New hobbies

Ok, you knew I wouldn’t be able to resist finding something new to occupy my time now that the convention is over. Actually, I’ve found two new hobbies which both look like being suitable time-sinks.

First is a new web-based hobby (well, new for NZ, anyway): Markeroni. It’s basically searching for historic places and markers – pretty much stopping at all those weird and wonderful roadside memorials that lytteltonwitch and I have so much fun stopping at anyway. So now as well as dropping books and searching for geocaches, we’ll be taking photos to “snarf” (yep, like any good hobby, it’s got its own language) them on Markeroni.

And here’s my other new potential obsession:

I’m taking a night class in Bedfordshire lace-making. As with any other craft, it involves a huge amount of equipment, but the tutor has lent the four absolute beginners in the class a pillow and a set of bobbins for this term, so we get a chance to decide whether we want to carry on before we have to spend vast amounts of money getting our own (or making our own – there’s no suppliers for pillows in NZ, so the only options are to buy one from overseas at great expense, or get creative with a lump of polystyrene).

So far I’ve only learnt the most basic stitch, normally just used for the boring background bits, but as a practice I’ve made a bookmark using it (well, almost made – we didn’t get as far as learning how to finish off in last week’s class, so I have to wait until the next class to finish it).

I can see a lot of bookmarks in my future, seeing as I don’t know many people who like the sort of frilly doilies that are the more normal output of lace-making 🙂