“Grandma Hobbies” are the hobbies that are often associated with what older people spend their time doing. Some common ones include crocheting, knitting, sewing, embroidery, and baking. I chose to test out baking and crocheting to see how easy it would be for someone to pick up one of these hobbies.
I ordered a crochet kit from Michaels and used the materials provided with the kit. I know the basics of crochet and have worked on a few different crochet projects in the past, so I chose an intermediate crochet kit. The kit provided an instruction manual, a plastic crochet hook, a needle, some plastic buttons, and all of the yarn and materials needed to put together the final product: Beau, a stuffed bear. The kit came with buttons for Beau’s eyes and nose.
The instructions were fairly straightforward, though they did seem overwhelming at first. I hadn’t worked on a crochet project in a few months, and trying to create the basic stitches to begin the project was very difficult. Soon, I got the hang of it and created the body of the bear in less than an hour. Building up the arms, legs, and ears of the bear didn’t take much time. I moved on to making the mouth of the bear before crocheting the bear’s suspenders for the outfit.
For assembly, I began by sewing the arms and legs to the body of the plushie. I sewed the eyes and nose onto the bear and then attached the head of the bear to its body. The finishing touch was sewing on the bear’s suspenders.
Overall, the instructions of the kit were fairly easy to follow and weren’t as difficult as I thought they would be. The project was also easy to put together, aside from the time that it took to sew on the eyes and the mouth of the bear.
My next project was to bake a recipe that my family has loved for years. Zucchini Bread has always been something that my aunt and grandma love to make for the holiday season. Baking has been an interest for me because of my family, so it felt very fitting to try to bake this on my own and review my experience. Rather than traditional loaves of this delicacy, I wanted to make Zucchini Bread muffins. I found the recipe for the batter from a cooking vlog called Crazy for Crust by Dorothy Kern.
To make the zucchini bread, I needed one medium-sized zucchini, two eggs, some neutral oil, brown sugar and white sugar, a tiny bit of vanilla, salt, baking soda, baking powder, flour, and cinnamon. Measuring out the dry ingredients and then combining them with the rest of the ingredients went by quickly. I then prepared the zucchini before preparing the shredded zucchini pieces, went by quickly. I chose to shred the zucchini pieces using a vegetable slicer, which not all people may have access to. Then, combining the zucchini with the rest of the batter was very simple.
However, the baking times and temperature of the oven presented some difficulty. I didn’t want to overbake or underbake the muffins, so I chose to follow the exact temperature that the recipe called for and to increase the time that they would be in the oven. This led to some of the muffins being firmer than others.
The taste of the muffins was well-balanced, with a great flavor and notes of sweet brown sugar and cinnamon. I enjoyed the process of baking very much and would definitely want to find other recipes to try out in the future.