Things to Do in Stanford

Knitting as a hobby is older than agriculture and twice as delicious. Bobbin's Nest offers all the supplies a knitter's tightly purled heart could possibly desire, as well as sewing, crochet, and embroidery supplies for crafting across the craft board. Skeins of yarn run on average between $10 and $15, whereas a yard of fabric generally goes for $8 to $10. If you need some help creating an inverted afghan or hangin' scarf, craft books are available in spades, running in cost from $14.95 to $21.95. This nest of bobbins contains a large arsenal of boutique-dyed yarn, modern fabrics, independent patterns, unusual embroidery supplies, craft books, and creative classes.

Founder Dori Duncan and a talented team of glamour aficionados teach classes for adults and children at Camp Fashionista. Weekend workshops include an Introduction to Sewing class for adults and children ages 8 and older that builds sewing-machine aptitude as students use a zipper and cotton fabric brought from home to construct a pouch they can then fill with notes, candies, or counterfeit Dutch guilders. The Little Fashionistas class guides students ages 6 and older on a course toward whipstitches, precision-snipped pattern pieces, and their very own hand-sewn apple pincushions. With cotton fabric in hand, students may create shoulder-slung book pouches during a Messenger Bag course, or they can add dazzle and street cred to old foot tubes during Bling Your Socks.

Sick of buying expensive supplies and having to adhere to a class schedule just to create art, Jennifer Kurtz Rubin started the first of her chain of ceramic lounges in 1993. Each Petroglyph Ceramic Lounge is designed as a social and creative space, one that all customers can use to express themselves artistically while catching up with friends. The lounge throws open its doors for both kids and adults to decorate clay bisque pieces, such as mugs and salad bowls, with a bounty of colorful supplies, never worrying about cleanup afterward. Once they’re complete, the art pieces are glazed, fired, and ready for pickup in a few days. And because artists can stay for a whole afternoon or just 30 minutes, the lounge even grants a few moments of creativity to patrons with the busiest schedules. The company also goes beyond casual art making to host parties for kids and adults, in which they can bring in live music, serve food, and train scoops of ice cream to paint their own bowls.

In 2011, James Bowser tried setting the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest human-heart formation. Eleven thousand people established the record elsewhere, but few showed up for James’s event. That same year, another organization broke the record for the world’s largest water-balloon fight with 175,141 balloons chucked at 8,957 attendees. On hearing of their success, James—a lifelong water-balloon-fight devotee—decided to make another bid for the record books. For the World's Largest Water Balloon Fight 2012, he aims to congregate 15,000–30,000 participants to wage a war of water with half a million balloons. Alongside balloon-flinging festivities, the World's Largest Water Balloon Fight 2012 also hosts giveaways and raffles supplied by onsite vendors, a battle of the bands, and the chance to break the record for the longest clothesline.

Homestead Lanes welcomes friends and families to hurl balls down 32 glistening lanes. The alley's modern amenities include electronic scoring, gutter returns, and robotic dogs that love unconditionally. After working up a sweat slicing strikes and dancing in glittery clouds of victory, groups can meander to the snack bar. A medley of drafts and bottled brews such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, Newcastle, and Guinness stock shelves in The X Bar, a full-service sports bar that also serenades strikers with live music, Friday-night karaoke, and DJ dance parties. The bar also tends to college nostalgia with beer pong and impromptu physics quizzes.

The extensive facilities of MVP Arena, which include indoor and outdoor fields, a basketball court, and batting cages, host visitors for an array of sports leagues and classes. Adults hone their skills in training classes and then unveil new maneuvers on one another during league games for basketball, flag football, and soccer. Bat wielders practice swing timing and charging the mound without fear of retaliation in the batting cages, where regulation pitching distance and a mural of the San Francisco Bay recreate the excitement of practicing in a big-league stadium. In addition, three of the cages feature virtual pitchers that help batters time ball delivery at different speeds or a random assortment of slow, medium, and fast.