Back to the Basics: Courses to Get You Craftin'

Have you been on the lookout for a new hobby in your journey to find more balance in your life? As children, we have endless excitement for spending time on hobbies and chasing new interests. We had this spark we seem to lose as we get older and take on adult responsibilities and commitments. To all who hold on to their spark, we are here to say: it's never too late. 
 

Creative Spark Online Learning offers hundreds of arts and crafts courses across categories like sewing, quilting, embroidery, pottery, fabric dyeing, and more. You can watch and learn and follow along with award-winning, knowledgeable instructors. 
 

Whether you're a complete crafting newbie or want to try a new craft, we gathered online courses that go back to the basics.

Tips of the Trade

You never know what little sewing tip or hack will make the biggest difference in your sewing or quilting craft. Lee Chappell Monroe has packed all the best little quilting nuggets that she has learned over her long sewing history into this one fun and informative hour lecture. Whether she learned them from her mother or grandmother, her students over the years as a sewing instructor, or her friends in the industry, Lee is passing all these great tips and tricks on to you! 

Know a great tip that Lee doesn’t mention? Add it to the discussion board and read the tidbits from fellow Sparklers for even more shared knowledge.You can test out your new skills with Lee's Jump Into Sewing eBook (included in the course!) with six cute and useful projects like pillows, totes, pouches, and more.

Sergers Made Simple: Basics and Beyond

Sergers are wonderful sewing tools, but so many sewists find them intimidating. Sergers are incredibly versatile and allow you to multi-task with sewing and trimming seam allowances at the same time. They can make secure, durable stitches and do them extremely quickly. You can finish your hand-made garments and projects with professional results; it could even lead to a successful home business.

In this thorough course, Katrina will lead you on your journey to confidently create with your serger. Every lesson focuses on the essential knowledge and skills you need to understand your serger and enjoy using it. As you progress through the course you will build on what you have already learned in a natural progression, so that each new skill is easy to learn. Whether you are breaking your serger out of the box or looking to sharpen your skills, this comprehensive course has everything you need to become serger savvy.

This course also has a freebie: Katrina Walker’s ebook, Serger 101: From Setting Up & Using Your Machine to Creating with Confidence + 10 Projects & over 40 Techniques.

Yes You Can Free Motion Quilt

Wouldn’t you love to put the finishing touch on your quilts? For less than the cost of sending one quilt out, you CAN learn to free motion quilt. Join author and award-winning art quilter Jenny Lyon to learn successful free-motion quilting on your domestic sewing machine. Jenny explains all the details in clear, precise language, sometimes with a little humor. She knows this is something you can do with some guidance and practice. 

You'll start at the very beginning: Learn about the best set-up of your machine area and picking the right tools for free-motion fun and how to pair the right needle and thread, and how to adjust your tension for beautiful stitches. Find out key preparation steps when it comes to batting, marking, and basting. Plus, Jenny guides you through a variety of designs such as Loops, Bubbles, Stipple, Peacock & Crosshatch. You'll master free-motion fundamentals to create the quilt of your dreams!

Who doesn't love a cherry on top? This course comes with a free workbook (ebook) and perfect companion for the course: Free-Motion Quilting from Ordinary to Extraordinary.

Folk Art Embroidery with Stitch Library

Hand embroidery is the art of decorative stitching on fabric with a needle and thread. This introductory course will teach you all you need to know to get started for a lifetime of pleasure in this traditional yet timeless stitching craft. Pair this course with Catherine’s Butterfly Stitches to learn whipstitch appliqué and several dimensional embroidery stitches. 

As a master of her craft, Catherine Redford shares all the tips and tricks she learned over the years to succeed at hand embroidery. She gives you a folk art overview and guides you through the materials and tools needed to start your hand embroidery journey. 

With this course, you have access to her Extensive Embroidery Stitch Library: a video library of over 40 embroidery stitches you can embellish with.

Ice Dyeing: Basics and Beyond

Ice dyeing is the process of using ice and powdered dyes to create incredible colors and patterns on fabric, clothes, and home décor. The melting ice randomly spreads the dyes on the fabric, leading to fantastic and unique results each time! From fiber artist, teacher, and author Lynn Koolish, this course will show you everything you need to know about ice dyeing.

No experience is needed for this beginner-friendly course. Even if you have dyed fabric before, you can expand your knowledge of working with Procion and Fiber Reactive dyes. You will learn over 13 techniques to create unique ice-dyed patterns and come away with a stack of unique fabrics you can use in quilts or other fiber art projects.

To top it off, this course has freebies cool as a the ice you use to dye: a free Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Dyeing by Lynn Koolish ebook and a comprehensive handout to use with the video lessons and refer to repeatedly.

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