Quarry Books – serie

Observe your world through the pages of a sketchbook and find art in the everyday moments of ordinary life.How would life change if, whenever you found a free moment, you reached for a sketchbook instead of your phone? Make (Sneaky) Art is not just a guide to drawing on location; it is a way to actively engage with our world and reclaim our attention spans.After moving to the United States, author Nishant Jain began carrying a sketchbook to better understand his new world and learn to draw. Hesitant to do “this silly thing” in public, he developed a practice of sneaky art—making quick, secret sketches from observation inside a small sketchbook. Make (Sneaky) Art is the culmination of this journey of self-education—to become an artist and a more mindful observer of the world.In this book, you will find:Techniques to draw your environment: Learn to draw as a way to be present in your world, free from the distractions of devices and notifications.Ideas to overcome your imposter syndrome: Let go of the baggage that prevents you from following your creative instincts.Tips to sustain a lifelong sketchbook habit: Integrate sketching into your daily routine, wherever it takes you.Today is the day to begin the visual journal of your life.

Learn to create gorgeous portraits in watercolor using easy techniques.  Written and illustrated by Ana Santos, an artist and illustrator and a popular online instructor, Creative Portraits in Watercolor presents simple step-by-step demonstrations and beginner-level exercises to create expressive, imaginative portraits. You’ll learn about:    Essential Materials. Types of watercolor paint, papers, brushes, and other supplies. Color. Its essential characteristics, plus the color wheel, harmonies, contrasts, and creating palettes. How to Work with Watercolor. Fundamental methods, brushstrokes, transparencies, gradients, and techniques for creating areas of light. Proportions of the Face. Basic proportions and feature positions for front, profile, and three-quarter views, plus creating imaginary faces and transferring reference images. Creative Portraits. Discover 45 fun exercises and inspiring examples that explore painting portraits using key color wheel palettes, mixed media combinations, and thought-provoking techniques. With Creative Portraits in Watercolor, you’ll learn to achieve stunning results with a wide variety of simple techniques.

Learn how to create a one-of-a-kind travel journal that documents your adventures using drawing, painting, lettering, ephemera, and more.Travel journaling is a fun, creative way to record the sights, sounds, smells, and flavors of life on the road. In The Art of the Travel Journal, you’ll find techniques, ideas, and inspiration for creating a lasting record of your travels that you’ll treasure for years to come. No experience is necessary, and you can bring your signature style or develop new ones as you discover exciting new artistic opportunities.You’ll discover how to make your journal pages come to life with easy techniques for sketching the big picture or small details, adding simple lettering, creating stunning color palettes, and decorating pages with fun mementos that travelers love to collect, such as tickets, packaging, maps, and more. Also find tips on how to work in transit and how to plan and pack for maximum efficiency and enjoyment. Best of all, the techniques also work for documenting life right where you are, and beginners can dive in and create with confidence.Author Abbey Sy (Instagram: @abbeysy) is a veteran traveler who has created her own travel journals for years, sharing the records of her global escapades on her social media platforms. In addition to filling this book with step-by-step instructions for a variety of techniques, she takes a holistic approach to journaling by including information on the benefits of journaling, how to hone a creative habit, and how to develop a unique style.Other features of the book: All facets of journaling are covered, from start to finish: pre-trip planning, setting intentions, gathering supplies, staying motivated, and how to archive completed journals.Not sure which supplies to take? Sometimes less is more—get a rundown on how to build the best compact traveling art kit.Explore special sections on making a travel zine and sending artful postcards, enriching the experience of being on the road.Learn composition tips for creating stunning journal pages and spreads.Get great ideas for storing ephemera and other bits travelers collect.Discover journal spread ideas for a variety of themes, such as architecture, museums and galleries, plants and nature, and food and drink.Find creative ideas for documenting short trips and staycations.Tickets? Check. Passport? Check. Travel journal? Check! Let The Art of the Travel Journal make every trip satisfyingly creative.

