Guides & articles
You are about to start a project and the pattern says "6 skeins of worsted weight." Or worse, you are designing something yourself and there is no pattern at all. You want to buy once, not make three...
Handcraft
You bought a board, measured twice, cut once, and it still came up short. Or worse, the "1 x 6" you ordered arrived looking nothing like an inch thick or six inches wide. If that sounds familiar, the...
Handcraft
If you are pricing a paper project, the honest headline is this: most small handmade paper projects cost somewhere between a few dollars and about $30 in materials, and a bigger run of cards, journals...
Handcraft
If you have ever followed a pattern in inches and then bought fabric or yarn labelled in centimetres, you already know the small panic that sets in. This guide walks you through converting craft measu...
Handcraft
You found a pattern you love. The measurements are in inches. Your ruler is in centimeters. Or the reverse: a European yarn chart in centimeters, a US hook set labeled in millimeters and inches. Sudde...
Handcraft
The waistband was two inches too small. I had the fabric cut, the interfacing fused, the pins already in, and when I wrapped it around my own waist to check, it stopped short with a gap you could fit...
Handcraft
You can work out your fabric requirement in about 15-30 minutes with a tape measure, your pattern, and a bit of arithmetic. By the end of this guide you will know how to read a pattern envelope, measu...
Handcraft
If you are new to crafting, measuring is usually the first place things go sideways: a cut is 3 mm short, two "identical" squares are not identical, or a pattern that looked fine on paper does not fit...
Handcraft
You can make a handmade gift read as "expensive" without spending much more money. What gives a gift that premium feel is rarely the raw material. It is the finish, the packaging, the small details, a...
Handcraft
The jar of screws tipped over on the kitchen table and I just sat there, watching them roll toward the edge. I had been trying to build a spice rack out of a broken bookshelf for two hours. Nothing fi...
Handcraft
Most craft waste is not caused by clumsy hands. It is caused by decisions made before you pick up a tool: buying too much, cutting before measuring, or starting a project with no plan for the offcuts....
Handcraft
You can start most handcrafts for somewhere between roughly $60 and $250 in materials, and that range is wide because it moves with fibre choice, wood species, wax type and where you shop. A crochet s...
Handcraft