guide to Knitting, a comprehensive reference with more than 200 stitch patterns and variations. You will learn the history of each stitch, the best stitch gauges for getting pattern definition, great ways to use the pattern (scarves, sweaters, hats), and more. Chockful of useful instructions and more than 200 photographs, the compact Field Guide to Knitting belongs in the yarn bags of knitters everywhere!

JACKIE PAWLOWSKI is a Manhattan-based writer and knitwear designer. She writes about knitting at www.yarnish.com.

If you’re a fan of amigurumi, you already know that super-sweet crocheted bunnies and kitties and pandas have taken the indie craft world by storm. Well, the dolls in Creepy Cute Crochet eat your typical amigurumi for breakfast. This unique craft book contains more than 20 patterns for zombies, ninjas, Vikings, vampires, aliens, robots, and even Death himself. Each easy-to-follow pattern is presented with step-by-step diagrams, hilarious commentary, and full-color photographs of the creatures in their natural environments. Plus each pattern is ranked according to difficulty so that even beginners can share in the fun.

The scary-cute photographs, accessible text, and illustrated patterns are sure to be a hit with indie crafters, angsty teens, and hip moms everywhere.

CHRISTEN HADEN, a.k.a. NeedleNoodles, is a crafting dynamo who lives in Virginia.

Open this wicked little volume for a spellbinding collection of dark arts and crafts! It’s full of color photos and simple illustrated instructions for crafting everyday items into wonderfully witchy treats:

    * A truly wicked charm bracelet made from a handful of old trinkets
    * Spooky little skulls made out of marshmallows
    * A bewitching midnight black tutu that can be stitched up in minutes
    * A wicked poison apple fashioned from an everyday plushie
    * Witches, monsters, spiders, and ghosts to top your cupcakes
    * And much, much more!

Each step-by-step project is as easy as the wave of a wand-no previous crafting experience required!

MARGARET McGUIRE edits and moonlights as a crafter in Philadelphia. ALICIA KACHMAR casts spells and stitches from her home in New York.