Discover the timeless art of flower pressing with simple, sustainable techniques and projects.The Pressed Flower Handbook is an inspiring and accessible guide to the age-old craft of flower pressing, told through the seasonal rhythms of Sarah Holland’s garden. As the artist behind the popular Meadow and Thyme brand, Sarah brings her thoughtful perspective and sustainable ethos to every page, showing you how to grow, gather, press, and craft with flowers through all four seasons.This richly illustrated book features step-by-step instructions for traditional pressing techniques, storage tips, troubleshooting, and guidance on preserving color and form. It also includes a beautiful collection of creative projects that turn pressed flowers into lasting works of art—such as wall pieces, greeting cards, and meaningful tokens to share.Accompanied by gorgeous color photographs and presented in a warm, instructive voice, you’ll find:Season-by-season advice for gathering the best blooms and foliageSarah’s personal techniques for successful pressing using natural methodsTroubleshooting tips for avoiding mold, fading, breakage, and other potential problemsProject inspiration for art, gifts, keepsakes, and decorAn introduction to floriography, the language of flowers, to add symbolic meaning to your creationsReflections on mindfulness and slow living, making this book as restorative as the craft itselfWhether you’re new to flower pressing or returning to it with fresh eyes, The Pressed Flower Handbook invites you to engage deeply with the natural world—and to create beautiful things that last. It’s both a how-to guide and a celebration of sustainable creativity.

When the Showers family arrived in Bloomington, Indiana, the railroad had only recently come to town and a modest university was struggling to survive. Having spent the prior 18 years moving from place to place, the family decided to settle down and invest its modest resources to start a furniture company. The business proved to be extremely profitable and a stroke of good fortune for the small community. The company's success strengthened Bloomington's infrastructure, helping to develop new neighborhoods, and the philanthropic acts of the Showers family supported the town's continued development. The family's contributions helped Indiana University through difficult times and paved the way to its becoming the largest university in the state. In this detailed history of Showers Brothers, Carrol Krause tells the story of a remarkably successful collaboration between business, town, and gown.

Do Midwesterners have a peculiar way of looking at the world? Is there something not quite right about the way they see things? For such a normal place, the heartland has produced some writers who take a most individual approach to storytelling. And the result—to the delight of readers everywhere—has been stories that reveal the mystery, joy, and enchantment in the most ordinary and incidental moments of life. These 33 exceptional tales showcase the peculiarly wonderful vision of some of the region's best-known or soon-to-be-celebrated writers. Each invites its readers to see the world through different eyes and see it anew.

Indiana is home to the world's third-largest Amish population. Indiana's 19 Old Order Amish and two Old Order Mennonite communities show a surprising diversity despite all that unites them as a distinct culture. This contemporary portrait of Indiana's Amish is the first book-length overview of Amish in the state. Thomas J. Meyers and Steven M. Nolt present an overview of the beliefs and values of the Amish, their migration history, and the differences between the state's two major Amish ethnic groups (Pennsylvania Dutch and Swiss). They also talk about Indiana's Old Order Mennonites, a group too often confused with the Amish. Meyers and Nolt situate the Amish in their Indiana context, noting an involvement with Indiana's industrial economy that may surprise some. They also treat Amish interaction with state government over private schooling and other matters, and the relationship of the Amish to their neighbors and the tourist industry. This valuable introduction to the Indiana Amish deserves a place on every Hoosier's bookshelf.

The years 1945–1959 marked the time when basketball truly became the sport of Indiana. High school basketball bound together communities across the state and interest in the sport rose to a new level. The period saw the Milan/Muncie Central game, given new fame through the movie Hoosiers. It also saw the first televised game, the start of the career of Oscar Robertson (who played for Crispus Attucks), and friendly town rivalries to build the state's biggest gymnasium. It was a time before the massive consolidations of the 1960s and '70s, with more than 700 teams involved in basketball tournaments. (There are some 300 now.) Greg Guffey captures the flavor of the period and showcases many of the best teams, players, and coaches. This is a book for all fans of Indiana basketball.

