Rug Hooking, Knitting and Wood Working-

My long time friend and co-worker, Craig Harlamoff, once noted that he and I could be happy as professional hobbiests. People who pursue new and old hobbies, all of the time. I had to agree. We have known each other for over twenty years, mostly as professional correctional officers. (I wouldn't recommend corrections as a profession, or a hobby.) Perhaps it was that profession which compelled all of the hobbying. Perhaps it was just something wired into our admittedly strange brains.

I have for years been a whittler, a wood-crafter who is not-quite a carver. I took up loom knitting a couple of years ago, needing something to do with my hands during a long period of waiting. Something not so messy as whittling. Loom knitting was cheap to get into, and not particularly messy. I still loom knit. I am presently making granny-squares to be crochet trimmed and built into a blanket or afghan. It is relatively clean, quiet, and allows me to use my hands and mind creatively when I need to do just that.

Presently I have been viewing woodworking shows on television. The Woodwright's Shop. Rough Cut Woodworking. Woodsmith Shop. Our move led to getting a pretty good cable package, and with the DVR I have been able to gather some of these shows and watch them. Repeatedly. I would love to get a shop together and do some of the fine work I have watched. Unfortunately, it costs a bit more than a five dollar loom and ten bucks worth of yarn to get into this hobby. Even though I have a few tools, I have nothing sufficient for this kind of work. Not yet.

It costs nothing to look at other people's hobbies. One I discovered was rug hooking. I thought I would look into this hobby when it was mentioned some place or another. I found a guy who was doing it, doing it well, and had done it for quite some time. His work was really good, and he knew people who were even better. I checked into the basics of the hobby, and found that it didn't come cheap.

I remain interested enough to look forward to blog posts on the subject, and I really enjoy the pictures of the works presented by proud hobbiests. Meanwhile I watch woodworking shows and continue to knit a bit. There is a lot I haven't done even with a five dollar loom, and there are many yarns I haven't worked with. Like most hobbies, loom knitting has many layers and a great deal of depth.

Oh, and I have been dabbling in making beer. Just a bit. Unfortunately, home-brewed beer and knitting are not complementary hobbies. More so than beer drinking and woodworking, but they really don't go together. Beer drinking and watching sports is a whole different thing, however. Baseball season is just around the corner....

Yep, look for me in my favorite chair, an afghan growing on my lap, a home-brew sitting frosty on the table next to me, and a whole season of baseball on the television. Unless some job comes along to spoil it all. Of course, then I might have funds to start building my wood shop.

Hmmmm. That might not be so bad.