Browsing by Subject "serious leisure"

It is possible to participate in leisure activities and handicrafts with different levels of commitment and devotion. Dimensions of handicraft activities can also vary along with hobbyists. The aim of this research was to get an overall picture of the dimensions that are typical for Finnish handicraft leisure and what separates hobbyists from each other. The research was descriptive and explorative. Leisure handicrafts were approached through five problems: 1. To what extent different handicrafts are made as leisure? 2. To what extent craft hobbyists seek for inspiration, information or instructions from different sources? 3. To what extent different dimensions of serious leisure occur in handicraft activities? 4. To what extent different social actions occur in handicraft activities? 5. To what extent different motives guides handicraft activities? Quantitative data was collected using web survey during spring 2013. The survey was advertised through craft-themed webpages and Facebook-groups. The data (N=3009) was female oriented. It was analyzed using statistical software SPSS 22. Central tendencies and frequencies were observed. For further analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, K-means cluster analysis and correlations were computed. The aims of these analyses were to deepen the results and observe the connections between the dimensions of the research. Handicrafts were made mostly daily and 1 2 hours at one time. Knitting, crocheting, and making accessories were the most popular forms of crafts. Making crafts in company varied between respondents, but making crafts as gifts was quite common. Making holistic and ordinary crafts varied between respondents and weren t connected to the dimensions of serious leisure. Most respondents found their skills and ways of doing crafts positive. The extent in which the respondents participate in craft activities was connected to identifying with leisure pursuit. Inspiration, information and instructions were often sought from webpages, -goups and -blogs and from craft books and magazines. Handicrafts were mostly made for process-centered reasons and uniqueness, but the manufacture-based and experiment-based motives were also present. Respondents could be grouped to four groups whose results varied within the key parts of this research and within background variables. For example, respondents differed in their identification to the hobby and in their overall activeness in this pursuit. However differences in seriousness of the leisure couldn't be defined. The results of this study, along with the methods and terminology used in this study, can be applied to future studies and developed further based on more specific designs.