Crafts & Hobbies: Digital Library Resources

Whether you want to hand-sew a button on a shirt or design and construct original projects, this class has all of the essentials you need to get started sewing with confidence. You'll learn about sewing machine basics, types of needles and thread, fabric choices and pattern prep. Then try out the skills you have learned by constructing an easy sewing tool pouch.

Whether you are looking to get started in hand embroidery or just brush up on your skills, the basics are all here. You'll learn about transferring patterns to fabric, hooping up, then stitching 14 different embroidery stitches. You'll be inspired to stitch up something one-of-a-kind in no time at all.

Practice painting in the company of an award-winning artist and professor. Not only will you learn how to select tools and apply techniques, but you’ll develop the visual skills and muscle memory that make painting an infinitely adaptable form of artistic expression. These 24 lessons feature hands-on demonstrations that bring the art school experience into your own home.

Drawing is one of humanity’s oldest forms of expression, with existing examples dating back an astonishing 80,000 years or more. Older than written language by tens of thousands of years, drawing developed across millennia, forming the base of many of the world’s artistic traditions.

Get a quick, easy, and comprehensive guide to the fundamentals of baking like a professional with The Everyday Gourmet: Baking Pastries and Desserts. These six lessons invite you to join Chef Stephen L. Durfee as he gives practical tips and insights on baking anything. Filmed on site at the CIA’s Greystone campus in Napa Valley, this series is suitable for novice and master baker alike.

Presented in partnership with The Culinary Institute of America and filmed at the CIA's flagship facility in New York, this series provides the step-by-step instructions you need to become a confident, productive cook in your own home. Your instructor, Chef Sean Kahlenberg, carefully walks you through the many dozen original recipes he presents in 24 easy-to-follow lessons.

With Fundamentals of Photography, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the art and craft of great photography straight from Joel Sartore, a National Geographer photographer with more than 30 years of experience. Designed for people at all levels, these 24 episodes are an engaging guide to how photographs work and how to make them work better for you.

Taught by Professor Stephen Ressler of West Point, this course conducts you through 17 thrilling engineering projects that you can build at home - from a suspension bridge across a small stream to a low-altitude sounding rocket. Dr. Ressler walks you through the entire process, from design to build to test, showing you how to think like an engineer in approaching any problem.

The guitar is one of the most accessible, versatile, and easy to learn instruments you can play. Get lessons and tips from expert, such as how a simple group of four guitar chords enables you to play hundreds of songs. Even if you already play the guitar, this course will broaden your knowledge by applying music theory, history, and expanding your repertoire of songs and styles.