Two birds, one stone

[fuzzyred]

I have never been very good at social things or making new friends, and I've been meaning to improve those skills of mine, since I would like to have a few more (and closer) friends. And with all this isolation making me feel lonely, I figured now was a pretty good time to start practising. Ideally, I was going to look up conversation starters and how to make friends, but I have not the spoons or energy for that now, so for the moment my own brain will suffice. I am planning on making more posts geared towards getting to know people and making friends, so for some of the future ones I do plan on looking up some resources to give myself a better starting point.

In the meantime, I'm going to share a little bit about one of my interests in hopes of sparking a discussion, and letting you all get to know me better. If you feel so inclined, feel free to leave a comment asking questions about my hobby, or share a hobby of your own. Interactions are much welcome, always, but especially now!

I like to craft. Recently it has been knitting and crocheting, making floor cushions for myself and mittens for a friend, plus multiple projects in the past. I've done lots of different things though, that I hope to come back to in time. I have enjoyed doing paint by numbers (free hand is much more difficult for me, though my recent attempt at following a tutorial went rather well), latch hooks, various string bracelets, and beaded animals. I like when new things catch my eye, though I don't have the patience or talent for everything I see. (I don't suppose anyone does.) I think painting and art is where I'd like to venture next, as I find I enjoy it though I really do lack the creativity to feel comfortable making paintings of my own (and my drawing skills are rather weak.) Something that may help with the creativity aspect is making up patterns for crochet squares, instead of following someone else's. This is something my grandmother is encouraging me to do and I may look into it more. Again, the lack of a "vision" (some thing I really want to see brought to life) makes creating a pattern hard; how am I supposed to create a thing (crochet square or painting) when I have no idea what I want it to look like?

What hobbies do you have? Is there anything you want to learn, or wish you could do but can't? Do you have any questions about my crafting, or wonder what else I enjoy doing?

Comments

[technoshaman]

Oooh, do you do socks?

I collect pens. Fountain, mostly, but I just got a purty hand-turned rosewood ballpoint... pocketnaomi introduced me to fountain pens when we were decorating a room in Victorian style, and I kinda took it and ran with it... and of course if you're doing pens you're doing inks... some super-waterproof, some sparkly, some shadey... and you can do colours and sparklies in rollerball pens too. My new pen has Cross innards, and Monteverde make a full rainbow of refills for it; I have a thing for turquoise...

And then there's the motorbikes... I've kinda slid out of the habit lately with the quarantine, but there's nowt like being out there just you and the road... and by "you" I mean the two halves of the motorbike, iron and carbon-based, become as one... there's kind of a Zen to it...

[fuzzyred]

I have not done socks yet, but having knit mittens, I probably could do socks (both use circular knitting.) I suspect I won't try my hand at socks until someone asks for a pair; or I get sufficiently bored with the rest of knitting.

Ooo, pens are something I haven't considered before. All the different kinds of ink sound really interesting, especially the sparkly ones.

I've never really gotten into motorbikes (too scared of falling over), though there are some truly beautiful ones to look at, and the way you describe riding sounds like a great experience. I can see how quarantine would make that kind of hard though.

[technoshaman]

I miss my hand-knit socks; I had a couple pairs made for me back about five years ago, and they were so awesome... sadly, they fell victim to a pair of moves, and I can't locate either anymore. :(

The sparkly inks are good giggly fun... though with a little practice, the shadey inks are almost as much fun. Neither requires a particulary expensive pen to get good results from either.. Pilot make a medium italic pen for about $20, and a converter (ink tank, so you can use bottled ink instead of boring cartridges - all the sparkly inks are bottled) with an agitator ball to stir up the sparklies...

If you can ride a bicycle, you can learn to ride a motorbike. The geometry of the bike's steering is such that it REALLY wants to stay upright...

The business with quarantine and a bike is that, while a well-trained rider really isn't any more likely to tangle with another vehicle than in a car, the odds of that tangle if it does happen requiring a trip to the hospital are considerably higher... and that's a Risk I'm not prepared to take right now. Some people are, but I did my time in there, thankyoumuch, and while I learnt a few things I value, I don't care to be in there - especially as a high-risk patient - with a potentially lethal bug going around. That and cars have air filters, helmets.. don't. So, yeah. :(

[fuzzyred]

Losing favourite things is hard. I'm sorry they got lost in the moves.

I can indeed ride a bicycle, though I suspect a motorcycle would take some getting used to. The fact that it WANTS to stay upright would come in very handy for me I suspect.

Sounds like a smart decision. I would not want to be in a hospital right now either, and I'm not high risk, so I totally get that. It is unfortunate still about not being able to ride, especially since it sounds like you enjoy it a lot.