Comments on: How can I keep my hands busy?

Question: How can I keep my hands busy?

zardoz — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:08:29 -0800

I want a new hobby. I like to use my hands. Any suggestions?

Anything from simple origami to a full-blown woodshop, but at least the origami is cheap. I'm not looking to break the bank here. I have a guitar that I pluck every now and then, but I'm not so musically inclined. What do you like to do with your hands? Bonus points for activities that can be done during train/bus commutes.

By: MadamM

MadamM — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:15:24 -0800

Knitting or crocheting. I find it very relaxing, you can do it almost anywhere, and you make cool things. You can spend as little or as much money as you please.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:18:14 -0800

Polymer clay is fun. I prefer Premo Sculpey.

By: dawdle

dawdle — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:19:45 -0800

I had the same problem, until I decided to learn to play guitar. Very rewarding.

By: kmennie

kmennie — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:20:22 -0800

Off-loom beadweaving? I have done repetitive single-colour bits on buses.

By: amtho

amtho — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:29:26 -0800

What other qualities are important to you in an activity? Helping others? Social outlet? Fine expression? Complex enough to engage your mind for years? Inexpensive? The types of people you'll meet? Not dangerous?

By: zardoz

zardoz — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:48:08 -0800

Helping others? sure
Social outlet? actually no. just something to do by myself
Fine expression? I suppose I just want to create...something Complex enough to engage your mind for years? you betcha Inexpensive? darn tootin'
The types of people you'll meet? Not dangerous? uh..yes

By: Lucinda

Lucinda — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:48:27 -0800

Seconding knitting - it can easily be done on bus commutes, as the sock I am working on proves.

By: Paragon

Paragon — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:51:55 -0800

My hands don't rest either - my solution was a Rubik's Cube. Very portable and fun. You can work it out for yourself, or use the hints/techniques from a cubing website.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:10:22 -0800

Jewelry is fun. You can do a lot with just wire wrapping stock wire with simple hand tools, and this is fairly portable. If you use recycled steel, copper or aluminum wire it's nearly free. Having a decent set of smooth or padded jeweler's pliers and files and such is handy for a lot of DUI repair in electronics and such, too.

More advanced metalworking is less portable, more expensive for tools but you can make money at it. You can even transfer the metalworking skills to do neat things like hand-build your own vacuum tubes for high end audio or such.

Lockpicking is fun, too, but often makes people uneasy. People are usually a little shocked when you show them how locks actually work. Padlocks are portable. Carrying picks in some places may get you in trouble.

Get a cheap old laptop (or x86 PDA) and play the Avernum RPGs. It might take you a few years. Or play nethack. Besides music and books a portable game is incredible for killing time on transport.

Write a book. With a pen and a notepad. Take up sketching, too.

Get a Rubik's Cube.

Play the card game Set.

Use a hacked gameboy to make music with NanoLoop and/or LSDJ. Or use a DS, or a PDA or laptop.

Play with LEGO, or magnets.

By: NikitaNikita

NikitaNikita — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:26:35 -0800

Crossword puzzles, suduko, or picross pizzles (available on DS and paper/pen platforms).

Beading, macrame, knitting/crotcheting, and friendship bracelet-ish type "weaving".

By: bricoleur

bricoleur — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:33:59 -0800

You can do a lot of woodcarving with a carpenter's utility knife and some pieces of spruce/pine/fir scrap. Just always cut away from yourself.

By: qxntpqbbbqxl

qxntpqbbbqxl — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:35:45 -0800

Calligraphy. Or just improve your handwriting in general - appearance, speed. Or teach yourself to write upside-down, backwards, with the other hand, etc. Great for commutes and other blocks of 'dead time'.

By: JayRwv

JayRwv — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:49:43 -0800

Needlepoint.

By: gwenlister

gwenlister — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:55:18 -0800

Juggling?

By: Fins

Fins — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:17:21 -0800

Model cars boats trains and planes.

And drawing.

