Illustrations by Caitlin Keegan. Photo by Maxwell Tielman. If you haven’t attempted knitting, it can seem pretty terrifying. You might have watched friends or family members do it — their pointy needles swinging at lightning speed through a tangled mass of yarn — and worried deeply for their eyes and internal organs. You might be…
For the last few months, we’ve set aside our staple guns and dipped into our bag of tools and tricks to make everything from lampshades to slipcovers. This month on Upholstery Basics, we head back to the sewing machine to construct a simple shower curtain. For a clawfoot tub, finding a shower curtain that’s wide enough…
As you can see, your shout-outs for a slipcover tutorial haven’t gone unnoticed. The desire for washability or the need to conceal functional yet unfashionable hand-me-downs has been weighing on your mind . . . and mine. Just recently, I pulled out my folding table (newly Spruced thanks to the July Upholstery Basics) and, to…
I have been obsessed with craft supplies since my early childhood, and I am not afraid to talk about my lifelong love affair with glue. It’s rivaled only by my love of tape, but more on that later :) Glue is a magical substance, and trust me when I say that the ability to permanently…
Every woodworker or hobbyist will inevitably need to sand something — it’s just a fact! Sanding is one of the essential steps of finishing furniture, and it’s also a great way to make a piece new again. There are many different types of sanding materials to cover a range of needs, and luckily, most sanding…
We’re continuing to set up our ultimate DIY toolkit, and today we’re bringing out the big guns of the saw world — compound miter saws and the table saw. These saws are stationary and both require a fair amount of space for cutting. However, if you plan to do woodworking of any substantial size or…
For the second installment of DIY 101, we’re continuing to fill our toolbox with essentials. Your rad new drill will get through you a bunch of projects, but investing in a good saw or two will get you ready to tackle a whole lot more. Power saws might seem scary if you’ve never used them…
I’m very excited to announce a new monthly column: DIY 101! Sometimes it feels like DIY projects should be redefined as FIOY– “figure it out yourself”– projects. I know from experience that the gap between looking at an object and thinking “well I can make that” and enjoying a successfully completed project can be a…
