Non-Book Hobbies

This Wednesday's Long and Short Reviews prompt invites bloggers to post about what we do for fun other than reading.

I knit.

I used to dabble in all kinds of different arts and crafts. I learned to sew well enough to make just a few of my own clothes--hand-me-downs and charity store finds were cheaper. I drew and painted, embroidered and wove, shaped clay and papier-mache. My one crocheted hat and one macrame flowerpot hanger may still exist somewhere. The paper dolls for whom I used to draw clothes and things, as if practicing to be a commercial artist, definitely do exist. In my early twenties I bought a really nice sewing machine; there wasn't room in the cheap rooms I rented in the city to spread out fabric and sew, so I sold it to Mother, who did sewing better anyway. Mother sewed, one of the great-aunts crocheted, and one of the neighbors quilted, for the neighborhood.

Nobody else knitted. I'd bought a spool knitting kit for each of the sisters; neither of them did much spool knitting but, while recovering from flu in 1989, I started knitting on two needles. I never looked back. I went on to knit with single "circular" needles, and with batches of four or five double-pointed needles, and on frames...and soon knitting had crowded the other crafts out of my life and home.

As regular readers know, there are several posts about knitting here, including the original designs for knitted doll outfits,

blankets, 

and hats; 

and reviews of knitting books, and a series about "Eighties sweaters."