DUBAI – A creative person who has tried so many hobbies during her life thinks that hobbies are an important thing that should be practised by every person for the various benefits of hobbies. She has landed on a favourite hobby, which is creating crafts such as toys, bags, and clothes with crochets.
Nouf Almarzooqi, an electrical engineer who graduated from the Higher Colleges of Technology in 2020, loves to get use of all her free time by doing something beneficial. She tried painting, creating amigurumi, which are crocheted or knitted stuffed toys, and knitting. She also enjoys physical sports as well like horse riding, martial arts, and diving. However, she preferers crochet because as she said everyone can create crochets at any time, it is fun and relaxing because it gets your mind busy with the patterns and this way can free your mind from stress and anxiety.
She always encourages young women to discover their hobbies.
“Hobbies help us meet people of the same interest as us and they help us discover our personalities,’’ Almarzooqi said. ‘’Physical hobbies make us healthier and more confident without overloading us, while other types of hobbies can free us from stress.”
Almarzooqi emphasizes that anyone of any age can start having hobbies. She started her journey when she was only 12 years old. At that age, she started discovering the things she liked to spend her time with other than playing, and she found out that her favourite hobbies at that time were painting, knitting, and swimming. Nevertheless, throughout the years she got into discovering other types of hobbies.
Only when she was 24, she started creating amigurumi crafts with crochets. She found it easy at the beginning because she already had a foundation in knitting which made it easier to figure out how to make the knots and how they worked. She improved herself by practicing and following patterns in amigurumi books. She also loved it the most because it has never failed at letting her feel relaxed.
“I have been told by many people that I should start my own business,” Almarzooqi said. “However, I am not considering it because it takes a lot of time and effort to finish an amigurumi project.’’
Amigurumi projects have many varied sizes and shapes. Some of them could take a few hours to finish, some days, and others a month. For example, her most challenging project was creating a starfish because it had a complicated pattern, and she did it to challenge herself when she was a beginner.
Almarzooqi tried to buy her supplies from many different shops in Dubai, but her all-time favourite shop is Creative Minds because they have many branches near her, and they have many distinct products for every hobby she has.
“I love Creative Minds because they have a variety of yarn colours and types,’’ Almarzooqi said. “They have never failed to impress me with their products, I usually buy from their supplies for all my other hobbies as well.”
About the author
Anood Abdulla Almarzooqi studies Integrated Strategic Communication in the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University in Dubai. She is a recipient of the Dean’s List, an honour for students with high GPA, and a member of the ZU Student Council.
This story was edited by Yulia Medvedeva.
