The crew who knit, draw, write and photograph on layovers: the hobby that lives in a bag, show yours
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#1 I said in my ten years post that a hobby that lives in a bag has saved me on a hundred layovers, and several people asked what mine is. It is drawing, badly, in a small sketchbook, of hotel windows and airport gates and the crew asleep on the bus. So here is the thread for the bag hobbies, because I suspect the crew are quietly a very creative group and nobody shows it.
Mine
A pocket sketchbook and two pens. Ten minutes on a layover, whatever is in front of me. Twelve sketchbooks in ten years. Nobody has seen them except my partner and now this forum, in description only.
Ones I know about from crew
A purser who knits on every crew bus and has made a scarf for every crew member she has flown with more than five times. A first officer who writes a page a day and has a novel that is, he says, terrible and finished. A Filipino colleague who photographs every hotel window view and has a wall of them at home in Manila. A Wizz crew member who embroiders on night stops and sells nothing and gives everything away. A Delta crew member who learned the ukulele in hotel rooms because it fits in the bag and the walls are thin enough that it has to be quiet.
Why it matters
Because the job is a lot of waiting in rooms, and a hobby that lives in a bag turns the waiting into something. Because the going phase is easier with something that is yours. And because the crew who have one are, in my experience, the calmer ones on a bad day.
What lives in your bag?
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#2 A film camera, small, and a roll per trip, developed when I get home. Eight years of Tokyo at 5am on grainy film. It is the reason I go for the walk.
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#3 Knitting, on the crew bus and in the galley on the quiet hours if the purser allows, and I am the purser now so I allow it. A scarf per Caribbean season. I am probably the purser Sam described.
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#4 Six sectors, no layovers, so the hobby lives in the car: a harmonica, in the crew car park, in the ten minutes at the end of the day. The other crew have stopped noticing.
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#5 @hectorcdmx the harmonica in the car park at the end of a six sector day is the most crew thing I have ever read.
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#6 The embroidery on night stops is me and I did not know I was known for it. I am giving away a tea towel to whoever asks first.
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#7 Training, and I do not have one yet, and this thread has decided it: a sketchbook, from the first layover. Badly, like Sam. That is the standard.