Something to do with your hands.

What do you do when you’re watching TV, or listening to music, or otherwise just sitting around? How do you keep your hands from being the Devil’s playthings?

Sometimes I knit, sometimes I crochet, sometimes I embroider, but my favorite by far is peyote beadwork. Stitching one tiny bead at a time fascinates me. I like to use all kinds of different techniques, some of which I make up and some of which I learn from books and magazines. Right now I’m making a brooch with a larger than life size mannequin eye, and it’s very creepy.

Let’s see what you’ve made.

Ooh, I love the twisted necklace! Sadly, these days my hands are normally occupied with eating or smoking, but I’d love to get back into crocheting, which I was fairly good at, at one time.

I’ll make you one if you’d like. I love making them, and I always need a new project. Send me an email and we can discuss colors and stuff.

The beadwork you linked in your post is beautiful! I especially like the first necklace pictured (the twisted tube one).

When I’m just lounging about, I’m usually holding my beloved Bubba Keg full of water (52 ounce, football style) in one hand and petting my even more beloved dog with the other. If not that, then I’m playing around with my Motorola Q, the bells and whistles of which still fascinate me.

Email enthusiastically sent! :smiley:

Well what’s wrong with the Devil’s playground? I like the Devil’s playground. But I can’t post those pictures.

I used to knit. Now I’m mostly half watching television and half doing something or other on the computer. Or I pet the cat.

Ms. Pumpkin, check your email.

I was too busy drooling over that necklace to add that I DID recently finish a quilt. No pictures yet, though, due to one of the cats promptly throwing up on it. :rolleyes:

[continued hijack] Mirror, have you heard about the Quilts of Gee’s Bend? It’s a fascinating story, and I saw traveling exibit when it came through Boston. The exibit doesn’t look like it’ll be touring through the midwest anytime soon unfortunately. I just thought you’d find this interesting. Official website. NPR article. [/hijack]

What I do with my hands? When I’m at home with nothing to do I’m usually on my computer. I’ll have the baseball game on the TV in the background if it’s on, but I don’t watch much TV besides that. So the keyboard usually keeps my hands busy.

[WoW] left click, w, 3, 8 +9, 4, 4, 4, , 4 4 4 4 4 4 [SIZE=4]4[SIZE=5]4 4[/SIZE][/SIZE] :eek: OH NOES!!!111!!one !! :smack: [/WoW] :smiley:

I paint Miniatures. That is, when I’m not letting my hands become the devils playthings.

Oh, the devil gets all the good toys!

Most of the time I’m not watching tv, instead I’ll be reading a book and making a fuss of Ophelia or trying to keep Shadow out of the fridge.

Mostly, work on the computer in some fashion. If it isn’t surfing, it’s writing music or doing something in Photoshop or working on a website if I have a project of that nature going. At other times I read, though I seem to have so little time for that these days. One hobby too many, I guess.

Oooh! Oooh! I do peyote stitch beading too! I love your stuff, Mirror! I need to PM you so we can talk technique.

I’ve been frantically working to build inventory for a show next week, and my photography isn’t keeping up with my production, so these aren’t my most current pieces, but I’m working on these kinds of things.

lizard necklace

blue pendant and earrings

Hypno-Toad, I’m afraid to ask how large those pieces are. My guess is, not very. Wow! Cool!

Most of them are 30mm scale. Thanks.

My God, those are beautiful. If I were to quilt, I hope it would look like that (it probably would, since I am not so good at sewing straight lines).

Freckafree: I’ll PM you, because my email doesn’t seem to be getting stuff from thr boards.

I’ve been trying to find something to do with my hands, as I am both easily bored and lacking in manual dexterity. Most of the time I just type with them, but my typing has become really fast.

I do cross-stitch while watching TV. Or while listening to TV, actually. It has to be a really, really good TV show to make me put down the stitching and watch the screen. My husband has gotten in the habit of calling my attention to things I should look up for.

I don’t have cable, so if I’m watching TV it’s something I’ve planned to watch. But I do sometimes do sewing at the computer (I’ve tried cross-stitching, but a sampler takes up too much space). It’s a nice simple activity to do that keeps my hands occupied. I don’t plan on doing anymore though–after sewing three cosplays by hand, I’ve decided I really oughta get a sewing machine.

Maybe I should get back into crochet…

What’s with the “have to do something with my hands” thing? I’m not being snarky or anything; I have nothing against it, don’t care a whit if people do it, etc. I honestly would like to find out if there’s a medical/psychological/aesthetic reason for having this need. I often hear that as an excuse for smoking, as well.

If I’m sitting there watching TV, I don’t do anything with my hands (unless my wife is sitting next to me, but that’s definitely devil’s hands stuff :smiley: ). However, I’ve noticed that when I’m reading, I tend to twirl my hair a bit, so I might have a touch of this, too.

BTW, y’all got some beautiful arts & crafts going on there.

Well, I don’t know what the reason is, but my hands almost always want to be doing something. If there’s anything reasonably small at hand, I’ll play around with that. If there’s nothing around, they’ll still find something to do. I’ve found that playing WoW, it bugs me not to have something to do during downtime, especially during a slow run (I once spent an entire UBRS run working on one of the above-mentioned cosplays in-between fights). So if they’re going to be doing something anyways, why not something productive?

Side bonus–Doing something relatively mindless and repetitive is relaxing, and can help calm my emotions if I’m in a bad mood. Even if my bad mood is due to what I’m working on. It keeps both my hands and mind occupied enough to keep from getting restless.