alt Hacker NewsI also found woodworking recently as a software engineer and it's incredibly rewarding. Both the tactile feeling of the activity, the idea of building something that _exists_ in physical form and exists in your or a loved one's home, and the pride that you feel about a finished product and having overcome challenges and learned something.
Unlike knitting, I love its usefulness. There are so only many use cases for knitwear, but furniture, man, everyone needs furniture. And being in a home that I built by my two hands is infinite joy.
The three aspects where it falls short to knitting: - It can't be done mindlessly. It would be unsafe and you'd make costly mistakes that you can't undo by pulling on the yarn. - It's more expensive. The materials are a bit more pricy (compared to hours spent on working them), but the machines certainly are. - You are confined to space and time. Whether it's your garage or wood shop where you have machines and can make noise and dust, or it's your living room where you exclusively use hand tools – you surely can't do it in your car while waiting for the kids, or at the university, or on the public transport. Whittling small objects is the one exception.
But yes, woodworking is awesome.
Agree on all accounts. I very much enjoy the limited woodworking I've done, but the logistics are much trickier than knitting.
I do find whittling to be an interesting middle point. Like knitting, you don't need a dedicated workshop. It doesn't take a lot of set up and tear down for a given session. You can fit the project and tools in a small space.
Of course, you're shedding wood chips the whole time, so you can't really whittle on the couch. And you sure as hell can't do it on an airplane. But you can do it when, say, camping with friends, or sitting on the back porch when it's nice out.