Hobbyists dedicate spare time to varying vocations
By Michele Alperin, Special Writer
When entering the house of an avid quilter or knitter, even a not-so-discerning visitor will know that a hobbyist has been at work — bags of yarn, piles of material, sewing machines, a half-knitted sweater, a mound of patchwork squares.
What or who inspires hobbyists and what ignited the fire for their passion is different for every artist, stamp collector or amateur photographer.
Gayle Stratton of Pennington, who always has three or four quilts in various stages of completion as well as five or six projects on needles, captures this sense of creative disarray, observing, “My house is one big hobby.”
Ms. Stratton, a librarian at Princeton Public Library, got started with sewing and knitting as a child, influenced by her grandmothers, one of whom knitted an entire wardrobe for her dolls and another who made them tiny quilts and sometimes clothes. She remembers the knitting grandmother sitting next to her, correcting her mistakes, as Ms. Stratton knitted her first slippers and scarf. Sadly her grandmother died while Ms. Stratton was still a novice.
”She didn’t know she had spawned another knitter,” she says.
Her other grandmother, who lived in Kansas City, Mo., gave Ms. Stratton a Singer toy sewing machine when she was about 10, and then she got a real one at 15.
Ms. Stratton’s hobbies have adjusted as her life has changed. As a child, her mother’s friends started sending her balls of yarn when they heard she knew how to knit, and she would knit squares and make afghans for her friends. When a quilting store opened in Blacksburg, Va., she and a friend starting to create quilts from classic patchwork squares, and she would make quilts for all the babies she sat for.
After college, she knitted sweaters for her friends’ babies, and when her daughter was young, she sewed all her sundresses. She also sewed doll clothes and knitted doll sweaters for birthday presents — to the point that one of her daughter’s friends, expecting such a gift, informed her, “Mrs. Stratton, my favorite color is pink.”
Today in her sewing room, she usually has three to four quilts in various stages of completion and five to six projects on needles — simple ones when she wants to knit without thinking and more complicated ones to challenge herself.
What she treasures is creating something enduring.
”There is a nice sense of accomplishment that you don’t get from very many things in life,” she says. “A good dinner is gone in 20 minutes but a little sweater could be there forever.”
Andrew Pramer, a restorative dentist who lives in Belle Mead, has a very different set of hobbies: He rehabs vintage Ford tractors, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and Pitts Special biplanes.
The tractors, he says, are pragmatic: He has a large piece of property and needs them for a variety of outdoor tasks, and the way he procures them is straightforward, if a little unusual. When he sees an old tractor parked in a field, he knocks on the door and asks if the person is willing to sell.
He’s managed to pick up three tractors this way. For a 1947 tractor he paid $700 for what would sell today for $20,000 to $30,000; and he was able to take it apart and rebuild it completely.
”It was nostalgic and fun but useful at the same time,” he says. “I’m trying to give these old things a resurrection and a new life.”
The motorcycles are another story. Having ridden and tinkered with them since childhood, he buys them used, cleans them, and fixes them up. He is just finishing a 1979 motorcycle, and when it is roadworthy his wife, Summer, says she is looking forward to some touring.
Airplanes have been part of Mr. Pramer’s life since age 6 when he first flew with his father, who was in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He remembers when he was 13 years old and taking over the controls of a plane his father was piloting.
Mr. Pramer’s daughter was able to fly an airplane, sitting on cushions, at age 10. A member of the International Aerobatic Club, he builds and works on the Pitts Special planes he uses in aerobatic competitions.
”They are cool little airplanes — little hotrods in the sky,” he says.
Cathy Dailey of Princeton, an artist who sells her work at kittybutt.etsy.com, loves knitting, crocheting, and stained glass, but names bird watching as the hobby she sticks to year round.
She says likes birding because it involves the outdoors and nature, gives her quiet time, and is free and open to anyone willing to invest in a pair of decent binoculars and maybe a bird book. But perhaps the most important reason is the connection it has with her father and her sister, who are avid birders.
Her father, now 82, has been birding for as long as she can remember.
”He has always had a thing about nature, and he got me into it,” says Ms. Dailey.
Three years ago, when she moved to New Jersey, her interest in birding blossomed with the encouragement of her father and sister.
”When I announced to my family that I was moving, my dad and sister got really excited,” she says. “New Jersey is one of the best places to see migratory birds, and my dad and sister have both been here twice to visit and want to go bird-watching every single day.”
Ms. Dailey already has a life list of 217 different birds. The most unusual is a snowy owl, usually a denizen of the Arctic, that she heard about on ebird.org — where birders provide details about bird sightings. To actually see the owl, she had to drive to the Merrill Creek Reservoir in Washington, N.J.
Birding is like carrying on a family tradition, Ms. Dailey says, adding, “It makes me think of my dad. I will call him if I see something exciting, and he will call me and let me know about different things he sees. My sister, who is more of a pro, will help me narrow down what I think I’ve seen to what I probably realistically saw.”
Summing it up, she concludes, “Even though we live so far away, it brings us together and creates a bond.”