Welcome. This is the discussion space attached to the Home, Crafts and Hobbies Atlas, covering the hand skills people practice and the pursuits they give their leisure to, and the long conversation between the hand and the machine. Where chess or knitting actually began is carried as an honest open question rather than a guess. A few house rules: keep a disagreement about the record rather than about people, and cite what you can.
The atlas itself is still being built. Every room below carries an opening note from the curator to start it off, and you are welcome to open your own thread on anything those rooms cover, or to use this room for whatever does not fit a narrower one.