TTT: Non-Bookish Hobbies

On By ElleyIn Books, memes/tags

Top Ten Tuesday is brought to you by the lovely Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Check out the Top Ten Tuesday post for a full list of prompts!

This week’s prompt is:

Non-Bookish Hobbies

D&D/Tabletop RPGS

I love tabletop RPGs, and some of my favorites are Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer Fantasy. Right now I play a D&D 5E game online (on roll20) every Tuesday night and it’s a blast! I wish I got the chance to play more, and I miss playing in person.

Cross-Stitch/ Embroidery

I’m just starting to teach myself to do cross-stitch and embroidery, so I’m not very good yet, but it’s a lot of fun!

Quilting

I’ve done some really basic machine quilting for blankets and whatnot, but what I really love is paper-pieced quilting. I also am working on a hand-quilted hexy quilt for my mom, which I’ve been working in in tiny bits for a couple of years now, haha. Someday I might finish it!

Painting

I like painting with acrylics on canvas, but I’m not great at it. I also love painting minis for tabletop RPGs! They’re VERY different sorts of painting, but both really fun in their own way. Here’s a mini for my Tiefling warlock/sorcerer that I need to finish painting one of these days…

Cooking

I LOVE cooking and trying to recipes! Most recently I made homemade gimbap. Korean cooking is some of my favorite, and it’s nice to be able to make it at home because we don’t have many Korean restaurants around here. I love cooking, but HATE to bake – is that odd?

Crochet/Knitting

Another self-taught hobby, I’m a super beginner at both of these. I do mostly washcloths, dish scrubbies, and scarves – small, easy projects! This Christmas I’m attempting to make my first ever hat for someone – wish me luck!!

Cosplay

I LOVE to cosplay! My style is a mix of purchased costumes, costumes put together in a sort of “closet cosplay” style with some purchased base pieces and purchased or me-made accessories, or I’ve made a few entirely from scratch. My favorite part is WEARING the costume and interacting with people in character, more than the construction of the actual costume, haha.

Video Games

I used to be a big WoW fanatic before I had kids – now who has time for that? My spouse still plays a lot of high-commitment games, but I’m much more of a casual gamer now. I was big into Animal Crossing earlier this year (who wasn’t?!) but I haven’t played much of anything lately. Enjoy this screen shot of me stargazing with Jana and Sarah…

Bath Bombs/Soap/Candles

Pretty much every year for Christmas I try out something new to make for people as gifts. I’ve done bath bombs, melt & pour soap, soy wax candles… Someday I want to try making paraffin pillar candles as well!

Board Games

I love board games and card games (but can never get people to play with me!) This is from KissCon 2019 (maybe?) – I brought along Marrying Mr. Darcy and made people play with me!

Honorary mention to: taking baths and dying my hair weird colors. Do those count as hobbies? LOL

What would your Top Ten look like? Do we share any of the same hobbies? Let me know in the comments, or link me to your post!

43 thoughts on “TTT: Non-Bookish Hobbies”

      1. I hope to learn more and more about it! Mostly so I can make gifts, haha! I’m making some soap for Christmas gifts and I’d sort of like to crochet a sort of soap-on-a-rope type of deal, lol.

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    2. Washcloths are a great place to start because they’re small and can be done in a relatively short amount of time! I personally like to crochet washcloths just because crocheting is easier for me (only one stick to manage instead of 2, haha). I really like Lily Sugar ‘n’ Cream yarn for washcloths. You should give it a go!!

      I’m waiting to hear if my D&D game is going to go on tonight as planned or if we’re canceling because of the election… REALLY hoping we have it as I could use some smashin’! 🙂

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    1. It’s been hard, we don’t have a lot of good two player games and my kids are too little to play anything really fun still. SOMEDAY, though… We’re a family of 4 and, gee, what a great number for so many games… *evil grin*

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  3. I am going to get into cross stitching one of these days. It looks so fun and satisfying. Also looks hard, though. Haha.

    Not strange at all to hate baking! Me too! I am not crazy about sweets… so cakes and pies and cookies are just blech to me. Fixing something I don’t necessarily like seems wasteful. I’ll do brownies once in awhile. I don’t mess with bread either because I really don’t like bread.

    I also really love your cosplays! 😀

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    1. Thank you!! 🙂 There are cross-stitch kits which are good to start with, especially if you can find a stamped cross-stitch kit where the pattern is already on the fabric and you just follow it. Counted cross-stitch is a bit trickier, and I definitely make a lot of mistakes! I started with making a couple of bookmarks, so they were smaller and sort of simpler projects. I’m starting my first BIG one for a gift and I’m pretty intimidated by it, haha!

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  4. I love how creative you are! I’m always so jealous of creative people who can do all kinds of arts and crafts stuff. I’ve always wanted to learn how to quilt, but my biggest success was a pillow I made in 5th grace home ec class 😂 Maybe I should try again? I love the cosplay outfit!

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    1. I very much think of myself as a jack of all trades and master of none, haha. I tend to throw myself in 100% into whatever I’m into at the moment, but lose steam/interest quickly and move onto something new. A pillow sounds like a great place to start for quilting! My first project was a baby blanket using a charm pack of pre-cut squares and then I attempted to quilt it myself on my regular machine. Man, it’s kind of a hot mess but also cute? I probably won’t ever get into “real” intense quilting because there’s so much math and precision! I really like paper-pieced quilting though, as the projects tend to be smaller and easier to fiddle with. 🙂 You should definitely give quilting another go!

