Get Crafty!

Find the perfect book for your next DIY project

Crafting is cool! Are you an aspiring knitter, quilter, or jewelry maker? Do you like the idea of making your own soaps or perfumes? Maybe you're looking for new ideas or maybe you've been thinking about DIY projects you'd like to embark on and just need some guidance. Here are some of our book recommendations for a variety of creative endeavors.

Knitting and crochet

Knitting in Plain English
Drawing on decades of experience, Maggie Righetti offers step-by-step directions on avoiding common mistakes and getting out of tricky spots. This updated edition of her popular how-to guide also includes plenty of advice on making all kinds of garments, following patterns, and working with different kinds of yarn.

Vogue Knitting: The Ultimate Knitting Book
With input from more than 50 leading specialists, no other book covers the field so comprehensively. Need guidance on yarns, needles, tools, basic techniques, specialized applications, or terminology? It's all in here—with lots more, from diagnostics to blocking to designs.

Crocheting in Plain English
In this latest edition, crochet expert Maggie Righetti dispenses more of her invaluable wisdom, covering virtually everything you need to know about crochet, including: selecting threads and yarns; working with the right tools; integrating patterns and instructions; basic stitches; and much more.

Contemporary Crochet: 35 Super-Easy Garments and Accessories
Liv Huffman is the creator of the hugely popular Harry Styles cardigan tutorial on YouTube and TikTok. Here, she shows you how to add handmade flair to your wardrobe, with 35 unique designs for crocheted clothes and accessories. Whether you're a beginner or an expert, you'll find plenty of inspiration.

Cross stitch and embroidery

Cross Stitch: A Beginner's Step-by-Step Guide to Techniques and Motifs
From Charlotte Gerlings, this guide presents the essentials of counted cross stitch with plenty of illustrations, plus a basic range of freestyle embroidery stitches to supplement the counted thread method. Get advice on how to read charts, and create your own.

Cross Stitch for the Heart
Stitch a kinder world with this stunning collection of heartfelt designs from leading cross stitch designer Emma Congdon. This collection features 20 exclusive designs, each with an easy-to-read full color and symbol chart. This celebration of love in all its forms will heal your heart, one stitch at a time.

Edgy Embroidery
Ditch the florals for a moth with pinned wings, an ominous, haunted house on a hill or a cow skull with a flower crown. You won't find "Home Sweet Home" in this sassy collection of designs from Renee Rominger, who favors messages like "Can U Not" or "Don't Be A Prick."

Mystical Stitches: Embroidery for Personal Empowerment and Magical Embellishment
Christi Johnson's vibrant folk art style provides a framework for bringing spiritual elements into the physical form. Her patterns are inspired by botanicals, animals, numbers, cosmos, earth elements, and mythological icons and designed to help novice or well-practiced crafters create beautiful, meaningful artworks.

Quilting and sewing

Modern Quilting: A Contemporary Guide to Quilting by Hand
Contemporary textiles designer Julius Arthur, guides you through the basic construction, patchwork and appliqué techniques of quilt-making, before showcasing twenty stylish hand-stitched projects perfectly suited for modern living. These simple, elegant designs are ideal for first-time crafters.

Urban Quilting: Quilt Patterns for the Modern-Day Home
This comprehensive guide, perfect for beginners, includes ten original quilt patterns featuring bold colors and geometric shapes. Author Wendy Chow, @the.weekendquilter on Instagram, is on a mission to make modern quilting easy and fun for the next generation of crafters.

School of Sewing: Learn It. Teach It. Sew Together.
Follow in the footsteps of a real group of beginner sewists who came together with author Shea Henderson to have her teach them one thing: how to use their sewing machines. The result is this award-winning learn-to-sew bible covering everything a first-timer needs to know.

The Act of Sewing: How to Make and Modify Clothes to Wear Every Day
Designer Sonya Philip offers this in-depth guide to sewing simple garments—with four full-size patterns and all the tricks of alteration and embellishment explained so that you can make a wardrobe all your own. No matter where you're coming from in terms of experience, this is your go-to guide.

More in the textile arts

Macrame: Techniques and Projects for the Complete Beginner
With projects ranging from making a simple wall hanging that's great for a beginner to a useful market bag with T-shirt yarn for the more advanced crafter, this book by veteran crafters Sian Hamilton and Tansy Wilson will give the reader hours of creative fun and relaxation.

Punched: Techniques and Projects for Modern Punch Needle Art
Discover the primitive craft of punch needle with a dozen must-make projects from Yellow Spool's Stacie Schaat. These designs combine quick, repetitive stitches with composition and color to create treasures that can be displayed, used, and loved for generations.