By: librarianamy

librarianamy — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:37:23 -0800

To clarify knitting a bit (which is what I'd recommend) is that if it's vaguely yarn shaped and semi flexible - it will knit. So don't limit yourself to yarn - there's a lot of fascinating knitting out there being done with other materials. There are books on knitting wire to make jewelry and household goods, and there are books on knitting with fabric (strips of tulle make great scrubby cloths, strips of recycled clothing make warm scarves, rugs and blankets, strips of plastic grocery bags make neat sturdy bags). Also, I know a lot of people who have learned the art of buying old sweaters at Goodwill and unraveling them for the yarn and then re-knitting them as something else. Many people will tell you that knitting is an expensive hobby, and it can be - but it doesn't _have_ to be - especially if you happen to score a complete collection of all of the sizes of needles at a yard sale/ebay/craigslist.

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:10:06 -0800

Car detailing. It's not difficult and you can turn it into a fairly profitable part-time enterprise. If I needed money and had more free time I'd do it myself - it's fun.

By: tomble

tomble — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:34:12 -0800

I took up woodcarving some years ago.

You can start woodcarving with a couple of chisels (a very narrow straight edge and a slightly larger straight edge) and a woodcarving mallet. My favourite thing to carve is celtic knotwork - trace a black and white design onto your wood with carbon paper and start chiseling away at the bits that aren't meant to be there any more. I had read some stuff online about it but the best thing was just to try it and work it out.

Cheap offcuts of timber that you can dig out of a discard bin at a lumber yard are you'll need, unless you're working on something special. Even cheap pine is nice to carve.

It's not just rewarding, it also taught me patience. If you hurry, you end up doing damage to your work. It also taught me that you can do almost anything if you spend enough time on it - one small piece might take over 12 hours of work but it looks incredible.

By: tomble

tomble — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:38:21 -0800

Oh, and sewing is also fun! I bought a sewing machine, took a couple of classes (and was the only guy in both of them). It was great to learn how it's done. I don't do much sewing but I do enjoy having the knowledge, and the ability to use the machine comes in handy for clothing repair and alteration.

By: mismatched

mismatched — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:44:58 -0800

I know you mentioned this in your question, but origami is my working-with-hands habit. Specifically, modular geometric origami with post-it notes. Using post-its makes it cheap, easy, and more portable, and doesn't affect most modules much. (Also, I have a pretty much unlimited supply of free post-its.) I usually use the PHiZZ unit to construct interesting things. I'm currently figuring out buckytube configurations. It's fun.
If you want more information and/or photos, memail me.

By: curagea

curagea — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 23:15:20 -0800

As someone mentioned before, Set. Making models and painting them. Origami (if you have Netflix you can keep busy while watching).

Oh, and papercraft. There's tons of websites where you can download and print out templates. I like this one (sorry it's in Chinese, but there's sssooo much stuff there).

By: mandal

mandal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:12:11 -0800

Soapstone carving.

By: mandal

mandal — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:53:18 -0800

So I sat down to do the crossword: pen spinning.

By: ostranenie

ostranenie — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:28:56 -0800

Origami, specifically origami boxes and other useful items.

By: FauxScot

FauxScot — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 04:37:31 -0800

scrimshaw. Combines the precision of drawing with the relative permanence of sculpture. Very tiny and extremely limited tool set required. Portable. Unique.

By: radioamy

radioamy — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:41:44 -0800

Cross-stitch! I always recommend Subversive Cross-Stitch for beginners with a good sense of humor. Their kits are inexpensive. I prefer cross-stitching to needlepointing because a) it's cheaper and b) you can customize patterns or even make your own!

By: AceRock

AceRock — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:46:45 -0800

Cooking

By: zardoz

zardoz — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:41:09 -0800

Thank you to all--everyone gave a useful answer. I appreciate it!

By: Overzealous

Overzealous — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 18:28:57 -0800

I vote for coin tricks.

By: chelegonian

chelegonian — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:56:47 -0800

Chiming in a bit late on this one but one thing i like to do with my restless hands is run through patterns on my fingers by tapping my thumb on each finger eg from pinky to index and back and then making the patterns more complex, doing different patterns on each hand and so on. this calms me down and apparently this sort of thing is good for the brain and (obviously) your dexterity, my guitar playing has improved as a result. also you dont need any equipment and its relatively unobtrusive