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  5. I like hobbies that have a pretty quick payoff. I’m terrible about starting something, getting bored if I don’t finish it quickly, setting it aside and never picking it up again. My grandmother taught me to crochet when I was young. I made a lot of squares and she crocheted them together into a blanket for me. I still have it. It’s hard to think I had the patience for that when I was still in single digits! The square sizes are all over the place, with some having huge loose stitches and some having really tight stitches. It’s pretty funny. I don’t know how Granny got them all to fit together.

    I love dressing up in costumes too but I don’t get very creative with it. I’ll just throw together some new accessories and weird clothes out of my closet for Halloween or grab a $2 prom dress from Goodwill and cut it off short for a lowkey mud run. I have fun with it though!

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    1. I have a kit, actually! I want to get some sort of organizer for the little jewels before I break into it, and I need to find somewhere to work on it where my kids won’t steal all the “gems,” haha. I’m excited about it though!

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      1. I just did it color by color and put them back in the bag they came in and taped it shut when I was done with a color. That worked for me. The beads are super tiny, so kids might not actually want them for anything.

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    1. Thank you! I just do soy container candles, so it’s really just melting wax and mixing in some colors/scents. I want to learn to make paraffin wax (pillar) candles to try some more fun stuff… someday!

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  8. So many amazing hobbies! Your cosplay is awesome 🙂 and those paper quilts are beautiful! I’d love to try cross stitching, but I’m not sure I have the patience, haha! Also: Gilmore Girls candles!!! Candle making fascinates me, and they look like they smell amazing! Great TTT list 🙂

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    1. Thank you! I made the Gilmore Girls candles for I think a Secret Santa swap last Christmas… It’s fun to come up with scent combinations and names to make fandom candles! Maybe sometimes I’ll get more into making nicer labels, haha.

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    2. Hmm, “I Smell Snow” was peppermint vanilla I think… Luke’s was coffee & espresso latte… Autumn Festival was a layered candle with autumn leaves on top and apple cider donut on bottom… and Sookie’s Kitchen was a three layer with anisette cookie, pear and vanilla, and baking cupcakes. I still have a few left of most of them – I burned my extra I Smell Snow ones though, haha!

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  10. I don’t get D&D at all, but some family friends introduced my 11yo to the game and she is HOOKED. She was at their house for hours on Sunday playing. She had an absolute blast!

    I do enjoy cross-stitching. I’ve done it over the last 20 years or so, but it’s become a daily habit over the course of the COVID outbreak. It’s fun and relaxing – I love it.

    Happy TTT!

    Susan
    http://www.blogginboutbooks.com

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    1. I love D&D, I’m glad your 11 year old is into it! It’s fun to be someone else for a while, sometimes. 🙂 I love that cross-stitching is just a bunch of little X’s and can make something so beautiful. 🙂

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  11. That otter cross-stitch is adorable! And I love your cosplay. Your quilting is amazing, too. I’d like to learn quilting someday. My fiber arts focuses are spinning and knitting. You’ll do great with your hat, I’m sure. Anyone who can quilt and cross-stitch and sew as well as you do will certainly be able to master the basics of knitting hats, which are pretty straightforward.

    I notice board games showing up on a lot of lists today, but your list is the first on which I’ve seen tabletop RPGs. It’s something I wish I had gotten into when I was younger, but I had a bad experience with my D&D group and didn’t look too hard for another.

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    1. Thank you for the encouragement on my hat!! I might tackle the double needles this weekend finally…
      I’m sorry you had a bad experience with D&D – some of the people who play can be pretty horrible and toxic. I’m lucky to have a group I’ve been playing with pretty consistently (with some shifts in dynamics) for going on 7 or 8 years now. I’m the only woman in the group right now, but the guys are pretty great. Some people just suck. :/

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  12. Wow! You do lots of arts and crafts during your free time; I used to paint when I was younger and do cross stitch as well with my grandma. I’ve been meaning to learn D&D, though I don’t have a lot of friends who play it though, hopefully once the pandemic is truly over, my friends and I can explore the game.

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    1. I hope you’ll get to explore D&D (or another tabletop RPG) and love it! It’s definitely easier to play in person than digitally. Thankfully my group has been together for 7 or 8 years so we’ve survived the move to digital. I tried starting up a new group in the summer and it fell apart pretty quickly – it’s definitely more difficult to bond in the virtual format.

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  13. Marianne Maurer

    As if reading wouldn’t be enough, we have a lot more in common as you pointed out on my TTT.

    I found a few more that I didn’t mention on my page, embroidery, sewing, any needlework. I haven’t done much lately but I’ve always enjoyed it.

    Anyway, thanks again for your visit.

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    1. Thanks for the return visit, Marianne! I feel like a lot of things (like knitting and crochet especially) I will work on for a bit, and then put it down for a long time. I don’t thin I’ve quilted anything since making gifts last Christmas, for example! It’s nice to know it’s there for me to enjoy when I need it through, even if I don’t do it often. 🙂

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      1. Marianne Maurer

        That’s similar to me, I don’t do them often. I have a friend whom I hardly ever see with her knitting needles. Me, you hardly ever see without a book. 😉

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  15. Knitting is something I’ve been wanting to get into for a while! I remember being so jealous of everyone playing Animal Crossing at the beginning of the year lol. I used to be obsessed with the first one and this new one looks so fun! Great post! 😀

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  17. Awesome list! I really think it’s amazing when people can quilt. One of my friends has a business doing it and made one for my son. It’s so beautiful!! You guys are so talented!

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