If you've ever wanted to get started in the craft of clay making, This book is the perfect place to start -- no kiln, wheel, or lathe needed. A complete, beginner-friendly guide that explains everything you need to know, this is an exciting resource that's filled with insight on setting up a workshop space, different tools and clays, common terms to know, and other clay-making basics. From there, more than 50 elegant but simple clay projects for the home, ranging from candlesticks and flower vases to plates, cutting boards, lidded jars and jugs are featured with step-by-step instructions and stunning photography. Also included are lots of decorative technique tutorials for modeling, coiling, printing, stamping, mixing, and tinting. Combining simple skills with an elevated design aesthetic, this craft book is a must-have for any maker and DIYer looking to try something new, easy, affordable, and fun.

Knitting and crochet have long been considered forms of folk art, but in the 21st century, these time-honoured crafts are breaking away from the outdated stereotype of cosy domesticity. Whether miniature or oversized, multi-coloured or monochrome, abstract or naturalistic, intimate or exhibitionist, knitted works are now invading galleries, museums and other public spaces. Yarn has become a medium for artistic expression as valid and multifaceted as painting, sculpture or photography. Showcasing forty international artists who incorporate knitting, crochet and more into their practice, this book provides a survey of yarn work in contemporary art, illustrating the huge range of ways in which these techniques have been embraced as a form of creative expression. Some artists evoke a kind of nostalgia, rediscovering skills that have fallen from fashion or promoting the value of ancient handicrafts in an industrialized world of mass-production. Others push the boundaries of knitting by using non-traditional materials such as rope or wire, or by using its sculptural potential to tackle themes that are political, personal or transgressive. Although often associated with feelings of warmth, enclosure and familial love, yarn can also represent the ties that bind us together or a membrane that protects us from the world. Packed with striking images, this book demonstrates how knitting needles and crochet hooks can created works of art that are challenging and unique, forcing us to take a fresh look at our own lives and beliefs and at the objects that surround us every day.

No longer considered merely decorative, ceramic art has broken free from the dusty display cases to which it was once relegated and is now taking centre stage in contemporary galleries. Although often integrating traditional modelling, firing and glazing techniques into their output, the 90 artists featured here invite us to look at ceramics in a different way. Whether creating monumental installations or intricate miniatures, imaginary beasts or life-size human figures, they subtly blur the borders between art and craft, sometimes conceiving witty or unnerving twists on traditional ceramic forms, sometimes using cutting-edge technology, conceptual thinking and new platforms to push the boundaries of clay and broaden its appeal. Packed with works that are questioning and provocative, disturbing and seductive, this is an exciting overview of a booming field.