Listening guide
Craft and maker podcasts worth your time
8 shows about craft and the people who do it for a living, covering ceramics, woodworking, textiles, clothing, design and the business side of all of it. Craft podcast lists go stale faster than almost any other kind, so every show here was opened and checked for a 2026 episode before it went on the page, and the episode we found is named in its entry. One well-known show was cut for exactly that reason. The order runs from the most hands-in-the-work shows to the ones that come at craft from culture and business. It is not a ranking.
Updated July 2026 · Next review October 2026
The Potters Cast
Paul Blais · Twice a week
Twelve hundred–odd interviews with working potters, which is a strange and wonderful thing to have on the internet. Episodes are short and the questions are practical: how the studio pays for itself, what the kiln schedule looks like, what the maker would tell somebody starting now. If you want a sense of how many ways there are to make a living in one trade, start here and pick names at random.
Checked July 2026: Episode 1247 landed 21 July 2026.
Shop Talk Live
The Fine Woodworking staff · Every two weeks
Fine Woodworking editors answering reader questions, which sounds dry and is not. The value is in hearing experienced woodworkers disagree about grain direction or finishing order and then explain why. It is the closest thing to standing around somebody else's bench while they argue.
Checked July 2026: STL371 landed 24 July 2026.
The Long Thread Podcast
Anne Merrow and Linda Ligon · Weekly to every other week
Long interviews with spinners, weavers, dyers and textile historians, from the team behind Handwoven and Spin Off. The episodes take their time, and the history ones are worth it even if you have never touched a loom.
Checked July 2026: An episode with textile historian Emily Whitted landed 25 July 2026.
Making It
Jimmy DiResta, Bob Clagett, and David Picciuto · Most Fridays
Three makers with three different businesses talking through the week. Less instruction than the others on this list and more of the running conversation behind a shop: what sold, what failed, what tool was a mistake, whether the whole thing is worth doing. Five hundred–plus episodes deep and still going.
Checked July 2026: Episode 529 landed 17 July 2026, ending the longest break the hosts have taken.
The Trades Show
Briana Ottoboni · Every other week through mid-December 2026
Ours, so weigh it accordingly. Each episode is recorded on location in one artisan's shop: a blacksmith, an ornamental plasterer, a bootmaker, a butcher, a florist. The questions are about the craft and the business under it, including the parts that are hard to say out loud, like what handmade work should cost and who is going to do it next. Season 2 is set in San Francisco.
Checked July 2026: Episode 15 landed 23 July 2026.
Articles of Interest
Avery Trufelman · In seasons, with standalone episodes between them
Narrative documentary rather than interview, released in seasons that each take one idea apart, with standalone episodes in between. It is the best argument on this list for why an object's history is part of the object. If you make anything anyone wears, the seasons on preppy clothing and on outdoor gear will change how you talk about your own work.
Checked July 2026: An episode on the working life of a fit model landed 12 June 2026.
Clever
Amy Devers · Weekly, currently running tenth-anniversary encores
Devers is a furniture maker herself, and it shows in what she asks. The episodes go into how somebody arrived at the work rather than what they have made lately, which makes it the closest neighbour on this list to what we try to do. It is ten years old this year and spending the summer replaying its own back catalogue, so start with the encores and work outward.
Checked July 2026: the most recent new episode is 237, from 14 April 2026, and weekly encores have run since, most recently 28 July 2026.
Craft Industry Alliance
Abby Glassenberg · Every two to four weeks
The one to listen to when the question is money. Glassenberg interviews shop owners, designers and executives about margins, wholesale, hiring and what is actually happening to the craft market. Unglamorous and specific, which is the point.
Checked July 2026: An episode with author Michael Blanding landed 16 July 2026.
How this list is made
Checked, not collected
Nobody paid to be here and nobody was asked in advance. The test was simple: does the show treat craft as work rather than as decoration, and did it publish something this year. We re-run that check quarterly, and a show that goes quiet comes off the list rather than sitting here collecting clicks. If you make a show that belongs on it, tell us.