Hello my friends! It’s been a long while since I’ve done a giveaway, hasn’t it?
One of my favorite things is to contribute to Making Magazine. No matter how crazy my schedule gets (and it’s truly crazy these days — in a good way), when Carrie, Ashley or any of the lovely ladies from Making contacts me about a project for the next issue my answer is always a most enthusiastic YES.
The magazine itself is gorgeous, obviously, and it’s an honor to be a part of it. But the reason I love working with them is because I’ve had a LOT of jobs in many fields in my lifetime and have worked with a LOT of people and I have rarely found such a heartening mix of integrity and kindness and generosity and creative abundance. Carrie and Ashley are thoughtful people cultivating the beauty and delight of creation in its many accessible forms. It’s such a brave thing, such an important thing, especially these days when the act of making and the attendant presence it requires seem overshadowed by outrage and strife. “Crafting” often gets a bad rap as a self-indulgent, frivolous hobby. Yet, it’s one of the most healing, joy-inducing, meaningful activities I’ve ever engaged in. It’s so easy to get caught up in judgment, yes? I know that I get judgy all the time and have to gently and consistently pull myself out of that unhelpful mental space.
For issue no. 7, I contributed a simple backpack and animal keychain tutorial. All these photos are by Carrie Hoge and @makingzine, by the way. So pretty, right?
In keeping with their magnanimous spirit, the folks at Making sent me multiple copies of their recent issue, DESERT. I immediately knew that I wanted to do a little giveaway and have two copies to offer up! Plus, I’ll toss in one of my cute li’l animal keychains that I hope will amuse a little one. Or a grown-up one!
Please leave a comment here or on my IG account (@sanaeishida) to enter the giveaway. Hmmm…maybe you could share your favorite hobby? I’ve probably asked this before, but I love knowing what interests people. I’ll leave the giveaway open until May 3rd and will contact the two winners that weekend. International entries are more than welcome as usual! Good luck!!
Hey Sanae,
It feels to me like sleeping is currently my favourite hobby. I go to school and work too much, so I often don’t get enough sleep right now. Other than that, I love making things. I don’t get around to sewing much lately, but I still make a lot of other stuff. It’s one of the things that keep me (mostly) sane.
Thanks for the giveaway! The magazine looks really neat again!
Jana
I love the keychains! So darling! And the pockets are wicked cool. I’ve decided I’m a collector of hobbies—sewing is my chief source of artistic delight, and beadwork and hand quilting make me crazy happy, but I also love watercolors, and playing in the garden. I treated myself to a gloriously bad spot of impasto oil painting for my birthday (so very bad! So fun!!), and have my camera bag waiting for me to setup portraits with my unsuspecting friends. When my mind is too chaotic even for the soothing influence of handwork, I gravitate toward beloved music and a good book in the hammock (#bliss), and I’ve recently decided to embrace being a creator of mediocre poetry, which has been so wonderfully liberating! So, yes…I collect and savour…
I’m a multihobbyist!
I love to make clothes and soft furnishings. I knit and crochet. I love embroidery and making soft toys. I cook and bake but really draw the line at gardening!
I’m not massively skilled at any of them , but that doesn’t get in the way of me practicing my making.
Ohhhh, I love this issue of Making! My favorite hobby is sewing clothes!
I am a sewist primarily (my autocorrect keeps changing that to sexist!). My mom was the queen of everything making (knit, sew, crochet, painting, printing, macrame, gardening , stained glass) so of course I resisted learning anything crafty until much later in life (my early 40s). Now I’m proud to be a maker.
Favorite hobbies include knitting and sewing ❤️
I really love the little keychains! I’m not sure I could pull them off though because I’m not good at little projects ha ha. Lately I’ve been crocheting a lot more than I sew but sewing still has a big piece of my heart. Hope your spring has been awesome Sanae!
It is hard to pick a favorite hobby! I sew, needlepoint, knit, embroider, and cross stitch. But since you asked for a favorite, I have to say my favorite hobby is sewing, and I have been doing it the longest. Santa brought me my first sewing machine. I was about 5 or 6 years old. The machine did not have a bobbin and sewed a chain stitch. I made clothes for my Chatty Cathy doll. And I have been sewing ever since then!