If you live in the Midwest, you have to know how to laugh. Tornados, floods, drought, and miles and miles of flat land: if you don't have a sense of humor, you might want to consider living somewhere else. Humor is as natural to the Midwest as cow pats and corn mazes, seed caps and road kill, Johnny Carson and David Letterman.This book gathers some of the best stories from the humorists of the big belly of America, past and present. Here are Mark Twain, George Ade, Finley Peter Dunne, Don Marquis, and Ring Lardner; James Thurber, Ruth McKenney, Erma Bombeck, Calvin Trillin, and Garrison Keillor—Midwesterners, one and all. There's even a piece from William Dean Howells, not usually known for his knock-me-down humor. You'll also find tales from Ambrose Bierce, Kin Hubbard, Sinclair Lewis, Mike Royko, Donald Kaul, P. J. O'Rourke, and Bill Bryson.Here is a book to curl up with when the cows don't come home, the crick's flooded, and the fox has bedded down in the henhouse. It'll put a smile on your face and make you glad you don't live in New York City, even if you do.

Written in an engaging, conversational style, Rivers Revealed combines the author's lifelong love of America's waterways with practical and historic information gathered from his three decades as a professional riverlorian for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company in New Orleans. A modern-day Huck Finn, Jerry Hay spins yarns laced with personal anecdotes on such topics as navigating 500 miles of the Wabash River, the trials and tribulations of building a sternwheeler, "reading" the river, how to plan your own river adventure, a hair-raising but humorous river rescue, an unforgettable goose named Gilligan, the language of the rivers and riverboats, early to present-day river navigation, and much, much more. A book for all who love Mark Twain, these river adventures will entertain the landlubber and engage the boating enthusiast.

In this one volume, readers have access to the two decades of Hoosier mythology created by Michael Martone, one of Indiana's most recognized voices. This book collects work from Martone's first five books: Alive and Dead in Indiana, Safety Patrol, Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List (IUP, 1990, 1992), Pensées: The Thoughts of Dan Quayle, and Seeing Eye. Virtually all of the stories in this "double-wide" collection speak to the Hoosier experience and imagination. Places like Martone's hometown of Fort Wayne, as well as Peru, Elkhart, and Indianapolis, and narrators such as Colonel Sanders, Alfred Kinsey, and James Dean's high school English teacher all come to life with the author's trademark blend of irreverent humor and incisive reality.

Sallyann J. Murphey and her husband did what a lot of us have dreamt of but never quite built up the courage to do. In 1990, Murphey, who was a successful BBC producer, and her husband, Greg, a commercial photographer, left their high stress, hectic life in Chicago and moved to a dilapidated 40-plus-acre farm in Brown County, Indiana, hoping to raise their daughter in a more natural and less stressful environment. In Bean Blossom Dreams, Murphey warmly and humorously details life on the family's farm. Though Brown County might not offer the idyllic country life they were expecting, Sallyann and Greg have realized through trial and error, laughter and tears, that they made the right decision to relocate. A delightful fish-out-of-water story!

They lived "green" out of necessity—walking to work, repairing everything from worn shoes to wristwatches, recycling milk bottles and packing containers. Music was largely heard live and most residential streets had shade trees. The nearby Wabash River—a repeated subject of story and song—transported Sunday picnickers to public parks. In the form of an old-fashioned city directory, An American Hometown celebrates a bygone American era, focusing on life in 1920s Terre Haute, Indiana. With artfully drawn biographical sketches and generously illustrated histories, noted musician, historian, and storyteller Tom Roznowski not only evokes a beauty worth remembering, but also brings to light just how many of our modern ideas of sustainable living are deeply rooted in the American tradition.

On November 18, 1958, a 623-foot limestone carrier—caught in one of the most violent storms in Lake Michigan history—broke in two and sank in less than five minutes. Four of the 35-person crew escaped to a small raft, to which they clung in total darkness, braving 30-foot waves and frigid temperatures. As the storm raged on, a search-and-rescue mission hunted for survivors, while the frantic citizens of nearby Rogers City, Michigan, the hardscrabble town that was home to 26 members of the Carl D. Bradley's crew, anxiously awaited word of their loved ones' fates. In Wreck of the Carl D., Michael Schumacher reconstructs the terrible accident, perilous search, and chilling aftermath for the small Michigan town so intimately affected by the tragedy.

