Sewing, Baking, and Model Making - What do you like to do as the time goes by?

I realized the other day just how crazy some of my hobbies seem to my friends. Among some of the nuttier things that I like to do are sewing, cooking, and playing with 25mm models. To kinda break things up a bit, I'll talk about each one individually.

Before my son was born I was REALLY heavy into sewing. Tragically, work and school have kept my sewing machine in the closet lately, but I plan on pulling that puppy out pretty soon to make a few pieces for my SCA Asian outfit:a Kamishimo and set of Hakama. My mom always told me that sewing was a skill that I could use my whole life and I couldn't agree more. She also told me to make new friends, so when I found the book "Stupid Sock Creatures" I took that advice quite literally.
Two of my favorite creations are Scraps(bottom)and Zoe(top). I made Scraps one day while I was hanging out with my wife at her parent's deli and I made Zoe for my mom when we went up to my parents house to visit a few months ago. I found that the sock creatures were an AWESOME way to get rid of my old socks while at the same time making some inexpensive and personal gifts for my friends. The few others that I've made have been given some great homes. Not to mention that I also like to make other quirky things like Nannnerpuss.

Next on the list was baking. I love cooking and every once in a while I think up RANDOM stuff that would be amusing. Going back to a conversation that my friend Graeme and I had a long time ago, we were talking about opening a restaurant. Graeme had a thing about artisan bread and I wanted to just cook really wacky meals. So we got to talking about how when you go into a fast food place or just a random greasy spoon, people tend to order the #4 or the #2. you know how places usually name their combo meals. Well, we thought it would be hilarious if you ordered the #4 and you got a burger in the shape of the number 4. Really Sesame Street style comedy, but we thought it was a riot. so, he took it a step further and started talking about ABC pasta. He was wondering about just having one letter instead of all of them and not just tiny letters, HUGE letters. The way he described it was, "Niko, I want to have the letter A with meat sauce". In honor of Graeme, I was making pasta the other day and I give you, The Letter A with Meat sauce!


Finally, one of my true loves, playing with miniatures. About 6 years ago my buddies got me into playing a table top strategy game called Warhammer 40k. It's basically a strategy game where you literally build and paint an army, set up a battle and beat the crap out of another player. There's a whole bunch of different armies that one can play and a single game can run for over 6 hours! It gives me a creative outlet because Games Workshop (the creators) encourage "converting" models. so chopping up models and making them your own is part of the hobby and I think that's what I love most about it. I just recently started playing an army called Tau (think towel without the Ls). They're a race of blue super advanced aliens that want to help others "for the greater good". If you don't want their help, they basically blow you up until you either give in or die, tee hee. Not to get too much into it but, here are a few of my favorite conversions. for those of you who know who Tank Girl is, my tank commander for my Imperial Guard army looks exactly like her. The others are just inspired by things like Invader Zim and the last picture is my Sisters of Battle army (also known as the Nuns with Guns). I've also taken up resin casting so I can make my own customer models.



So what do you do to pass the time?