Machines Books

I bought This book for $.46 but it's incredible!, it has all the best short cuts ever.
I will recommend this book to anyone who want to improve sewing skills to a Pro.
Judith V

Having seen Hari Walner on the HGTV show "Simply Quilts", I purchased this book to take a stab at her machine trapunto technique. I have no quilting experience,was using a 27 year old sewing machine, and my sewing skills were very rusty. My first project(Sparkling Dahlia)was a huge success thanks to the easy to follow instructions, illustrations, and patterns contained in this book.

I found real inspiration in the beautiful color photographs of the many quilts which incorporated the machine trapunto technique in combination with a wide variety of other quilting techniques.

I was pleased to see photographs and brief biographies of the 21 quilters who contributed to the book. It was also nice to see Hari credit those who assisted her with her own projects.

This book is not meant to be a beginning quilters "Bible". It is a wonderful book for anyone interested in adding the machine trapunto technique to their sewing skills repertoire.

I bought this book for my High School daughter, to prepare her for her physics class. It's an excellent starting point for physics, covers most of the basics. While her teacher spends most of his time lecturing against our President and the war in Iraq, my daughter has learned more from this book than in the classroom. It's laid out much better and covers more than her school textbook. Highest recommendation!

I enjoyed this book. It has a wealth of background information and contains good diagrams (such as how a walking dragline propels itself) that are not easy to find. Well-researched and well written in a style that is easy to follow and understand. The tables in the back are complete and helpful to anyone researching shovels & draglines. The photographs are great (and many in color, a nice feature), and illustrate the differences between the machines. The details of mining operations and company histories are much better than I would have expected in a 120-page book, considering the scope of the subject. I would recommend this book to anyone with even the slightest interest in mining. A layperson will be able to skip a sentence or two and still add a great deal to their knowledge base. People in fields associated with mining will also learn something, and enjoyably.

The Failure of Marketing: Why Your Company Isn't A Growth MachineWe: The Ideal Customer Relationship

The Failure of Marketing by Jack Trytten
We The Ideal Customer Relationship by Steve Yastrow

The Sales profession is going through another major transition.

Forty years ago, salespeople were professional visitors. They followed a pre-determined route, collecting orders from customers. Sales main responsibility was to make sure customers knew what products were available.

At some point, the concept of features and benefits was introduced. The salesperson's job changed to that of educator: educating customers about features and benefits so that they could make decisions about the best products for them.

Aggressive application of the features and benefits concept pushed the salesperson into the role of "Trusted Advisor". In this role, the salesperson probed to discover unmet needs the customer may have. "What keeps you up at night?" became a standard question; with the theory that once a need is discovered and matched with a benefit, a sale is made.

Now, sales is transitioning again. This time the salesperson fills the role of "Co-Conspirator", requiring a broader approach to the selling relationship. In this evolution, the salesperson and customer engage in a relationship where the objective is to align as many shared goals as possible in order to make the salesperson and the customer both more effective.

Trytten and Yastrow do an excellent job of describing this phenomenon from unique and complimentary perspectives. Both are descriptive and effective in their approaches.

Trytten tracks the evolution of marketing, from Peter Drucker's definition in 1954 ("There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer."), through the classic definitions and objectives (4Ps anyone?), to the dismal record of today's marketers (80% product failure). He details in practical terms how the profession veered off-track and became trapped in outdated paradigms.

Jack defines the real objective as discovering the "something else" that causes your customers to buy from you. (We used to call that the "need behind the need".) He walks through several examples that show how the failure to recognize "something else" dooms the organization to a commodity competition, based on price. Trytten then shows how to overcome that trap to create a relationship with your customers that opens new markets and profit opportunities.

Yastrow approaches the evolution from a different direction, preferring to hit the relationship issue head-on. He sells the idea that we should be changing our financial transactions with our customers into ongoing partner encounters. Yastrow tells us that the objective is for our customers to think of these as "We encounters", where we addressed the issue, rather than they or me.

Steve systematically shows the reader how to initiate and create these relationships. He does an excellent job outlining a process to align with your customers' goals and execute based on that alignment. If you aspire to be a top salesperson or drive your organization to an effective, differentiated market position, you will understand and appreciate Steve's guidance.

Both of these are outstanding business books.

Accurate agriculture books are hard to come by. Chris Peterson uses her own experience on the farm to help convey the message of modern agriculture. The MN Farm Bureau Federation Promotion and Education Committee selected Fantastic Farm Machines as their 2007 Book of the Year.

Photos of vintage planes, balloons from the Smithsonian Institutions's National Air & Space Museum - 4 different patterns of giftwrap, with 3 sheets and 3 tags of each. Convenient in a book/pad that pages can be pulled out.

For several years now, my wife has been making holiday crafts to give away to friends and family as little gifts for Christmas and so we're constantly on the lookout for new ideas and books. My part is usually limited to the drudgery of buying (and paying) for the supplies and doing mundane work such as the cutting while my wife gets all the glory!

"Fast, Fun, and Easy Christmas Decorations" is another fine book from one of our favorite craft book publishers, C&T, who never fails to deliver great new books for each season. While it's only 64 pages it manages to squeeze in a number of quick and easy projects that can be made relatively inexpensively as well. The basic materials are various fabrics, beads, Fast2fuse, cording, glue, and a sewing machine. The individual projects will list all of the material specifics.

There are a number of different 3D ornament projects including spirals, bells, and stars. The look can be anything you want from dazzling and gaudy, to a quaint, country look, all depending on the fabric and embellishment you use. There are also chapters on making your own gift boxes, wreathes, gingerbread houses, and advent calendars, all with these same base materials. The gingerbread house is certainly the most challenging but the end result will make you the envy of your craft-making friends.

You'll probably want to have at least intermediate skill for most of these projects, especially those that require sewing (although there are some no sew projects, too) but you're to enjoy them all. C&T once again has produced a winner.

This book has easy to read, easy to follow instructions, with excellent pictorial examples. It shows how the sample vases are made and then has suggestions on how they can be customized. Where the materials are not readily available, they suggest easy-to-find substitutes and explain the changes necessary to make that work.

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with these and end up with a set of products that look hand-crafted, rather than home-made, that will tie together all the decorations for the wedding. The fabric flowers I'm making will be perfect in these.

This book is an excellent guideline if you're having trouble working with your father or son in the family business... Entertaining...