While most books about the Amish focus on the Pennsylvania settlements or on the religious history of the sect, this book is a cultural history of one Indiana Amish community and its success in resisting assimilation into the larger culture. Amish culture has persisted relatively unchanged primarily because the Amish view the world around them through the prism of their belief in collective salvation based on purity, separation, and perseverance. Would anything new add or detract from the community's long-term purpose? Seen through this prism, most innovation has been found wanting.Founded in 1841, Shipshewana benefited from LaGrange County's relative isolation. As Dorothy O. Pratt shows, this isolation was key to the community's success. The Amish were able to develop a stable farming economy and a social structure based on their own terms. During the years of crisis, 1917–1945, the Amish worked out ways to protect their boundaries that would not conflict with their basic religious principles. As conscientious objectors, they bore the traumas of World War I, struggled against the Compulsory School Act of 1921, negotiated the labyrinth of New Deal bureaucracy, and labored in Alternative Service during World War II. The story Pratt tells of the postwar years is one of continuing difficulties with federal and state regulations and challenges to the conscientious objector status of the Amish. The necessity of presenting a united front to such intrusions led to the creation of the Amish Steering Committee. Still, Pratt notes that the committee's effect has been limited. Crisis and abuse from the outer world have tended only to confirm the desire of the Amish to remain a people apart, and lends a special poignancy to this engrossing tale of resistance to the modern world.

In the summer of 1972, a group of young people in Bloomington, Indiana, began a weekly gathering with the purpose of reviving traditional American old-time music and dance. In time, the group became a kind of accidental utopia, a community bound by celebration and deliberately void of structure and authority. In this joyful and engaging book, John Bealle tells the lively history of the Bloomington Old-Time Music and Dance Group—how it was formed, how it evolved its unique culture, and how it grew to shape and influence new waves of traditional music and dance. Broader questions about the folk revival movement, social resistance, counter culture, authenticity, and identity intersect this delightful history. More than a story about the people who forged the group or an extraordinary convergence of talent and creativity, Old-Time Music and Dance follows the threads of American folk culture and the social experience generated by this living tradition of music and dance.

Opening a window on a storied past, longtime Indianapolis television journalist and lifelong theatergoer Howard Caldwell presents the story of the magnificent theaters of Indianapolis. Caldwell shares with us the pleasure these majestic spaces brought to thousands of Hoosiers during their glory days—when an outing to the theater was a special event and film was still a marvel of technology. He discusses the roles played by the greatest stars of the day and relates the origins of Indy's famous theaters: the Murat, the Circle, the Indiana, the English, and the Lyric, to name a few. Caldwell points out which theaters featured burlesque shows and vaudeville routines, explores the traditions of regional and national theater productions, notes when the first motion pictures and talkies came to town, and highlights old time musical reviews and symphonic performances. Vividly illustrated with rare photos and anecdotes, The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters celebrates the city's rich theater tradition.

From the Subtle Asian Baking community comes Modern Asian Baking at Home, must-have recipes for beloved sweet and savory treats found across Asia.*Winner of the 2023 Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Food Culture in the First Book category**Author Kat Lieu was a finalist for the 2023 IACP Digital Media Award for her Instagram account @subtleasian.baking*Explore new ingredients, surprising techniques, and fun textures through lush photography and rewarding recipes that include exciting yet familiar contemporary bakes with innovative Asian twists. The results are unforgettable delights like miso-mochi brownies and spicy gochujang flourless chocolate cake. There’s even a recipe for homemade boba!This is the perfect cookbook for anyone nostalgic for Asian desserts as well as hobbyist and avid home bakers interested in using vibrant ingredients like miso, matcha, pandan, and soy sauce to expand their repertoires. No passport is needed when you can easily create and experience popular Asian sweets and one-of-a-kind Asian-influenced drinks, custards, cakes, and frozen treats at home.Recipes include:  Quick Microwave MochiFluffy Japanese PancakesLemony Matcha MacaronsTangzhong Milk BreadVietnamese Egg Dalgona CoffeeSteam, fry, boil, and bake your way through this straight-from-the-heart collection of recipes!This book is #veryasian

