Since being home on my holiday vacation, I have been catching up on some of my favorite craft podcasts. One reason I like podcasts (over videos for example) is that I can listen while I’m crafting. I can keep my eyes on my work and still learn some interesting and entertaining craft information at the same time.

If you look at my sidebar links, you’ll see I have a list of craft related podcasts, and I’m always looking to add more if you know of any good ones (feel free to add links in the comments). Of this list, there are two that especially stand out to me as being the ones I seem to enjoy the most, Crafty Pod and Yarn Craft.

Let me preface this with the fact that I can only imagine the amount of work that goes into producing a podcast, and I am by no means a expert. However….I have listened to a lot of them and notice that sometimes I can’t get myself to finish listening to one podcast while other podcasts make me come back for more. So here are my podcasts dislikes and likes.

Dislikes –

• Unorganized or rambling – Sometimes the speaker seems to have very little idea of what he or she will talk about and will just ramble about all kinds of topics, sometimes related to crafts and sometimes not.
• Way, way off topic – This is kind of related to the above point. While I don’t need every single word said to be just about crafts, I think the primary focus should be about crafting, not the speaker’s garden or new shoes or whatever.
• Too much personal info – Again, this is related to my previous points. Unless I am closely related to the speaker, I am only interested to a certain point about his or her personal life. Yes, I like to hear about new craft projects under way or some kind of craft related trip taken or even something cute a pet or child has done, but keep it short and sweet and get to the point of the podcast.
• Ummm…er…um…well…ugh – Like, be careful about, like, how you talk, you know, like, man

Likes –

• Themes – For me, a well-organized podcast often has some kind of theme or main idea. This is usually mentioned in the show notes, which is nice since I can read these first and decide if it’s a show I want to listen to or not. Crafty Pod and Yarn Craft always do this and even have very specific topic-related titles.
• Good show notes – Related to the previous point, I love to have links and photos and other related information included in the show notes so I can refer to these either while I am listening or afterward.
• A clear conversation – Yarn Craft has an advantage because it has two hosts, Liz and Zontee, and they actually talk to one another during the podcast, thus creating a real conversation. Sister Diane is very well-spoken and is clearly thinking about what she says to you, the listener. Neither of these podcasts ramble, but they don’t feel overly rehearsed either.
• Not all about them – Good podcasts should have a balance between feeling connected to the hosts, which requires knowing about them personally to some extent, but not feeling like the speakers are  just talking to hear themselves yap. Yes, these are often people who are standouts in their crafting field. Maybe they have books published, sell patterns, are total experts in the topic, but if they have a guest on, then the conversation should focus primarily on what the guest has to offer to the podcast listeners.

Feel free to offer your own likes and dislikes as well as list the URLs of any podcasts that you enjoy listening to.