Needle Felting for Beginners: How to Sculpt with Wool
This fun, felty book teaches a different technique in each project. The authors, Roz Dace and Judy Balchin (of woollyfelters.com) take you on a journey, building up your skills from basic needle felting to confidently using armatures. With twelve varied projects to get stuck into, you just need to choose where to start.

Soaps and perfumery

Natural Soap Making Book for Beginners
Making soap lets you express your creative side while reducing chemicals in your cleansing routine. This helpful resource by Kelly Cable will demystify the process and show you how to use all-natural ingredients to create a variety of luxurious soap and body care products like Avocado and Shea Face Bar with Aloe.

How to Make Perfume at Home
Anne Robinson takes a practical approach to crafting beautiful, luxurious, natural aromatherapy products. Starting with basic terminology and the necessary tools and materials, you will learn to prepare (and wear!) a variety of unique perfumes based on customized recipes using natural ingredients from nature.

Creating Fairy Garden Fragrances: The Spirit of Aromatherapy
Mix up magical fragrances and invite the fairies in. Linda Gannon provides recipes for exotic potpourri blends made from bewitching combinations of dried flowers, herbs, and fruits. You'll be inspired by enchanting scented mixtures like Dance of the Morning Nymphs and Midsummer Night's Dream.

Jewelry

Wire Jewelry Masterclass: Wrapped, Coiled, and Woven Pieces using Fine Materials
This comprehensive guide by Abby Hook will inspire all levels of wire jewelry-makers. The 24 projects, ranging from elegant pendants to earrings, rings, brooches, and bracelets, will appeal to a wide range of tastes and are grouped into beginner, intermediate, and advanced sections.

Creative Resin: Easy Techniques for Contemporary Resin Art
This collection of seventeen eye-catching projects is packed full of comprehensive step-by-step instructions for techniques. Author Mia Winston-Hart explores the various different types of resin available including plant and vegetable-based resins and how to choose and use them safely.

Handmade Clay Jewelry: A Beginner's Guide to Creating Stunning Polymer Earrings, Necklaces, and More
Meghan Allen, creator of Clay + Bloom, has spent years honing the art of polymer clay jewelry. Full of tips, tricks, and stunning step-by-step projects, this comprehensive guide will arm you with all the knowledge you need to create trendy, stylish pieces that you can wear with pride.

Friendship Bracelets 101: Fun to Make, Wear, and Share!
With Taylor Swift's world-dominating Eras Tour, friendship bracelets have never been bigger. This guide from Suzanne McNeill is filled with all the basics you need. Color photos and step-by-step instructions make it easy for the beginner, and a variety of fun designs and knots will keep you learning and creating.

Kids stuff

Cardboard Creations for Kids
With this collection of 60 innovative projects from Kathryn Ho, parents will be delighted to find eco-friendly ways to reuse cardboard—and even more delighted to see their children's imaginations run wild as they play with their recycled creations and reap all the wonderful rewards of creative play.

Colorful Curly Haired Crafts for Kids
Curly hair comes in lots of colors and textures, and this fun collection of crafts from Cheryl Gavrielides lets you explore them. From locs and braids to afros and head wraps, these crafts include clever projects like Disco 'Fro and Packing Peanut Plaits to exciting sensory bins like the Rainbow Hair Play Tray.

The Easiest Kids' Crafts Ever: Cute & Colorful Quick-Prep Projects for Busy Families
Turn your bin of ordinary crafting supplies into a day of happy, colorful fun. Jacinta Sagona's collection of 60 charming projects use simple materials you already have at home. These craft ideas will help children of all ages tap into their creative tendencies by encouraging experimentation, spontaneity and mindfulness.

All purpose

The Little Book of Cottagecore: Traditional Skills for a Simpler Life
Make simple living a reality no matter where you live. Bake pies from scratch. Learn basic sewing and cross stitch. Try your hand at gardening, beekeeping, or making candles and soaps. This delightful guide from Emily Kent is full of fun, hands-on activities that make it easy to unplug from modern life.

Easy Crafts for the Insane: A Mostly Funny Memoir of Mental Illness and Making Things
Amidst divorce, injuries, and depression, author Kelly Williams Brown had a long spell of very bad days. One of the few things that kept her moving forward was, improbably, crafting. This collection of simple, accessible crafting tutorials serve as the backdrop of a life dissolved, then glued back together. 

Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life
Whether she's playing an "age-defying" book editor on television or dazzling audiences on the Broadway stage, Sutton Foster manages to make it all look easy. How? Crafting. From the moment she picked up a cross stitch needle to escape the bullying chorus girls in her early performing days, she was hooked.

Crafting is fun and therapeutic. Plus it results in beautiful and useful artworks and items that you can enjoy yourself or gift to the ones you love. Pick your new pastime and get started.

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon