Knit to This
Knit to This: Print Is Dead Podcast
I’ve written about our dear pal Gael Towey before. Gael was the founding Creative Director of Martha Stewart Living, a magazine that revolutionized the way all kinds of making—from cooking to decorating to gardening and beyond—were seen in popular culture. I remember picking up what must have been one of the first issues of the magazine, and being both deeply impressed by it, and surprised by my own fascination. I didn’t think I was a reader of women’s magazines, which MSL clearly was—or was it?
I immediately became a faithful reader, devouring each issue. I learned so much, and in the process got myself over the sexist notion that you couldn’t be a career woman (how dated is that phrase?) at the same time as being a passionate knitter, grower, or homemaker. I could make motions for summary judgment for a living, and still care—deeply—about old table linens and Jane Gottelier sweaters. I know now that I owe this pivotal breakthrough in my life to Gael Towey, whose vision and genius for collaboration were at the heart of Martha Stewart Living and its many offshoot publications and businesses.
Gael recently appeared on the excellent podcast Print Is Dead. (Long Live Print!). In her interview, she crystallizes what Martha Stewart Living magazine was up to, and how it was so different from the “women’s magazines” that had come before, both in its content and in how that content was produced—collaboratively. There was something very deep going on, which has outlived the magazine and made its imprint on so many creative projects that followed. Gael described the mission of Martha Stewart Living as providing “inspiration and information” for millions of readers to live lives of greater creativity, beauty, and fulfillment. That’s exactly what we still crave: inspiration and information.
At the end of the interview, Gael is asked what kind of magazine she would make today, given an unlimited budget and no requirement to hit a specific circulation number. Her answer was so inspiring.
The Weekly Giveaway
Speaking of good things, this week’s prize is a newcomer to the MDK shop, the Flower Stitch Marker Sampler from Allstitch Studio.
How to enter?
Two steps:
Step 1: Sign up for MDK emails, right here. If you’re already signed up, you’re all set. There’s a new option for texting, so when you sign up for texts, you’ll get a coupon code good for 10% off your next MDK order.
Step 2: Leave a comment letting us know your favorite domestic pursuit that is not needlework related. Do you raise prize cherry tomatoes? Make coffee tables out of reclaimed pallets? What elevates your life?
Deadline for entries: Sunday, March 12, 11:59 PM Central time. A winner will be drawn at random and notified by email.
I like making different blends of spices and sending them to family and friends.
I have begun seeking, first relatives, and then friends, who have moved away and otherwise exited my orbit. After getting in touch via social media I am following up tangibly with cards and letters and the occasional photograph from myriad albums. I am 72 and felt it was time to gather my threads. I am astounded at the positive and overwhelmingly joyous response that I have received. People seem astounded and deeply touched that I remembered them and reached out. One such person was my bridesmaid who had moved across the country fifty years ago. I was so happy we reunited by face-time, phone, and letter as she died suddenly and unexpectedly months later.
Don’t we have common ancestors, Margot? Your name is so familiar!
Dori Fulk
I do like to bake. My pantry is full of recipe books. But my real pursuit is word games!
I love gardening, both indoor and outdoor. I just moved to a new place which has a lovely patio surrounded by garden space. Looking forward to seeing what emerges this spring.
Vegan Baking! Right now I’m going through Sara Kidd’s new cookbook –
The Vegan Cake Bible. FUN & YUM!
Everyone is soooo inspiring! Having recently lost my husband, moved closer to family and retiring all in the last 6 months I am redefining myself. I love decorating, inside and out. Creating coziness and welcome for family get togethers. Themed dinners; food and decorations. I love listening to cozy mysteries while I knit. I love taking my coziness on the road camping in my RV. Will be finding new places to explore this year.
Gardening—flowers, vegetables, dye plants!
Baking has entered my life, full steam ahead! Got a part time job last year, post retirement, in a bakery, and now try different bakes at home. Baked goods are given away so more baking can be done!
I enjoy painting watercolor landscapes, reading, puzzling and playing games with the kids
I’ve been gardening for as long as I can remember. I have a vegetable garden in the backyard and tend various plants inside the house. Right now I have an assortment of orchids blooming inside and garlic quietly growing outside.
For the last twelves years since we moved our three boys off a sailboat and into a home, I make 3 loaves of bread a week, scones and biscuits on the weekend, a round of cornbread midweek, and 2 bathes of pizza dough for Friday Pizza and a movie. I grind the wheat berries, dented corn, rice or oat groats with a Grain Grinder from Germany. It is a nice looking wooden grinder I can leave out on the counter and grind the grain fresh as I use it.
I also love baking. It seems like we are one big knitting and baking community here!:)
I am so impressed by Kerrie’s comment above! I am learning how to make bread well. Oh, and knitting. Sigh. I will never stop.
I am recently retired after 20 years of teaching which gives me loads of time to pursue more gardening, reading and spending lots of time with my beautiful granddaughter!
I enjoy canning and jam making to enjoy the bounty of summertime produce. Also they make great gifts through out the year.
Reading “War and Peace” and other timeless classics (sometimes over and over again)!
Yes! War and Peace! The book I took on my honeymoon for a reread (I’ve now read it at least 7 times). And reading is what I do – real books, not ebooks. Stretched out on the sofa, preferably.
Cooking, I suppose? Sometimes it’s a joy and sometimes it’s a chore. I used to do a lot of music (local choir, singing and playing flute with my church), but I haven’t restarted any of that since the pandemic. (Left the church for a variety of reasons and finding it hard to fit in choir practice now that I have a new baby.)
At 64 I’ve begun to draw and paint with watercolors. I do it on a small scale, bookmarks and cards. No pressure because it’s just paper and just for me, what fun!
I love this! I am 77 and I started drawing in graphite a little over a year ago. I’m loving it! The pandemic introduced me to an amazing botanical artist. She inspired me to draw mostly houseplants and stuff from my garden. I love growing things and this feels like an extension of that passion….
Arlene, I’ve started drawing too, and would love to know the name of the botanical artist!
Same age, same name, same pursuit! I need a lot more practice, but I have been making watercolor cards for Christmas and Valentines, and mostly just for fun.
Kathy (B)
Ditto here, 65 and just discovering sketching and watercolor, though I also get distracted by acrylic and collage from time to time. In the skill building stage, but oh what fun it is!!
I love seeing the sweet peas I have grown from seeds collected last year. Plenty of flowers for free. Leaving more money for wool.
I can spend hours immersed in the art of calligraphy. It started with a jar of ink, a pen & nib and a teacher sharing their love of it in an enrichment class when I was eleven. It is an excellent way to express a love of words & poetry, putting beautiful letters on paper. Sadly, inky fingers and fine yarns are not a good combination so a good hand scrubbing is needed when switching hobbies!!
I love making pickles and thinking about both the taste but also how beautiful they can be.
My non-knitting passion is gardening. I just love seeing the earth come alive each year with my shrubs and perennials abloom. Flowers are my thing for sure so these stitch markers are very much “me.”
I had square foot garden built in my backyard where I grew all sorts of vegetables, herbs and flowers. Gardening became a passion – even insisting that every Mother’s Day, all I wanted to do was work in my garden. I would can some of the veggies – salsa was a favorite, dry the flowers and decorate wreaths. Many fond memories. I have moved from my square foot garden house, but still tend to the many flowers in my yard.
I quilt, sew, and garden.
Bread- and pastry-making
Home improvement projects. I can always find another project to improve my home!
I once got a house for “free” and had it moved to my lot. It was my biggest project and I did have the sense to hire help for that one. I love that house.
Gardening and then canning the bounty of our harvest.
I enjoy gardening and quilting and chalk painting furniture.
I get a lot of satisfaction from cleaning the floors. Either vacuuming or washing the floors. Also snow shoveling. There’s a lot of accomplishment of looking at what I’ve done and seeing it’s all clear
I love to cook and bake! When I’m feeling low I always find creating some nourishing and delicious absolutely elevates my life!
I have taken over the cooking in our household and am finding that trying new recipes is actually relaxing for me – who knew?
This sounds so fun, I’m deep into making dinners from this blog http://recipetineats.com/ I hope you enjoy it as well.
Cooking and providing for the birds are probably tied for my domestic pursuits.
I have always gardened, and in the winter dreamed of gardening. Last year we eliminated all the grass on ourproperty, mulched it, and re-planted it to trees, shrubs, bulbs, ground covers, perennials: all things that need never be mowed. It’s an ongoing joy, although each fall, I am ready for winter.
Well I love cooking, and am known for my homemade granola.
Golfing is my favorite way to spend a day. Being outside in the sunshine and smacking that little ball as far as I can brings me enormous joy!
Baking has always been a fun and gratifying pastime for me – cookies and bread especially – and with six grandchildren, I get a lot of appreciation!
Birding and butterfly-ing. Plant ID, being out in the natural world in general.
Sashiko using reclaimed, vintage fabrics & volunteering at our local public library!
Creating diy foods like pickles, mustards, salsa…
Gardening! Starting with early Spring containers of pansies and tulips through buckets of mums into late Fall. Perennials dominate the Summer gardens, with herbs mixed in as well.
I don’t mind doing laundry, which a lot of people don’t seem to like.
I’m with you! There’s something about putting nicely folded things away.
I was an avid reader of MSL and still miss it. My main non-knitting passions now are reading and cooking.
For the past 48 years I have bakes loaves of cinnamon nut bread to give to neighbors, extended family members and teachers of my children at Christmas time.
Would you be willing to share your recipe for the cinnamon nut bread?
Reading presidential biographies in retirement. I am reading them in order and I am now reading JFK’s bio,
Inez- what a great idea! I love to read & love history. I’ve read a few presidential biographies but reading in order seems interesting!
Baking is something I enjoy (maybe too much!), I also try to make a batch of my Mom’s recipe for chili sauce every fall.
Baking. Always has been. I think it helps me channel my mother who was my teacher. Still love to make a recipe from an old fashion 3×5 index card in her hand writing.
I have been baking bread for over 30 years and in this past decade I have also been making lotions and rubs.
I garden and cook
I’m a Nordic skier, a happy cook, a reader of actual books, and I putter in our yard.
Baking bread. Kneading dough is really satisfying.
I tended to be hit or miss with the Living magazine, almost always buying the Halloween and Christmas issues, though. Because of that I think I missed a couple of knitting articles which I tend to regret. Martha and Gael were/are groundbreakers. We owe them, Chloe
I love cooking and baking for friends and family. I’m currently focused on bread baking and experimenting with different kinds of bread.
Cooking! My collection of cooking equipment rivals my yarn stash.
I love to read, paper books. Some I have had for years and read again but I love going to the bookstore. The smell, all the titles and just picking up books and reading dust jackets until I find something to take home.
I love to bake and garden. Gardening is a new pursuit since retiring and evidently I have a perfect spot for tomatoes and cucumbers. Over the past 4 summers I’ve been perfecting my salsa and pickle recipes.
Does raising cashmere goats relate too much to knitting? I never seem to get much knitting from them. They just want snacks and scratches! I love looking for small old tablecloths from the 30-40s and raising some food and herbs, baking bread.
Sorry, I’m not always good at reading directions. But then I don’t have any other real domestic pursuits although I find myself cooking more often lately and I like to fold clothes. (Martha talked about that once, I think.)
I’m not domestic, either! Glad I’m not the only one…I fold clothes, but only because I have to do it.
I enjoy growing flowers and watching birds and squirrels in the yard. Squirrels frequently tamper with my plantings, but that just gives life to the process. My giant sunflowers have been a real hit with them, too.
I have been attempting to make sourdough bread- I started during COVID but was inspired by Mark Bittman’s latest book. The only problem is that my husband has recently decided to go low carb so I have to eat it by myself!!!
Gardening
I enjoy growing veggies and love the fresh taste all summer long
I enjoy baking, and quilting!
The acquisition of cookbooks, which is a different pursuit than actually cooking from them.
I do the same – I enjoy reading historical cookbooks, and I’ve collected many books on cooking from different cultures, especially places that I and/or my husband have visited (both regional U.S. and from other countries).
Organizing and styling my home.
I love to read, walk, and knit with an occasional baking project.
Reading books on War World II and blending my own teas.
I do Taiji and have been studying Mugai Ryu, a Japanese sword form, for the past few years.
Not sure if it’s a domestic pursuit, but I’ve art journaled for over 40 years. Someone sort of chastised me because I’ve never written a book, well, I HAVE! Over 40 of them
How dull, but my answer is cleaning. The normal daily or weekly things that refresh and polish our home. It may require physical labor but that’s healthy in its own way… plus I feel uplifted and happy afterwards knowing my floors are clean.
Decorating and organizing my home
I love to cook, and often the creativity lies in making something up from what’s on hand.
I enjoy using a torch to fuse fine silver and solder sterling silver wire into rings. The rings can be attached together to make chain for necklaces and bracelets or used individually to make earrings. Hammering is also involved and that’s always good for my soul.
I grow a cut flower garden in my front yard and share my bouquets with others. Last year I gave away 653 bouquets and many impromptu tours when people caught me weeding. Not only was I inspired by Martha’s magazine way back when, I made many trips to the library to take home her books. She was one of my greatest influences es as a young homeowner/wife/teacher and can still find some of her inspirations sprinkled in corners of my home. P.S. I am buying those stitch markers now to use with my pressed flower sweater to reward myself for good deeds. If I am randomly chosen, treat someone else! Sue
I was a little overzealous (and braggy.) Please enter me in the contest as I am only buying a small pack. Thanks so much.
I’m busy gardening these days, making an oasis for butterflies and dozens of songbirds.
I love to draw,paint and doodle- anything with mixing colors.
I enjoy baking bread and cooking. Lots of cooking. When the spring and summer bounty arrives I enjoy making jams and canning. My neighbors love my cucumber relish every year.
Gardening and growing and dying yarn with dye plants are a source of joy for me as well as my daily journal. I love honoring the days with a few words and some well placed stationery items.
I braid and bake challahs
I am a lousy homemaker and a fairly utilitarian cook, but I make an amazing pot of collard greens.
An amazing pot of collard greens is nothing to be sneezed at! One of our favorite foods from a local restaurant is their old-fashioned southern veggie sides, including collards. We do pretty well ourselves on that score, including pots of beans.
My favorite domestic pursuit right now, is looking at the things in my home and surrounding myself with things I enjoy.
Teaching myself drawing and watercolors after a work career in the sciences. Learning to really see the world around us and amazed at how much self discipline is involved the arts .
Gardening. It still feels magical to plant a small seed and a few weeks later bring food fresh to the table. And, I do enjoy sitting and knitting in the garden as well.
Here in my Montana home I raise a jungle of house plants, specializing in tropical blooming ones….orchids, ginger, anthurium and more.
I love to bake and do so weekly. Some weeks I bake two or three times, but there are only two in my household so I have to restrain myself – for our health and our pocketbook. I often wish I had worked at a bakery to hone my skills and grow my repertoire.
I raise Buff Orpington chickens and sell their wonderful fresh eggs.
I enjoy the satisfaction of completing home projects like furniture refinishing, floor tiling, painting and basically making my home the way I want it to be.
I too had a career while still loving the crafts. While knitting is my favorite pastime, I also bake, cook, quilt, garden, make jam, read (both digital and actual books), but I really love to rehab old things – re-upholstered a chair made by my great great grandfather, fix up and repurpose old furniture, fix things rather than toss them into a landfill
Above and beyond our huge vegetable garden, I now have a greenhouse to start new plants (and tend my delicates off-season), so our canning shelves and freezer are always full of the bounty of summers past.
Last year, we finally broke down and started a new hive of bees, as the ancestral hive that my father-in-law started in the field edge next to our part of the subdivided farm had been destroyed (by a skunk, we think). Hive tending is my newest responsibility/pleasure. Looking forward to the spring thaw!
I enjoy baking. I’ve “perfected” my poundcake over the years and now gift it to friends and family. Someday I will get back to drawing (or doodling in my case). I want to learn to sew. If only there were more hours in the…
I enjoy gardening. It is nice to see the plants grow and produce. Designing landscapes with both food plants and flowers is rewarding.
Crafting cocktails many nights of the week to mark the transition from work into unwinding—-current favorite is a Nutty Manhattan. (1 1/2 oz rye, 3/4 oz Nocino, 1/4 oz amaretto, couple dashes each angostura bitters and either toasted pecan or walnut bitters—stir with ice, serve over one big cube)
Wow, that sounds good! My husband enjoys that, even though he’s now retired. I mainly just enjoy being #1 taster.
Spoon carving. It’s a brain challenge as a long time knitter to work by taking away as opposed to adding. But I do love it!
All things cooking related, with the odd craft thrown in. I’m actually trying to decode old family recipes.
I actually read a cookbook from cover to cover before ever trying one of the recipes. I am then inclined to share the cookbook with a friend just like any other good book I have read. This has helped me keep my cookbook collection to a manageable size.
I love to bake, particularly with yeast. I like engaging in cultural preservation with traditional recipes.
Gardening, cooking , baking , reading.
Gardening. I guess that’s why those flower stitch markers are so appealing.
I love making chai concentrate and now I’m getting into doing laundry well (and earth friendlier), thanks to the book Laundry Love.
Making homemade dairy or plant based yogurt.
I love lots of creative endeavors, but haven’t really mastered any. My husband and I are trying some raised bed gardening, and I enjoy using the herbs we’ve grown when I cook. I like origami and other paper crafts (for gifting and at the theatre where I work), and have done some macrame and furniture painting recently.
Kay, I remember those first issues as well! My favorite non-needlework domestic pursuit is cooking, although I do not cook every day, but I do knit every day. I loved the way MSL elevated cleaning to an art form; they actually inspired people to spring-clean, or tackle that dirty oven “like Martha does.”
I love canning and preserving the fruit and vegetables i get at farmer’s markets or from foraging around my neighborhood.
Papercrafting! Cards, junk journals, scrapbooking….
In addition to knitting (which I do more than any other creative pursuit), I bake, make custom cookies, sew, paint, garden, & make creams & salves. I always need to make something.
It gives me joy to make things! Helping tomatoes, greens, basil, and berries into being in my garden; then turning the berries into jam and the basil into pesto. And making sweaters (and even a temperature blanket)!
For more than 20 years I considered my primary job to be caring for my animals—horses, pigs, cats, dogs, parrots and chickens. In my spare time I loved making window coverings and slipcovers and decorating the house, and knitting, of course. Several years ago the animals began to die of old age and within a year or two I was left with only the barn cats, 2 parrots (they may outlive me!) and a very old dog. I’m old now, too, and can’t acquire more animals at this point, so I knit…
This is a very interesting question – I enjoy some household things but not consistently (baking, making choc truffles, organizing, cooking certain meals or trying new ones). However, I love those kind of magazines as they inspire me to try new things. And can I just say those stitch markers look so fun!
When I think of domestic pursuits, I think of sitting in my chair reading, with 2 cats on my lap. I guess that’s actually domestic bliss!
I love to read. I also love to bake, but with only two of us in the house, I try to restrict that activity to times when company is coming.
I am a lifelong reader and usually have 2 or 3 books on the go at one time. I am also getting back into sewing now that I have a granddaughter but knitting is my go-to craft.
I study Italian. I love learning the grammar as well as being able to converse. Languages fascinate me.
I can spend hours and hours sitting at my table making beaded jewelry. I love color and gravitate to multicolored beads and finished pieces. An obsession for sure!
I enjoy cooking and reading, but most of all love walking through my neighborhood to see what others are planting, decorating and building.
I play 3rd clarinet in the local adult concert band. It’s extra fun because my (long-retired) high school band director is one of the directors!
I find the act of cooking or preparing food deeply satisfying
I make pottery. I joined the local clay centre, took courses, joined for regular, continuing access, and during the shutdowns, bought a wheel, then a kiln. Very absorbing pursuit, calming. And with the sequential stages of throwing, trimming, surface decoration and so on, it builds different skills.
I make soap!
I love dyeing fabrics and yarn with natural products: black tea, coffee grounds, onion skins and flowers from my garden: purple iris (makes aqua!), coreopsis, dahlia, birch bark, hickory nuts…
Tutoring a severely dyslexic 8 year old! I need my knitting time to reset and let inspiration come!
Quilting and wet felting
I love to can. I make a lot of jams to give as gifts, but I also can vegetables.
Indoors I love to bake, bread, pastries, cakes, cookies… following complicated recipes brings great joy and rewards! Outside love to putts in the dirt, also reaping those rewards by sitting with my knitting and enjoying the scenery.
Wow, so many talents, that Martha Stewart Living let us know were actually real skills! I keep a handful of those magazines as print classics, as well as selected Gourmets.
Since this is a knitting blog, I’m thinking other needle skills than knitting qualify as other talents, so I’m going with lifelong sewing (household, clothing, upholstery, sails, boat canvas, camping & backpacking, totebags!), fiber spinning, herb gardening, beadwork. My husband is the cook, so I’m just the prep & cleanup sous-chef and chief taster. A friend is trying to get me to restart weaving, but…
And bookworm, lifelong. A thought to leave everybody with, and possibly a tshirt:
“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.” Dorothy L. Sayers
I enjoy baking breads of all sorts.
I love to bake, especially breads, and I also make stained glass windows
Not needlework? So no sewing, knitting or embroidery?
I suppose baking, including some of my mother’s recipes. Though I can’t cut butter I like she did w two forks. She also taught me to knit.
Baking and gardening while I’m still working, fantasizing that when I stop working altogether I will go back to weaving and stained glass as well. We spend 3 months a year away from home, mostly cycling in France, so not complaining about the time spent away from both work and domestic pursuits! Lots of knitting time since we stay in a house that only needs to be kept tidy and is not mine to repair!
Paper folding and card making.
I bake. Cookies, cakes, pies, bread . . .not as much as I used to, because it was a way of channeling my grief after The Dad died. He was also a baker, and his bread was SO much better than mine has ever been. So I knit [the Mom gene] and I bake {the Dad gene].Carrying on the good family traditions while rejecting the bad ones [alcoholism and smoking]. Breaking old, old cycles on the one hand and strengthening other old cycles on the other hand. Some circles need to be broken, and some do not.
I love my garden and cooking the yummy stuff that grows there,
I love to garden and have always done so, whether a few patio pots or acres of land. But growing and filling the herbs both for cooking and health continues to be my “love”.!
Like many here – gardening but only container gardening on our deck. Specifically, herbs, tomatoes, chiles, lemon and lime trees. All food related so we can experiment with recipes. Right now we have some limoncello steeping with some of the lemons from our tree.
Cooking! I love to cook.
Since March 2020, we’ve done a weekly supper club with 1 other couple. I really enjoy cooking and baking for that. I’ve been exploring new recipes almost every week but also love baking old favorites like my grandmother’s monkey bread.
I use my sewing machine and fabric stash to make quilts, project bags, pillowcases (makes great gift bags for grandkids), flannel baby blankies…..the list goes on and on. Those stitch markers are so cute!
I make books
I love to weave baskets using natural elements—roots, stones, and sticks.
I read, cook, some gardening, and quilt. Lots of interests, I used to oil paint and would like to try watercolors.
Besides needlework, I grow flowers. Not vegetables which I can easily buy. I’ve planted various flower beds outside every window in my house, blooming at different times. Easy things that don’t require lots of work, like roses, spring bulbs and cactus (in separate beds). Flowers are as essential to my life as a good yarn stash. They are my heart smile.
Cooking: In the winter, I make soups, stews, chili (7 different kinds!) & pasta dishes. In the summer, I do a lot of grilling.
If we’re talking “domestic,” I guess i would have to say gardening and cooking. I’m the only vegan in my area, so if I don’t make it myself, I don’t have a lot of options. I also paint and do other arts and crafts, but those aren’t usually domestic, unless you’re knitting dish towels or blankets, which I also enjoy.
I love to read and always read before bedtime. Also weave; raise herbs; and work outside with our landscaping projects.
I’m an excellent and adventurous cook, I cook nearly every day. I do only basic baking because I’m such a rule breaker and improviser. Cooking gives me the freedom to not measure (just as I don’t make gauge swatches in knitting, haha).
These stitch markers are adorable. Of course, I garden too.
Gardening, mostly in containers and walking dogs.
I like how A-line dresses look & feel, so I make myself dresses that fit well, & are secret pajamas, out of loud &/or unusual prints.
My favorites are the prints that look like granny squares or knitted fabric, on a nice cotton poplin.
Too bad I can’t add a photo!
Learning to play the violin at 50+ wil give me joy for the rest of my life…,regardless of how I sound!!!
I love houseplants and adding to my collection is a favorite pastime.
I love gardening. Working in my yard is so gratifying. I also grow orchids indoors.
The summer I was 14 for family reasons I was assigned to wash and dry and iron thousands of cotton sheets. But the wringer washer and laundry lines were in the back of the house, and that warren kept me safe from family turmoil, and there was a radio. I don’t iron much now and I’m still not good at it, but the heat and steam and clean smell take me back to the peace of those days, listening to the Brooklyn Dodgers and the soaps.
I like baking, and tending my orchids. I particularly enjoy bread baking. I love reading a new recipe, and then trying it out.
I don’t do much with my orchids. Mostly, I water them and then I watch them.
Cooking, but I like to try new recipes each time. My poor suffering husband asks every now and then if I’ll make something I used to make! If a new recipe is especially good, I’ll save it (with notes, if necessary) to cook again at some point…
Like a few others, I’m learning watercolor — but maybe that’s not as domestic as baking, which I’ve been doing more often lately for a group of high school girls who may only come to book group for the cookies.
Growing vegetables in the garden
I enjoy cooking and baking, and like to read cookbooks and try new recipes.
I really enjoy baking sweets
Sometimes I’m inspired to cook something different, but reading is my non-needlework passion.
I love to make marmalade— all kinds. I was inspired by Martha Stewart over twenty years ago.
Gardening inspires and takes me out of myself. I like growing herbs and vegetables and cooking with the produce
It has to be cooking and baking for me.
As an avid home cook & baker of bread for 50+ years I find that reading old cookbooks is a soothing pastime. The candy & fudge recipes are especially appealing.
Fantastic interview – a long walk down memory. Thanks for this!
Gardening!!
I’m patiently gathering materials & equipment to do some letterpress printing, and have also recently discovered the joys of gel printing! (Something about paper & ink, I guess!)
I’ve always enjoyed cooking. I started cooking when I was 14 and my mother was sick with cancer. I love finding new recipes and watching cooking shows
I am an avid gardener starting almost all my veggies and flowers from seed. I also enjoy baking, cooking, knitting, my 3 cats and my lovebird.
I bake bread.
Attempting to have an attractive border garden next to my house. It’s definitely a trial-and-error hobby, but I do enjoy it.
I love knitting (of course), but baking is great. (I take a lot of baked goods to my coworkers because I don’t need them around the house!
Canning for sure. Most summers I do something with apricots and tomatoes: jam, chutney, compote, chili sauce, tomato sauce. My parents did a bunch of canning for a brief spell in 1970s suburban New Jersey, and I picked it up when I was living by myself for the first time after my dad died.
Hand lettering, journaling, using colorful markers in any way
Besides cutting and pasting (collage?) and making books (junk journals?) I like ironing (oh, the aroma of hot cotton!) and folding clothes (the pride of a t-shirt with no fold down the middle!)
I love my herb garden! Planting in spring and keeping things alive all summer/fall, then drying some of them for use over the winter… It makes me feel *accomplished.*
I love my garden in the summer. Mostly I grow things I can eat, or things that produce dye (just starting down that particular rabbit hole!). I am known for my raspberries, and many of my friends come pick. Once I even got rewarded with lovely hand-painted wool as a thank you for raspberries!
I like to grocery shop by myself when I have plenty of time. Especially small or specialty markets, farmers markets, but even just a run of the mill large grocery store. I like to mosey around the aisles and look at items I’ve never bought before, read ingredients etc.
When not knitting, spinning, or weaving, I am a visual artist. For the past few years I have been working in mixed media collage.
I enjoy tending my kitchen altar at the window over my sink. I enjoy rooting onion centers and planting them. I’m trying to successfully root a celery center — they make the cutest trees. I have an orchid and a night blooming cereus, along with a floating bulb thermometer and a few interesting glass pieces that hold herbs and spoons. My kitchen is my laboratory and my happy place, where I can turn flour and water into biscuits, dumplings, scones or a cake. If I have lemons, I can make lemonade or a lemon meringue pie.
I’ve gotten into carving and stamping on leather, belts for my husband and I so far, along with biking and baking.
I am an avid fermenter. I make kefir, kombucha and sauerkraut. Yum!!
Raising chickens!
Gardening!
I am an excellent cook, enhanced by Martha Stewart, who enjoys using and reading cookbooks. My current endeavor is transitioning to a vegan diet. In addition I am a member of a co-op of creators, collectors and repurposers who sell their wares in a shop in the town where I grew up (yet don’t live).
I love taking care of my houseplants. I live in an apartment building so have no outdoor space, but the greenery that fills my windowsills fills that void.
Cooking and baking is my favorite pastime after my needlework obsession. I truly enjoy finding new recipes to try, although the pandemic tried to steal my joy by turning it into a chore.
Baking or cooking for friends.
I make ceramic pots. Plus I draw & paint.
I love to play the piano which I’ve done since the age of 4 years old and read!!
Baking and gardening! Every year I make homemade cinnamon rolls and deliver them to our neighbors and closest friends on Christmas morning. It gave extra meaning to me this year when we discovered that our oldest and lovely neighbor’s family wasn’t able to be with her due to kids with colds. So glad we stopped by and had time to spend with her!
Gardening — flowering plants, bushes, trees. Beautiful flower beds, pots, hanging baskets, and fresh herbs.
Reading the comments is inspiring and intimidating! My favorite is baking.
Growing all kinds of greens and making them into salads.
I love cooking. I’m always trying new recipes, rarely following them as written.
Reading paperback books, sitting outside watching birds and squirrels doing crossword puzzles and playing solitaire.
I enjoy playing the piano, especially when the house is quiet.
I, too, have been a Martha Stewart Living fan from the get go. I still have all her Halloween magazines – what amazingly creative decorating ideas – the mice cutouts to put along the baseboard! – and the bats to go in the torchiers! But mostly I’ve enjoyed the breadth of the articles, recipes, and ideas in the magazine. As you said, we can do it all and enjoy every bit of the doing.
I have been learning the ukulele – and singing some old songs. I am 75 and never to old to learn something new.
You asked about projects other than needlework that inspire us and keep us sane. Mine has been raising backyard hens for egg laying. They are an entertaining pet and have become a boon since eggs became scarce at the start of the pandemic and now since avian flue killed off so many producers. My three girls are each from a different breed, different colored feathers, and lay about three eggs of different colors every day or so.
Thank you for a fun voyage through the journey of the creative people this post introduces… beyond inspiring. My hands have led me through life and into such intersections as art jeweler, knitter, sewist, cook, gardener and so much more. Now I tumble hands-first into a creative old age!
My first thought to answer was gardening. It is a passion. But another pursuit that has captivated my creative bent is eco-dying. It’s like Christmas morning when I open the plant sandwiches that have simmered and then cooled overnight.
One of the best gifts my Mom gave me is A curiosity about cooking. I love how adventurous she was and I am always ready to try A new recipe!
Baking!
Auditioning decorating ideas to change up rooms and spaces is a favorite hobby, especially in anticipation of all things Spring this year. Moving and repositioning furniture, adding room jewelry, new plants, and fresh paint ideas, has sparked my creativity. This has been a terribly brutal gray cold winter, so I’m ready for a fun major refresh.
Each week, for the last three years, I bake a loaf of sourdough-based bread. It’s my calming ritual and I work mostly from memory. I’ve learned how dough feels at each step so I can adjust mixing, temperature and rise. There is a magic to the process and the final loaf that make the week seem complete.
When I am not knitting I love to draw and paint with watercolors!
For me, it’s sewing, drawing and painting, in the small pieces of time that knitting leaves. And reading, of course. Always, always, reading. That goes without saying.
I am learning to garden, and it’s such a wonder- and frustration-filled thing!
Baking- especially desserts.
I happen to like to bake. I love making pies and have perfected my pastry recipe; I love to bake bread and do sometimes every week…….I worked on sourdough when I had to avoid gluten…….I love to try out new recipes for things I haven’t baked before like tortillas, lefse, biscuits…..anything!
I love to experiment with various gluten free baking recipes and my work in my flower garden …. When I’m not knitting.
I just retired so have been enjoying hiking and enjoying the outdoors since my job had me stuck inside all day. Domestic pursuits will have to wait until the great outdoors has cleansed me inside out!
I am an gardener. I also make stained glass windows.
Canning applesauce
Gardening, preferably heirloom or open source varieties. I learned about OSSI (open source seed initiative) a few years ago and now I almost exclusively purchase OSSI or heirloom seeds. I especially enjoy growing medicinal herbs such as bee balm, several varieties of basil, thyme, and catnip. (Yes, catnip is good for people – it’s actually somewhat sedative and great for a bedtime infusion mixed with basil.) I enjoy canning and dehydrating whatever we don’t use fresh. I also use essential oils to create natural skin care and remedies. My healing balm with calendula and chamomile works better than Neosporin. Nature knows best.
I love to knit but baking is my first true love. I started baking with my older sisters making Christmas cookies, years later I’m still baking thousands of cookie for friends and family!
Gardening, although these days it’s mostly just about keeping my houseplants alive.
I garden and try to have something flowering inside from the garden year round.
Raspberry gardening. March is time to prune and take out old canes, late spring prep the beds with good stuff: mulch and such. I have everbearing so July is time to watch for berries on previous years canes, make rows, and wait for the great harvest in late August and September when I can make jars and jars of jam to share.
I don’t suppose making music counts as a domestic pursuit, but I do garden, sew and make patterns, and make things out of reclaimed wood 🙂
Growing the perfect tomato!
Laundry hung outside, line drying!!!! I love all of it. Warm sunshine, lively breezes, great for the planet and everything smells great!!!!!
Working magic w plants of all kinds.
I used to do needlepoint and sewing, and I do think about doing them (or at least sewing) again, but now I am really a dedicated knitter. I am just an addict! I am quite busy with my work (even in retirement), so I don’t really have time for anything else (or do you could laundry and a little cooking as domestic pursuits?). Truly, knitting elevates my life. (And I have to say those stitch markers are beautiful!)
I enjoy making naturally fermented/pickled foods of all kinds. Feels like there is a little art to that. I’ve been doing it for over 10 years now – each batch is fun and my kitchen looks like a productive experiment, full of crocks and mason jars. We’ve gone with mostly native plants in our yard (over the last 25 years). I love watching the flowers in my yard doing their thing and seeing all the life they attract. My family and I did some “bee watching” under our Mexican plum this week.
I’ve rediscovered my green thumb and am filling every window ledge and near window surface with house plants and their babies. I brought home beautiful plants from both my brother’s and mother-in-law’s funerals over the last two years. The plants are happy reminders of these beautiful people.
My husband and I grow vegetables and have a few fruit trees and have 7 hens and 13 little chicks…. and a small army of cats. We are both 73. I paint and draw some. I also am his caregiver… he has has been hit with an overabundance of bad health ; diabetes, Breathing problems, shoulder replacements, and now cancer. One day at a time..
God bless you and your dear husband.
Ooh, lots of things – soapmaking (cold process) cheese making, honey bee hive tending, chicken raising, egg decorating (pysanka, aka Ukrainian Easter eggs), yogurt making, sourdough bread baking, emu tending. And I hope to try watercolors after I retire.
I like to propagate succulents and create arrangements using old pottery and ceramics.
Lots! There always seems to be something going on- I go through phases. So I always like to cook, I do calligraphy and I sew. Sometimes I’ll needlepoint something. I do wish keeping an immaculate home was one of my hobbies, but alas, we have to settle for clean, if cluttered.
I enjoy reading and watching cooking shows, doing jig saw and crossword puzzles. Helping set up Fireworks displays in the summer and gardening.
Too many joyful pursuits, but what is retirement for anyway? I sew, sketch, practice shibori, garden flowers and veggies, and beekeep.
I spend a lot of time and energy avoiding cooking! Pursuit of simple solutions – crockpot, air fryer and InstaPot!
When not knitting, I love walking shelter dogs for our local SPCA. These are the long termers who have not / will not be adopted quickly for various reasons, but still need as much sniffing time as they can get for a good life. It is a win win all around.
Baking! I’ve always loved to bake, and my family helps out by cheerfully eating all the bakes, even the wonky ones.
Domestic pursuit? I like laundry. There’s something very complete about the laundry cycle. When it’s done it’s done. Or at least until I get undressed that night!
Cooking! I learned how to make Korean food during coronavirus to satisfy my craving for pickled, spicy cuisine.
My non-needlework passion is reading and cooking & baking. I love to try new dishes & repeat the old favorites of the family. I also grow herbs in an air-garden so I can use fresh herbs in cooking.
Reading all the comments posted here are so interesting!
My favorite domestic pursuit is always changing. Lately, it has been design and decor as we have built a new cabin to replace an old one that was destroyed in a forest fire. So all things design is now in my wheelhouse.
I enjoy cultivating a few plants on my porch and then seeing if I can keep them going inside during the winter.
Starting seeds for plants for my garden
I love making food gifts look pretty. Homemade pickles, jams, breads, and cookies look beautiful in a basket decorated with tissue paper, ribbons, fabric scraps, and cellophane.
Love to watch our peony bushes mature and become beautifully elegant testimonials to the wonders of this earth!
I think this qualifies as a domestic pursuit – it certainly takes up a lot of my time at home and helps keep the whole household organized. I love planning, old-fashioned paper planning. I spent a ridiculous amount of time last fall choosing and ordering a 2023 planner and I love all kinds of habit trackers and goal-setting sheets and time trackers. I can’t actually say all of the planning makes me more productive, because I still knit and read quite a lot, and I do have to put in some time at that pesky bill-paying job, but it does seem worth the effort and it’s fun to look back on planners and calendars from previous years.
I enjoy making cards to send to friends and family for birthdays, anniversaries, and other special occasions.
Card making—a creative outlet with endless possibilities.
I enjoy decorating my shed with Pennsylvania Dutch Hex signs. Each sign is beautiful with such great history.
I am an incredibly domestic as a person, which has only increased since I moved out to my own place one (1) week before the pandemic started. But besides knitting, my favorite pursuit is baking: cake, cookies, pizza, brownies, and most recently, pie!
Artful smooth snow removal this season.
Creative writing and collage make me happy
I make biscotti!
Ha none. Knitting is my own domestic pursuit. Maybe raising my kids counts?
Raising kids count the most!
I grow native plants and gardens on our 1 acre property in suburban MPLS/St. Paul, MN. This is my other passion besides knitting!
Other than fibre arts, etc crocheting atm, I love to get involved with a Period Peace book or any “Classsic” literature. Btw, I was and still am a HUGE Martha Stewart fan!! <3
It’s all about plant life of various kinds for me. Living in the desert, cacti and succulents are a natural, but of course I must dabble in edible and ornamental plants including lots of houseplalnts. They are my roommates and friends!
I enjoy playing the piano, especially the Chopin waltzes I grew up hearing my Grandma play- these sounds make my heart soar and my home beautiful.
I love to plan my garden – mostly roses and shrubs along with various garden structures. Spring is my favorite season when everything starts growing again and fills in the gaps I created by moving things around.
I like gardening and planting flowers. I hate the weeding part but it is well worth the results.
Since I retired to Florida, growing orchids on the lanai is my happy place
Gluten free baking. I am trying to master all of the treats I love. I have celiac, but goodies must be appealing to gluten eaters too.
Cooking and baking: I love trying new recipes and trying to recreate restaurant favorites.
I love to bake. . .sweets especially but also breads. Looking forward to baking cookies for my co-workers this weekend.
Breakfast club! Every other week, we take turns hosting another couple for Saturday breakfast. It’s a chance to try new things (last week I made individual cheese soufflées and a giant almond croissant) and to spend time with our dear friends. No alcohol hangovers, and nobody needs lunch that day.
I’m a casual Gardner. Florida’s a tough place to grow things, but it’s fun to try
I know sewing might be considered needlework, but that is my other passion. I love making beautiful clothes for me and my family.
It would have to be gardening, or almost any kind of yard work.
When we moved into this house 8 years ago we put in a victory garden. I so look forward to choosing which veggies we’re going to grow every summer. Some years we’re more successful than others. But I love it and look forward to it every year.
I like to collect flowers from anywhere. I collect on my walks, from mine and friends’ gardens or bouquets sent to me. I press them and then make pressed flower artwork to enjoy.
I love to cook and have happy people around to eat. In our house, everyone is welcome. It started when I was young. My Dad was in the Navy, and would bring home people for dinner that were far from home and in need of some ‘family time’. It was great meeting so many people from so many places. Mom always cooked a bunch because she never really knew how many would be there. I like to garden too!
I enjoy cooking and finding new ethnic dishes to try.
Ha ha, all of my domestic pursuits are needlework related, am not a gardener, am a basic and perfunctory cook, have no talent for drawing or painting. So, beyond the needles, it would be singing with my grandchildren : ) As necessary on a daily basis as oxygen
Gardening! Spending so much of the year in a gray, white and frozen landscape, I can’t get enough green and color in spring and summer!
I’d have to say dancing brings me joy lately when I’m not knitting or working.
I bake, if course!
Making cards and other paper crafting. The use of a card to mark a milestone, or just to brighten someone’s day is important to me. Emails while quick, don’t show the level of personalization that a card does.
I love to make draperies!
Gardening, baking and home improvement projects!
I like to bake, especially for different holidays. There are traditional baked goods that I make every year to share with friends and family.
I love gardening and house plants! But, my interest in those pale in comparison to my love of the fiber arts.
I bake gluten-free bread and cake. Guests don’t realize they are eating something gluten-free until I tell them
Cooking and baking come after knitting in my favorite things (not to mention books and movies). Like knitting, they seem singularly useful pursuits.
I put down my knitting for Anthony Trollope whose novels are an absolute joy. And occasionally I wander outside to garden.
I enjoy reading
Growing antique roses, especially those from David Austin.
Reading! I’ve challenged myself to pick up a book instead of my phone (when I’m not knitting, of course). I’ve already read 19 books this year and can’t wait to continue. This year’s favorite for me has been “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah. So good!
I make baskets. No one ever has enough containers for stuff (including yarn). I even made the baskets for the flower people (my grown nephews) at my wedding.
It’s got to be the Sunday afternoon cookie bake!
I love cooking and baking! Making a meal that is beautiful, nutritious, and delicious is therapeutic after a tough day at work!
Needlepoint ornaments as gift for family
Twenty years ago my family made a lifestyle shift and I found myself learning to make hay, milk goats, make cheese, act as midwife to ewes, and a bunch of other homestead skills. My favorite thing, hands down, is raising bottle babies. Over the years I’ve raised kids, lambs, and calves, but the calves are my favorite. There’s such a feeling of accomplishment and joy to see those babies go from scrawny, sickly little waifs to big, bouncing buffoons. It isn’t exactly a conventional domestic pursuit, but at its heart it is the thing called nurturing – which is the foundation of all domestic pursuits.
Reading. As much as I can!
When I am not knitting, I also spin yarn! I’m in the midst of a sheep to sweater project( still spinning)
My main domestic pursuit is that I up-cycle old t-shirts and sheets into yarn that I crochet into rugs, which I donate to three nonprofits. I do other handcrafts, and I have ambitions for (too) many additional ones!
I am a can do girl. My neighbors were moving and needed to re-home their chickens. I can do that! I built a chicken coop and am now a happy chicken mama. I am always spreading myself to make, build, fix, bake or whatever comes way, but the greatest joy to me is being able to.
I like working in the garden, and lately working on my house. I’m also getting really into painting (mostly portraits of my dog).
Favorite non knitting is bowling!
I enjoy spending time outdoors, walking and biking.
I spend most of my non-knitting time wrangling two Westies… they are my passion…have owned Westies since 1988. Then there is just being outside..walking, gardening, hiking, etc.
I started making wine about 10 years ago, due to an abundance of blueberries on my property. It’s evolved into quite a hobby – I make all kinds of wine now that my friends and relatives look forward to receiving at the holidays or just anytime!
I enjoy making soups weekly and baking. I believe I’ve perfected 5, but I obviously make others to hopefully add to our rotation. I also enjoy baking and am starting to get into sourdough and bread baking even though it’s so Covid 2020 (LOL). I don’t mind being late to the fad. ♥️
What are your 5 perfect soups?
Garden making!!! Helping expose children especially to the mystery and fun of growing food and flowers.