Learn to paint in watercolor—with joy and confidence—as you explore simple techniques, popular subjects, and simple papercrafting projects.Watercolor is a wonderful medium to explore your creativity, unwind, and have fun. Whether you’re new to watercolor painting or looking to expand your skills, Watercolor Made Simple will guide you to connect more personally with your watercolor practice and build your painting skills in a relaxing, welcoming way. Nicki Traikos, who teaches popular watercolor classes through life i design, wants to help you avoid the struggles and frustrations she experienced when learning to paint with watercolors by providing encouraging instruction, easy tutorials, and beautifully illustrated step-by-step projects.  Consider this your invitation to the world of watercolor as you:   Get familiar with paints, brushes, and papers Learn fundamental watercolor washes and brushstrokes Explore simple color theory and color mixing Use a sketchbook to gather inspiration Paint more than 15 popular subjects, such as flowers, leaves, feathers, still lifes, and simple landscapes, step by step  You’ll also find:   QR codes that link to helpful video tutorials Traceable line drawings that allow you to jump right into painting Charming papercrafting projects to feature your watercolor paintings Tips for storing and displaying your art—and even what to do with paintings you don’t love  With gentle encouragement and techniques she has honed through teaching tens of thousands of watercolor students, Nicki will soon have you painting your favorite subjects with ease and enjoyment.

*2025 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award Winner*Create elegant, Regency-inspired embroidery projects with Unofficial Bridgerton Embroidery, bringing the opulence of your favorite Netflix drama to your stitching. Inspired by the hit Netflix series and Julia Quinn’s bestselling books, this collection of in-the-hoop embroidery projects lets you stitch your way into the lavish world of Bridgerton. With easy-to-follow instructions and stunning designs, you can create elegant keepsakes and accessories fit for royalty. Perfect for both beginners and experienced embroiderers, each project captures the beauty, charm, and drama of the Bridgerton universe.Whether you’re looking to re-create the grandeur of Lady Danbury’s diadem or craft a project reminiscent of the Featherington sisters’ vibrant wardrobe, this book offers everything you need to bring the magic of Bridgerton into your stitching. Easy-to-follow step-by-step tutorials for basic embroidery stitches help embroidery debutants stitch projects fit for Queen Charlotte, while experienced stitchers of The Ton enjoy recreating iconic motifs!Inside, you’ll find: 20 unique in-the-hoop embroidery patterns: Beautiful designs inspired by the Bridgerton series and popular motifs of the Regency era.Step-by-step instructions for basic techniques: From beginner-friendly to advanced projects, you’ll be able to make any design with the comprehensive stitch guides.Go beyond the basics: Master in-the-hoop methods and create stunning pieces with ease.High-quality photos and illustrations: Visual guides help you bring the opulence of Bridgerton into your home.Unofficial Bridgerton Embroidery is your ticket to creating handcrafted pieces inspired by the beloved world of Bridgerton—perfect for gifts, home décor, and more!

Design and crochet garments made just for you—because one size never fits all.In Made to Measure Crochet, designer Rebecca Dagmar of @shopdaisyanddime teaches you how to create beautiful, flattering, and fully customizable crochet garments that celebrate your individuality. Instead of relying on preset sizes, Rebecca’s “measure yourself” method shows how to take your own measurements and adapt any design to your exact proportions.Inside, you’ll find:Comprehensive instruction on garment construction and fitA versatile stitch library for structure, texture, and embellishmentEight customizable projects, including sweaters, blouses, skirts, and shawlsStep-by-step photos and design inspiration for creating your own wardrobeCombining timeless crochet techniques with modern fashion sensibility, Made to Measure Crochet empowers makers to break free from standardized sizing and embrace the joy of handmade, personalized clothing.Your style, your size, your stitches—made to measure.