Feed Your Passion with Books Full of Crafts and Hobbies
The Hobbyist’s Dream: Explore Books That Spark Creativity
If your idea of a perfect weekend includes paintbrushes, garden gloves, sheet music, or a stand mixer, you’re probably a proud Hobbyist. You thrive on learning new skills, deepening creative talents, and turning quiet moments into productive joy. Whether it’s a well-worn quilt or a home-grown tomato, the projects you love aren’t just hobbies—they’re expressions of who you are.
This specially curated book list is a celebration of a list of crafts and hobbies—from the soulful to the skillful. You’ll find guides that teach, memoirs that inspire, and manuals that make you want to roll up your sleeves and dive in. Whether you've already mastered sourdough, learning the ukulele, or designing your own herb garden, these new reads are perfect companions for your next passion project.
Let's get to work!
The Art of Embroidery Design: A Workshop for Developing Your Own Original Stitching
by Christi Johnson
From an acclaimed embroidery designer and bestselling author of Mystical Stitches, an accessible how-to guide full of original stitch designs that will inspire readers to pick up a needle and thread.
Written for all levels of stitchers, The Art of Embroidery Design teaches the value of establishing a creative practice, with hands-on sketching and stitching exercises to help anyone build confidence in their design skills. Author Christi Johnson provides a workshop experience for readers looking to start from scratch. She breaks the design process down into approachable steps.
Dopamine Home: A Bold Guide to Mood-Boosting Interiors
by Rachel Verney
Packed full of ideas for every budget, interiors expert Rachel Verney shares her creative design process, color know-how and interior hacks to make every corner of your home a colorful, dopamine-inducing haven. Whether you're looking for cost-friendly mini upgrades with maximum impact or large-scale inspiration as part of a renovation, Rachel guides you through the core principles of dopamine décor room by room, showing you to implement it as you transform your space.
Garden to the Max: Joyful, Visionary, Maximalist Design
by Teresa Woodard - Bob Stefko
Explore a maximalist approach to gardening with this vibrant photography book that features 20 aspirational gardens that prove "more" is better.
Having a maximalist garden is a bold aesthetic choice--yet it also brings vitality back to the earth, in an abundant expression of more. Garden to the Max celebrates gardens across the US that embrace maximalism through joy and wonder, nonstop blooms, and abundant layers. The book is a feast of gorgeous photography by Bob Stefko, showcasing individual quirkiness, wild collections, and bold, personality-packed plant combinations that amplify the grandeur of each garden's unique vision, packing in plants for their exuberant style and ecological benefits.
The Guitar Repair Book: A Practical Guide to Repairing and Maintaining Acoustic and Classical Guitars
by James Lister
It has been estimated that there are over 700 million guitars in the world. Every one of these will at least need some maintenance in its lifetime, and a large proportion will need repairing. Many of these guitars will be discarded or left to collect dust, never to be played again. Players will not be aware that their playing experience can be enhanced by improving the condition of their instrument. Even cosmetic repairs may help to encourage a player to pick up their guitar and practise. Many of the procedures covered can be tackled by anyone with some aptitude for working with their hands, whilst others will require a greater level of skill and practice.
Kawaii Appliqué Quilts from Japan: How One Country's Love of All Things Tiny Powers Today's Most Intricate Quilts (with 5 Projects from Top Designers)
by Naomi Ichikawa - Teresa Duryea Wong
The story behind the amazing, extremely detailed quilts rising in popularity today, with five kawaii projects to make. Understand how Japan's beloved kawaii style began centuries ago, the world's fascination with it, and its connection to the kawaii quilting phenomenon: appliqué quilts made with tiny pieces, typically tens of thousands of carefully manipulated bits of fabric in one quilt. - Meet master quilters Yoko Sekita, Aki Sakai, Reiko Kato, Akiko Yoshimizu, Megumi Mizuno, and Hiroko Akita, who share with readers their techniques, studios, and masterpieces. - Hundreds of colorful photos allow close-up appreciation of Japan's kawaii culture and, of course, the contemporary quilts that express it. - To allow readers to experiment with kawaii style, five step-by-step projects exclusive to this book are featured, designed by these master quilters. Whether you travel the world or simply release your imagination, let the Japanese kawaii quilt genre expand your appreciation of modern expressions in quilting.
Lavender for All Seasons: A Gardener's Guide to Growing and Creating with Lavender Year-Round
by Paola Legarre
An essential guide to to the multifaceted plant, from a passionate gardener.
Lavender for All Seasons covers everything you need to know about the basics of growing lavender. Inspirational crafts and recipes that follow the seasons of the year will empower readers to discover how to integrate lavender beyond the garden and into the apothecary, pantry, and crafting space. For over twenty years, gardening expert Paola Legarre has been implementing sustainable farming practices, nourishing soil life, avoiding herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, rotating plantings with cover crops, and encouraging pollinators and beneficial insects through diversified plant hedgerows, and companion planting.
Passion on the Cutting Board
by Renee R Blackman
Step into the heart of the kitchen where flavor meets artistry in "Passion on the Cutting Board", the debut cookbook from Chef Renee Blackman. Known for her bold flavors, elegant presentation and magnetic presence, Chef Renee brings her signature flair to the page with over 70 recipes that blend sophistication with soul.
Practical Pottery: A Complete Guide to Getting Started in Making Beautiful & Functional Bowls, Plates, Vases & More on the Wheel
by Sus Borgbjerg - Susan Liebe
Beginning potters will learn to make plates, bowls, vases, and other fine, useful items on the wheel with this accessible guide. This informative and practical handbook is for anyone who wants to try their hand at clay and create fine, useful things by hand.
Wild Basketry: Making Baskets and Natural Cordage from Foraged Plants
by Ruby Taylor
A makers' guide to sourcing and harvesting foraged plants to make natural cordage and baskets.
Making with our hands is a fundamental human activity; connection with the natural world and the feeling of belonging to place are basic human needs. A counterbalance to our digitalised lives is the wish to connect with the simple joy and satisfaction of creating beautiful and useful objects, tapping into ancestral skills and wisdom and taking care of our world by reducing our ecological impact. Wild Basketry brings all this together in a rich combination of reflection and practical guide.
Your Natural Garden: A Practical Guide to Caring for an Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden
by Kelly D Norris
As featured in The New York Times, a valuable and artfully crafted guide to tending a naturalistic garden.
From plantsman Kelly Norris, author of New Naturalism, comes a much-needed handbook to maintaining today's natural gardens. Naturalistic plantings, overflowing with biodiverse communities of plants, are filling front and backyards around the globe with colorful blooms, easy-care plants, and wildlife habitat. But caring for a naturalistic garden is vastly different than caring for a traditional home landscape of carefully manicured plants separated by mulch and regularly primped and pruned. In Your Natural Garden, tending your garden properly means understanding its connection to the greater natural world and using garden care methods that mimic nature instead of controlling it.