I like to paint, especially outside, PLEIN AIR it’s called. I paint with acrylics and watercolors. Sometimes I use pastels or colored pencils. The color blending used painting has helped me chose color combinations with my knitting.
Cooking, both routine and experimental. And cleaning and folding cloth napkins, which make all the cooking more special.
I draw Botanical Art in Colored Pencil.
There is something soothing about getting into dirt and planting a small seedling, knowing it could become the most beautiful plant ever.
Walking the beach on a winter’s day. I am obsessed with collecting sea-glass. I will admit my collection is a bit over the top, as my daughter tells me. I’ve tried just walking, finding a piece and just enjoying the find, but I eventually can’t resist and pick it up and put it in my pocket!
I enjoy caring for my roses and hydrangeas.
I like to make jam!
I typeset Renaissance music, and play it with my friends on Tuesday evenings.
Cooking, bringing people together, reading … so much to do, never enough time
I test recipes for ATK, garden some, and can salsa, peaches and pears.
I love to try new recipes (cooking and baking). Social media makes finding them so easy! Because I find it hard to tear myself away from knitting and designing to devote a lot of time to my culinary pursuits, I often “kill two birds with one stone” and combine trying new recipes with having guests for a meal. A little bold? Perhaps—but I haven’t had a colossal failure yet.
I like growing flowers and plants.
My favorite winter time baking is Swedish Coffeebread. The recipe is from my husband’s grandmother. My mother-in-law gave me a lesson on how to make it. The house smells so good with cardamom and cinnamon scents wafting through the house. Of course the best coffeebread was what she made and shared with us and our 2 children on Saturday mornings when the bread had just come out of the oven. Heavenly!
Gardening. In fact I just planted some radishes, kale, spring lettuce and leeks. Happy to get hands in the dirt after a long winter.
Does trying out all the new restaurants that seem to pop up weekly in my hometown count? A good dinner out with friends is one of my favorite pursuits.
Our garden and fruit trees feed body and soul all through the spring and summer. Strawberries, blueberries, grapes, tomatoes, herbs and citrus- many challenges and rewards!
I really enjoy cooking–it’s such an easy way to engage all the senses. I especially like trying to figure out how to “gussy up” simple every night meals like tuna casserole, spaghetti, or tacos.
While knitting has been a part of my life for a while, baking bread has become a weekly activity. Add to that the growing of herbs and flowers (in the spring and summer…I live in the upper Midwest) and indoor plants as well. What else? Visible mending with my mini loom, making potholders, trying my hand at natural dyeing. I’m grateful for the ability to try new things and share them.
When I am not knitting, and sometimes when I am, I like to wreak and listen to audiobooks.
Gardening. I love growing plants, seeing them grow and flower.
Reading!
I’ve always enjoyed cooking but recently retired and cooking for two has changed my style. So I try to keep it interesting by picking a new recipe once a week.
I spent so much time as a kid sketching, I would love to pick that up again. Since retiring, I no longer have to devote so much of my reading time to scientific papers and have rediscovered how much I love pleasure reading(which does include a sciencey thing now and then).
This is connected to Peggy Orenstein’s comment in your interview with her, about being warned about “writing for women’s magazines” being detrimental to her career! YES! Question the patriarchy as my daughter would say!
My non knitting choice: my patch of basil and yearly production of frozen blocks of pesto to last the winter.
I make condiments:toum, paneer, pesto and some spice blends for the meals my husband makes
Making cards from my photographs.
Baking bread-sourdough, rye, oatmeal, whole wheat, whole grain and probably a few more varieties. Oh, of course! I forgot pizza dough!
I retired from 34 years of surgical nursing in November. Its wonderful to sleep all night, not be on call, and spend all day with my husband and our Golden Retriever, Kadie. I am teaching myself to make homemade pasta (can’t stand the hard stuff in the grocery store). My husband even gave me a great pasta machine for Christmas. There have been a few flops, but am making steady progress. Next on the list, ravioli, tortellini, and gnocchi. I am also a potter so I think I need to make a couple of rolling boards.
I love to bake… and try new ways of making the things I love.
I enjoy gardening, I think about it almost as much as knitting!
Trying to get back to painting/watercolor and going through photos to get into books, either printed book or manual scrapbook-style. So much to do, so little time! And add photography to the mix! Any creative pursuit makes me happy!
I garden, in our shady little garden at home and on my rather sunnier allotment. I aim for a mixture of vegetables and flowers (some for cutting, some to enjoy in situ).
Gardening, vegetables and flowers.
I love my garden and especially flowers. My favorite are tuberous begonias. I save the tubers every year and split them to make more tubers which I share with friends. I plant them in pots and set them out in the front of my house and watch everyone who walks by marvel at their beauty.
My superpower is organizing enormous projects, like a surprise party with two hundred guests, an emergency collaboration to move a family of seven from a home damaged by water and sewage, and I’m currently working on a wedding for my daughter. Details thrill me…and it helps if you like telling people what to do.
fiddling around with seed starting, with mixed success! (goji berry seeds sprouted–and faded. oops)
I love making soups!❤️
Reading and sometimes sewing
To counteract the ergonomics of crafting, I have tried to become more active with yoga, Pilates and my new passion–pickleball
Quilting, baking, sewing, all are good
Hmm, does collecting yarn count as a non-needlework pursuit?? I guess I also collect recipes. Not so much with the actual cooking of them, just saving them.
While my motto, “she who dies with the most fabric wins” has expanded to include “fabric AND yarn” I still love sewing and creating a unique piece of clothing fit just to my taste and size. BTW that includes hemming and patching.
I just completed my third class in pottery and just signed up for an abstract painting class… I love retirement!
I bake bread. Cookies and cakes, too.
I like to draw but don’t get to do much of it. I really like to create things with a variety of techniques.
Most of my creating is fabric related, but I love baking cheesecakes. Chocolate vanilla swirl, white chocolate raspberry swirl, toffee nut, plain vanilla, covered with berries. Now I’m hungry…
Baking!
I have 4 darling red hens that I love caring for. They pay me back in lovelybrown eggs.
Domestic pursuit that is not needlework??? Does taking piano lessons count? Not domestic. How about book discussions?? Not domestic. Tending to house plants, orchids, African violets, amaryllis, succulents. Maybe that counts. These are my passions when not knitting or doing needlepoint.
Cooking is my favorite besides needles, love tryimg out new recipes!
Each summer, since 2020, I have had a container garden on my back deck. I am terrible at it, but I will keep trying!
Herb gardening, especially lavender
I have cared for houseplants since I moved out on my own 30+ years ago. I’m also an avid reader.
Baking! especially breads, brings me joy. Everything from sandwich bread to cinnamon rolls. Sourdough waffles are the best!
I used to enjoy cooking and baking more but I still like to eat so I still do it! I love design, I used to really enjoy the MSL Magazines they’re really beautifully designed. When my son was little I enjoyed doing craft projects with him. The MSL Kids issues provided plenty of projects and inspiration.
My favorite domestic pursuit is setting out many new Geraniums (deep red) for the summer, and then adding different flowers during the summer. And a few pots of herbs. Winter Savory is my favorite to put in with green beans for cooking.
Baking. Definitely baking. My Bff and I love to get together and try the projects on the Great British Baking Show. So delightful! Kouign Amann for the win!
Can’t wait for spring so I can buy my flowers the week before Mother’s Day. Planting in pots for around the pool is my “thing.” It is like painting, deciding which flower goes where. I love tending them and love that everyone who comes over enjoys them too!