So lovely! Right now my favorite hobby is probably gardening. Spring has sprung and I love looking at bare spots and planning how to fill them, looking at how my plans and plants have come together over the years, and trying to find bare spots for all the plants that make their way into my wagon at a plant sale. At night, then it’s time for knitting. Remarkably portable, a bit challenging to figure out how to make a pattern end up the way you want it, but you can always unravel if you need to (just see my latest project…about to be ripped back for the third time…if I’d just listened to my gut the first time this wouldn’t be a problem).
My favorite hobby is quilting. Though lately I have been spending more time chasing my puppy and preparing the garden.
Baking. Or quilting.
OK, how great are those keychains?!?!
Gardening is my favorite, although cooking/baking comes in a close second. I retired recently, and look forward to getting back into sewing — that backpack would be a good start. One of these days I’m going to conquer knitting and calligraphy!
So hard to just pick 1 thing! I love running, sewing, crochet & knitting….too many things! The bag & keychain are lovely!
Oh wow, love the bag and key rings (what we call them in the uk!). My favourite hobby is creating, whether that’s sewing, writing short stories, knitting, gardening…. the act of creating makes me very happy.
Sewing is my happy place, but crochet is next. I am learning embroidery and knitting. I just want to do all the things.
Thank you for.this opportunity.
It IS hard to pick one thing! Now that our Seattle weather has been warmer I would have to say gardening. My longest hobby has been sewing, mostly clothes but recently quilting. Occasionally knitting and always reading! Thanks Sanae for your give-away.
Difficult to say…or choose…but my favourite hobby is more of a luxury. And I would have to say meditation and sleeping would follow very closely to reading. I don’t know if it is just me, but I find it difficult to carve out a little time to just sock myself away with a book or magazine with a cup of coffee or tea…or if I am in an extremely “decadent” mood, a lovely pint of ice cream or some mochi ice cream cakes.
Oh this looks like such a cute book! Your keychains are adorable too! Sewing is my hobby 😁
Sewing and surfing. They don’t seem that compatible but actually they are.
Such a beautiful magazine with so many gorgeous projets!
That pocket is so lovely! I bounce around a lot between hobbies, but my favorite right now is dyeing fabric.
Like everyone else, I have too many favourite hobbies! Maybe currently pottery? But sewing has been my most enduring hobby so maybe that’s it? Anyway, love your project, the keychains are too sweet!
Love the backpacks! Currently obsessed with knitting and bread baking. Hope to get back to sewing as well.
My favorite hobby is knitting. I dabble in a lot of different things, but knitting is a constant touchstone in my life that I always come back to. It’s been painful for me to see the kind of thoughtless, judgmental name-calling I’m used to seeing in the political sphere leaking into the online crafting space. I think the focus on embracing diversity is wonderful and overdue, but I’m sad the discussions about it are often so ugly. Thank you so much for your giveaway and all the hard work you’ve done in your books and on your blog.
I dabble in several types of making, but my favorite, hands down, is sewing. Last year I took my machine in to be serviced and it ended up taking almost two months. Even with all my other creative pursuits in that time, I was much happier when we were reunited and I could sew again.
My current favorite is sleeping because of a newish little one. Over the years though, my hobbies included sewing, cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, weaving, reading, baking, silver smith/jewelry making with sewing be my favorite. While I’ve been pumping I thought why not start a new hobby so I’m trying out lettering. Although…I should really practice my everyday penmanship first 😀 Thank you for the giveaway, the magazine and its creators and content sound so wonderful!
Lovely backpack! Besides sewing, I also play the French horn in a brass band. I love getting out to our weekly rehearsals, since I also work near home with my husband, so I really enjoy these outings to the city and actually talking to other people than my family members. 🙂
I would be so honored to win your giveaway, I love makingzine and your little animals are really cool, so cool that I will make them soon!
thanks for all your interesting ideas!
I think my hobbies rotate, or shift with the seasons… Lately I’ve been spending my free time in the yard, working on the garden, cleaning up (always always), and planting green things – which feels so rewarding after a long winter. I just started sewing (just read your lovely book!), so that too. In the winter I read quite a bit and bake far more than I should, and in the summer my hobbies tend toward anything outside (is sitting in the yard a hobby?) and watercolor painting. Thank you for the giveaway!
Hello: an artist hardly ever just works in one medium exclusively. You are proof of this! Your design senses are running over, like a cup full of wine is running over, in a beautiful and sweet way!