When you’re starting on a new crafting project, whether it’s part of a longstanding hobby with weaving or sewing skills nurtured over years or the first craft box subscription you’ve ever tried, it’s important to have the essentials to hand. If you’re immersed in your project, your day to day anxieties soothed and stresses forgotten, it can be frustrating to find you don’t have some key item or material you need to continue.
Today, we’re taking a look at some of the craft essentials you’ll need to keep in stock to ensure your crafting time isn’t interrupted or cut short.
Raw Materials
As you craft, make a note of the raw materials you use, and how quickly you use them – in embroidery, for example, simple coloured thread is something you will use very quickly as it’s the basic material that allows you to perform this craft, while beads, sequins and other adornments are equally important but used in lesser quantities. This means you’ll need to make sure you have more of the basic materials – whether you keep deeper stocks of them at home or ensure you shop for them more regularly.
Tools
It’s frustrating to misplace a vital tool so you can’t get to work on your craft projects when you want to, or have one break on you, interrupting the flow. Keeping spares, whether they are a set of knitting needles, a loom or embroidery hoops will let you keep going without a trip to the craft store.
Some tools might double up as common household items – especially scissors. Experienced crafters know that it’s well worth keeping your own dedicated sewing scissor sets, so they don’t unexpectedly go missing or get blunted by more mundane household tasks.
Somewhere to Work
Just as key to your success as your tools and materials is having somewhere to work. You need light and a comfortable chair to work in, and if your craft requires a flat surface, a desk or table at the right height to work at comfortably. You don’t need to create a whole crafting room – even if you have the space to – but it’s worth considering these factors and taking account of them when you’re adapting a corner of your home for crafting purposes. North or south facing windows give a strong, clear light all day, without uncomfortable glare, and placing a lamp behind your chair allows you to keep on knitting, sewing or weaving after the sun sets, so you can keep working on your craft subscription boxes or projects.
