Holiday Gift Guide 2025: Next-Level Kits for Crafters and Makers

To pass the colder months, my sister and I have started a new tradition we have dubbed—quite cleverly, I think—crafternoons. Come over (we live 10 minutes away from each other), bring some embroidery or some sewing or something else you’re working on; I’ll put the kettle on. It’s old-school, it’s meditative, it’s a great antidote to dark afternoons, and it certainly beats doom scrolling.

Are you hankering to make things, too—or maybe know someone who is? This year, in a Remodelista first, we’re rounding up 9 covetable crafting kits that teach bygone skills, all from from designers and makers we love. No trip to Hobby Lobby needed.

Above: “Beyond carriers, baskets represent nourishment and kinship. Making them is an act of generosity. Carrying them brings us down to earth.” Underwater Weaving Studio has a slew of beginner-friendly kits; we’re charmed by the Baguette Basket Kit with a black ribbon; $98. Above: Another favorite from Underwater Weaving Studio: the Woven Flower Sleeve Kit, $98. Above: Darn! For the at-home mender of sweaters and socks, there’s a Merchant and Mills Darning Kit, $42 from Gardenheir. Above: From Block Shop, an all-in-one kit for making your own artful block prints. The Marigold Dye and Print Kit is $145. (Also on offer: the Original Block-Printing Kit, currently on sale for $49 from $100.) Above: From Bard in Scotland, the Knotted Basket Kit by basketmaker Eve Euson “sows the seeds for future Fair Isle knotters.” According to Bard: “This is an endangered craft—the same distinct technique has been used for centuries to make Fair Isle Strawback chairs, which Eve has doggedly chronicled and kept alive.” A kit is £36. Above: From Yamato Indigo, the Indigo Fabric Paint Kit includes indigo dye and binder for making a simple indigo paint; it’s $40 from Brooklyn Haberdashery. Above: The gift of warm—and busy—hands: Tatter Blue Library’s Poetry Mittens are “based on early nineteenth-century blue and white homespun mittens in the Smithsonian collection.” The Poetry Mittens Kit includes two skeins of cashgora yarn, poem, and how-to booklet; $80 from Tatter Blue Library. Above: I remember making these hand-rolled candles in elementary school; the subtle scent of the beeswax is heavenly. The Beeswax Candle-Making Kit is currently on sale for $17 from Cultiverre.

For more of this year’s gift guides, see:

• Stocking Stuffers for the Grownup Set
• Gifts That Give Back