| Crafting Gets Its Due – or Does It?

With the recent premiere of Making It on NBC, crafters are happy to see that their hobbies are being highlighted on a national stage. This is your typical fight to the finish, à la Top Chef or Project Runway, with assignments given and a timeframe defined.

The first episode shows the makers facing the creation of a 3-D version of their inner “secret beast,” as host Nick Offerman describes it. Many approaches, from the use of papier-mâché to the use of an inexplicable amount of glue, are included. A challenge to create a piece of heirloom-inspired art with quilt-like inspiration follows. This challenge includes crafting a companion photo album.

Spoiler alert: the embroiderer in the room actually bleeds onto her final project. Crafting can be tough.

Did you find inspiration with the projects on Making It, created in the name of competitive craft? We did! Here’s what came to the fore of our collective conscience as we watched these crafters rise to the challenge.

1. Your Inner Secret Beast Is a Plushy Doll

The Beastly Crochet eBook is a whimsical way to identify your beast! While there are some literal monsters in the bunch—toys and amigurumi—a majority of projects in this eBook are wearable accessories and garments. What a bonus! For even more animal designs and comforting creatures, you need to explore 2017’s Knit and Crochet Toys. From pocket-sized critters to pillow-sized plushies, this magazine has it all.

Not sure how to identify your spirit animal? Take our quiz!

2. Look to Trends for Inspiration

One of the competitors very deftly depicted his inner beast by designing a paper flower that features a bee. We can’t crawl inside this guy’s brain to totally understand what motivated him, but he nailed a trend with this project whether he knew it or not. Head over to our friends at Cloth, Paper, Scissors and check out the paper flower trend that has taken hold among crafters.

3. Photo Albums Can Should Be Crafty

When presented with the photo album idea, none of the crafters took a traditional approach to presentation. We witnessed an origami photo album, one made with wood, and one that included cloth and embroidery hoops. Once again from our colluders in craft at Cloth, Paper, Scissors, we have a tutorial on how to use a vintage photo as the foundation for a mixed-media project. Give it a try!

4. Embroidery Still Rules

Despite the embroiderer’s bleeding, her efforts are a great reminder: embroidery rocks. This is a traditional craft gone trendy with the proliferation of embroidery artists that are finding a way to “think outside the hoop.” Give our Pretty Pillowcase a whirl— all it takes is a little button-sewing, and bead-embroidering know-how. You never know where that needle might lead your crafty hands.

5. Felt Never Seems to Go Away

A ubiquitous ingredient in children’s crafts, felt will never go away. And we say: good! One of the makers constructed his heirloom quilt-like project entirely from felt. It made us wonder, “Does this guy just love felt or does he KNOW HOW to felt?” We want crafters to learn the needle felting process just as much as we want non-crocheters to pick up a hook. Our Needle Felting Animals video download will give you the start you need to felt on, future felter.

Did you catch the first episode of Making It? What did you think?

Yours in craftspiration,

Jenn

Featured Photo Credit | Getty Images/Maskot

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