As any craft-inclined person will tell you, craft supplies and materials make some of the best gifts. After all, they’re pretty easy things for other people to buy, they make for incredibly pretty presents under your tree, and they provide hours of endless fun as you get stuck into a brand-new project post-Christmas. In other words, options including striking yarns and new knitting needles are the gifts that keep on giving. Or, at least, they could be if you’re willing to put in a little work to make that the case.
It can be especially fun to put materials for a new craft on your list to Santa, as these can double up to also serve your New Year’s Resolution to learn a new skill, or get better at a craft you’re still starting in. But, what happens if you ask for supplies this year, and then fail to get around to actually using them?
This is a surprisingly common issue, but a craft could be for life, not just for Christmas. The question is, how can you make sure the habit sticks once your loved ones have bought you all of those beautiful supplies?
# 1 – Carefully Consider Your Options
It’s important to carefully consider your options long before receiving crafting supplies for Christmas. After all, even if you like the idea of a craft activity, not every arty hobby will suit every taste or requirement.
To start with, it’s especially worth considering your end goal. Do you want a pretty picture or a garment? Do you want to enjoy a craft for the process or the thrill of a finished project?
Even if you decide on an option like making your own clothes, it’s worth breaking that down further. For instance, you’ll need to determine whether sewing or yarn craft would be best in terms of your time frame and current capabilities.
And, once you’ve chosen to go down a route like yarncraft, you’ll want to consider how to approach those yarn-based projects. As can be seen from this Knitting Vs. Crochet: What’s The Difference? – Ganxxet guide, there are two incredibly different approaches to projects like these, and they both require different skill points and varying equipment like needles vs. hooks.
By getting specific about your new craft preferences in this way, you make it far more likely that you’re picking something you’ll stick at. This detailed deliberation process also ensures you know precisely what you need in your toolkit to get started!
# 2 – Get Inspired
It’s all too easy to ask for craft supply gifts and then neglect to use them if you don’t have any real inspiration to get you started. That post-Christmas period can be pretty busy, after all, and there’s a risk you’ll pack everything away and then never revisit it.
To avoid this, it’s always worth seeking inspiration that you can instantly turn to the next time you get a moment. This is great for two primary reasons – it keeps you excited to get started, and it ensures you’re asking for an entire project’s worth of supplies, rather than just odd dribs and drabs that could ultimately go to waste.
Luckily, there are now plenty of sources for finding craft-based inspiration, and just a few top places to look include –
- Books: Craft books of all kinds remain a great place to find inspiration, especially if you’re a beginner with no clear idea of what you’re looking for. There are books for everything from sewing projects to knitting patterns and beyond, and they could show you both what you could potentially create with the right determination, and also advice on how to create it.
- Pinterest: Pinterest is the go-to inspiration platform for all things, and it’s a great place to look for crafting ideas. Even better, you can easily save that crafting inspiration into your pinboard, where you could line up both an initial project and a few follow-up options to keep your momentum going.
Instagram: Many crafting professionals like knitwear designers now use social media platforms like Instagram to promote their patterns, and this typically includes creating a garment hashtag for other crafters to use when they post their finished objects. This is great for both helping you to discover potential patterns and for seeing different variations that could inspire your own first project.
# 3 – Start At A Beginner Level
This might seem like fairly obvious advice but it’s worth stating anyway – make sure you’re picking beginner projects at the start of your journey. This ensures both that you’re able to get the hang of essential basic techniques, and also that you’re more likely to enjoy the process. By comparison, jumping straight into a self-drafted cross stitch or a complex kitting construction will be overwhelming, stressful, and probably not all that fun.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t save more advanced projects if they catch your eye. Doing so can be great for keeping you committed. However, when looking at your first few projects, it’s worth looking at the difficulty levels included before you get stuck in. For crafts like knitting, you may also find it worthwhile getting to grips with basic knit and purl stitches, and any techniques required for a chosen pattern, before you get started.
# 4 – Set Realistic Goals
Goals are important when you’re embarking on any new craft, but you should also make sure that they’re realistic achievements to pursue. Let’s take knitting as an example. As mentioned, great beginner goals might include learning basic knit and purl stitches. Once you’ve perfected those, you can begin putting them together in a stockinette stitch square. Then, you’ll be able to pursue more advanced, yet still realistic goals, such as –
- Learning how to increase/decrease stitches
- Learning how to cast off your knitting
- Completing a beginner project like a hat or scarf
Once you’ve done these things and feel confident in your abilities, you can start looking at more complex constructions, like thumb gussets, and also incorporating pattern elements like slip stitches and yarn overs. Then, you could start to set more ambitious goals such as –
- Learning colourwork techniques
- Testing advanced cast-on/cast-off methods like I-cord
- Introducing complex stitches like basketweave and brioche
- Embarking on larger projects
# 5 – Know When To Get Help
Even if you start well in your new crafting pursuit, there’s a risk that you’ll give up when you come across a hurdle that you can’t easily overcome. The good news is that there are now plenty of YouTube tutorials for the majority of crafting pursuits, but these get harder to follow the more complex your skills become.
To avoid putting aside your project and never returning to it, it’s therefore useful to know when to get help. To some extent, this might simply mean seeking help in the patterns you buy, as designers like Petite Knit and Stephen West will typically provide pretty great video tutorial breakdowns for things like knitting patterns.
Sometimes, you may also simply benefit from in-person tuition, which is often available within craft supply stores. This is especially true if you’re embarking on crafts like sewing, as an in-person tutorial will include machine-specific advice that means you can easily tailor and understand each project with your specific setup in mind.
Conclusion
Craft supplies are an undeniably fantastic thing to receive, and they have the power to keep on giving all year round if you simply make sure to pursue that new hobby in these key ways.
Meg is an author at Cinnamon Hollow. She writes on a variety of topics sharing tips and ideas for daily life.