Kay, I lost some good years of crafting in my early years of practicing law, trying not to do anything that women traditionally did. And then I couldn’t fight it any longer. I became addicted to home and garden magazines, cooked, gardened, quilted. And then along came knitting back into my life. My non-knitting activity is mostly gardening (vegie & perennials) and I love to cook.
Becoming a more organized with household chores…..makes them go faster and get done more regularly, thus more time for knitting!
I recently started watercolor lessons. Signing up for this class was a huge step for me. I am the non-artistic member of a family of sketch artists, cartoonists, painters, and a variety of mixed media artists. I have been surprised at how “not awful” I am. My watercolors are clearly beginner level, but they are much better than I expected. I love the class and will sign up for the next one. xxoo
Ironing! Yes, I like to iron because it’s relatively mindless and I simply love crisp sheets.
Keeping my toddler grandson overnight… love the snuggles and the excited look he gives me every morning when he wakes up! So rejuvenating!
trying out new recipes is my favorite thing to do in kitchen. Some turn out better than others, but it is always an adventure.
Cooking and baking, but especially eating!
Doing nothing – silence – no TV, no mobile! Lol
I’ve started cooking again!
Does sleeping count? I’m just so tired
My next favorite domestic activity after knitting and crochet is baking! My favorites are cakes and cupcakes, but I’ve also dabbled in breads both yeasted and quick, cookies, and pies. Pastry pie crust remains my nemesis!
I love remodeling old houses, breathing new life into them. I paint the walls, fix the plumbing and electricity (that with some professional help, of course), and plan out and plant new gardens. This, together with countless hours of knitting, keeps me busy but happy 🙂
You mean there are other things to play with than yarn, thread, and fabric??
I enjoy making twined rag rugs from fabric discarded by my quilting comrades. They think it’s humorous to see me digging through the garbage for their scraps but at 80+ I subscribe to the “waste not want not” theory.
I made my own sourdough starter from scratch. Now I spend time tending to it and baking with it. (sourdough chocolate chip coolies are a thing!)
that should have said “cookies”
I like to bake and garden
In the “post-Covid” age, it has become more important to have individual towels for guests. I have started making small guest towels using themed fabric with my serger and giving them to friends in sets of three or four. Much more environmentally friendly than disposable ones and can be tossed in the washer and dryer. I like them much better than the silk and lace guest towels of old.
I make greeting cards. I’m not as good about sending them, so I sometimes bundle up a set as a gift. I used to scrapbook, but the trend has gone toward digital these days. Knitting and crocheting is my main passion.
Gardening! My perennial beds can keep me in a meditative state for hours.
I have been doing family history for since I retired. Along the way, I discovered that it would be useful to read old German script so I can read, when available, the original birth, baptism, marriage, and death records. Now, mind you, my German is not all that good, so when I make it through an entire document, gleaning some interesting detail, I am excited and love to tell all my friends and family and, surely, bore them to death!
Playing Bach on my ukulele
I love to bake things.
I’m addicted to jigsaw puzzles ever since the pandemic.
I guess it’s often also “needlework” — I’m involved what is called at the Anchorage museum “repair culture”, with a goal of keeping things out of landfills we learn traits of clothing, outdoor equipment, etc.
I make pine needle baskets
Candle making! 🙂
Since retiring, I’ve taken up gardening, growing vegetables and flowers. I like to be outside, except when the mosquitoes attack!
I am working away at re-landscaping my suburban corner lot entirely with native plants (with the exception of the two 24 ft X 4 ft raised beds for vegetable gardening). Learning a lot and have literally moved tons of dirt over the last two years!
So right now my favorite non-fiber related pursuit is taking care of my elderly huskies (16 years and counting!)
I’m a professional wedding photographer in my other life when I’m not knitting!
Either going out to paddle on the Bay on an outrigger or paddling on my dragon boat team…
I’ve always been an avid reader but since picking up my hooks and needles again about four years ago, it seems I do nothing but knit and crochet. It’s such a testament to mindfulness. Beyond that, there’s gardening, houseplants, baking. I like to stay busy!
I love to read! I also love to walk in the woods!
Machine sewing, hand embroidery, cooking, baking! There is always something new to learn.
I dabble in a few pursuits but lately have been birdwatching! We set up a number of different feeders in the yard and have recorded at least 9 different species !
I like to read and cook. I wish there was more time to do them all.
I am a gardener, but not a great one. I like planting and harvesting but am rather lazy about weeding and incosistent with watering. Martha would be ashamed of me.
Hi friends, I run a Montessori preschool in my day-life… and I walk in an old growth forest on a regular in all weather, here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest!
Most of my hobbies are fiber-related (needlefelting, anyone?), but I also dabble in wire jewelry and beading.
I’m not entirely sure if this counts, but I’m a writer!
Other than that… I guess I could say doing pyrography. Or just plain old baking, on occasion.
I absolutely love to cook. Nothing fancy, just really good basic recipes.
favourite domestic pursuit is making food from scratch!
I try to be a gardener. Even though I’m not great at it, and the soil in our yard is absolutely awful, I keep trying. It’s worth it for early spring bulbs and homegrown tomatoes in August.
I make silver bracelets.
Taking care of my plants. I have no garden, but several balconies and windows. It’s challenging to keep them not only alive but beautiful all the year round.
There are ornamental plants, succulents, cherry tomatoes and small lettuces.
Wow! So inspiring!! I like to read and then I’ll read while knitting… 🙂
I love to bake!
I enjoy cooking….especially cooking heirloom beans!! I am a bean addict and my husband too!!!
I do some jewelry making, although not much, as I spend so much time with my fiber pursuits.
My other passion besides knitting has become growing flowers to make into bouquets and happily give away to friends and co-workers. I have a small yard and live in St. Louis so I only get to grow for about half the year (the rest of the time I’m dreaming and planning for spring). My favorite activity is to sit in my overgrown, colorful backyard in the summer, watch the birds and knit! (I LOVE these flower stitch markers, btw!)
I love decorating my house; so my place is always a work in progress. My friends consult me to pick out colors when they paint or coordinate fabrics. I’ve recently had an opportunity for a redo because of Hurricane Ian. I’ve been enjoying finding furnishings at thrift and consignmet stores.
Sourdough is my obsession
I’m a paper crafter. I fold books into flower vases, I do watercolours, printing and all sorts of things paper related. I’m a paper addict!
My desert garden! I like to think of each plant as a work of art in my desert plant museum. It brings me so much joy.
I’ve played around with other crafts, like making jewelry and mosaics, but knitting is my big passion these days.
I bake and cook. Baking and cooking were actually my first making loves, I was at them 25 years before I ever even thought of picking up knitting needles. Like knitting, they are a way to share warmth and love with the people I care about. They are care made tangible — and edible!
Gardening is my non-needlework jam.
I like baking, making cookies and cakes are my favorite.
I love gardening and cooking! Even better if it’s cooking with vegetables or green’s I’ve grown.
I love to spend time with my pets. There’s always a cat or dog that wants a little love and attention. In the spring and summer we go outside and do some gardening, and the cats watch from their catio. I also love to run and workout–it’s not exactly a hobby but it does make me feel physically and mentally better.
Cooking, baking, canning, & – in season, gardening: all keep me creating away when I am not working with textiles.
other favorite pass time is visiting with friends!
I love cooking! Trying new recipes makes me happy.
Cooking- especially foods form different cultures.
I started a vegetable garden after retiring, and then planted a native plant garden in my front yard. But knitting has occupied more of my time over the past year, after a vehicle accident limited my ability to do heavy work. Not domestic, but my favorite form of exercise is ballet, which I did for my entire youth, and have now returned to in my aging years. Hoping it keeps my bones healthy, it also helps with balance and strength, not to mention all it does for my spirit!