Hobbies?

I had similar issues with my art. I like painting but couldn't draw. I took lessons at night school but was worried about how terrible I was and that people would laugh. I went though and gained confidence. From the classes our art group was formed. It is now a productive friendly meeting each week.

I'm not suggesting the same, but it might be an option if there are any groups loacally to you. It's more following your ideas and building confidence. Good writers (as well as artists) need to learn and gain experience. You can do it. It needs perseverance. There will be setbacks but, with experience, you will get there. It's having a well defined goal and developing a plan to get there. Almost everyone is afraid of ridicule, at least at first. Whether I am good or bad, the main thing I hear when I am out drawing and someone looks over my shoulder is 'I couldn't do that'. You can but you won't if you don't try.

Take your baby to a play group then go have coffee with the other mothers afterward. Read a book, try new recipe, watch a good movie, blog about your experience raising a child...

would like to be able to sew and make things, some people are so clever at doing this!

Yes I will have to get around and give it a go. Your right a skirt might be an easy way to start.

I've got a sewing machine a nice simple singer.

I don't make clothes I can honestly say I hate sewing I had a dreadful teacher at school and she ruined it.
But being the skinflint I am I refused to pay out the huge sums of money asked for dog beds so I buy reduced price fabrics , samples or offcuts and I make slipcovers for dog beds.
I make curtains again very simple ones but functional and I will make cushion covers or slipcovers for things like the car seats. ( Dog hair and mud get everywhere in our car).

I wouldn't say it a hobby I wouldn't say it something I particularly enjoy but I do have the satisfaction of making things myself and knowing I have saved a good deal of money doing it.

talking about hobby, I think pencil drawing is cheap and therapeutic.

Art is free for all: it costs peanuts to buy a sketchpad and draw.

Here are ideas from what I spend my time doing when I'm not teaching or wrangling kids. I like to read (novels and non-fiction on whatever topic is most interesting at the time), put together jigsaw puzzles and 3D puzzles (and I find foam-backed pieces are the best for 3D building, not plastic or cardstock), and I write a little (much less than I'd like, but both fiction and non-fiction). I also love listening to music. I played clarinet in school and can remember a little for piano playing as well, but never remember that we've got a keyboard...

I probably spend too much time watching TV or movies in the evenings/weekends, so I have less brainpower and attention for my hobbies (although puzzles work well when I'm watching things that don't require meticulous attention to visual details on the screen).

If you want to try something new, you could check out videos online first, or just jump in! I learned to finger knit and finger crochet thanks to videos and written instructions, but I forget to do that often. (My middle guy likes to take yarn and re-roll it - probably finding it therapeutic - so we still have the supplies on hand if I get back to it...)

Oh, there's also scrapbooking! My mum does hers with old film camera pictures or prints from the digital cameras, but there's also digital scrapbooking (and I've tried that once or twice). I think I'd go for digital if I were to take the time - less supplies to clutter up my house, and just some storage space needed on the computer and/or an external drive! Then I'd print the pages when I was done, probably making a photobook...

Exactly! How can I get "bored" with so many interests?

I have a friend that does scrapbooking and she does some amazing things. I would never think of half of the ideas she comes up with. 

Stamp collecting was big when I was a kid. I thought it had died out.

I am not sure if you were about when I shared what happened to my stamp album.

Well, as you know a stamp album is like a finger print, they are all different.

When I left my ex, it was in the loft. I didn't prioritise it.

A couple of years later I found it at a car boot sale. I was looking through it, and the stall holder offered it to me for £2.

THere were lots of gaps in the book where all my best stamps had been too lol.

I asked her where she had got it, as it had been mine in a previous life. I added that I didn't want it, I was just surprised to see it.

She was rather taken aback. "My mother gave me that, just before she died, it meant a lot to her as she had had it since she was young!"

My ex had obviously sold it. I know he cleared out my stuff at car boot sales. I saw him at it more than once.

Oh dear.
The mother had pretended allthis to her daughter, god knows why.
THe daughter was getting rid of it at  a car boot sale despite that.

How weird is that?

I hadn't thought of that angle....