Matt
This is a creative hobby map I put together. What I love about exploring a variety of hobbies is how often one seems to flow easily into the next. The skills learned while soldering keyboard switches could just as easily be applied to soldering silver jewelry. Understanding how to plate food nicely can help with terrarium design.
Constraints
As I mentioned last week, one of my goals for this week is to pick a starting point. This hobby would ideally meet the following constraints:
- Low startup cost: Ideally under $100 to complete a first project
- Minimal space requirement: I only have my room to work in at the moment and don’t have a ton of space to store excess materials or tools
- Quick turnaround time: I’ll be traveling through much of December and early January, so I want to be able to finish my first project before I leave the city for Christmas
Below is a table that demonstrates how each hobby performs against these limitations, with 1 representing the least favorable performance and 5 representing the most and sorted by total score. This is just a quick and dirty exercise based on surface level knowledge, designed to help me create a shortlist from the hobby map.
| Hobby | Cost | Space | Turnaround | Total Score |
| Baking | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| Cooking | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| 3D Concept Design | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| Sewing | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
| Leatherworking | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 |
| Keyboard modification | 1 | 5 | 5 | 11 |
| Crocheting | 4 | 5 | 2 | 11 |
| Woodworking | 3 | 3 | 4 | 10 |
| Bonsai | 4 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
| Terrariums | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| Model kit customization | 3 | 4 | 2 | 9 |
| Gardening | 4 | 3 | 1 | 8 |
| Silversmithing | 2 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| Ceramics | 2 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| Knifemaking | 1 | 2 | 1 | 4 |
Evaluation
While baking and cooking score highly, it’s not new to me. For both, cost and space both ranked as 5s because I can use ingredients I already have in my kitchen. Turnaround time is also short (though I would love to document my attempt(s) at making sourdough at some point in the future).
3D concept design seems fun – I’ve heard there’s great free software out there, takes no space, and if I wanted to print something I could go to a library or hire a printing service. However, the activity would still be primarily digital, nor do I have anything I want to build a concept for just yet.
That brings me, finally, to sewing. While I first thought I’d have to buy a used sewing machine to get started, my girlfriend reminded me that I could start with hand sewing. It’s low cost since I only need a needle, thread, and some fabric (which I could easily acquire by cutting up some old towels or t-shirts). It’s portable for the same reasons, and I don’t think it would take too long to attach two pieces of fabric together. Additionally, practice with creating neat stitches can help me with leatherwork down the road as well, allowing me to easily pivot down the line if I want.
Next Steps
While I’ll be traveling starting on Tuesday and won’t return until the following Monday, I should still be able to do some research on various types of stitches, when to use them, and get some practice in on the plane. I’ll do my best to document the process and share my results next Sunday. Until next time!
