This past year I made a large purpose for my hobby. I want to sell some of the items I am making, and have started to take the initial steps. Can I write off this large hobby purchase? (It does meet the 2% AGI rule.)
Thank you.

Because hobbies are not businesses, you, as a hobbyist, cannot take the tax deductions to which businesspeople are entitled. Instead, you can deduct your hobby-related expenses only from the income the hobby generates. If you have no income from the hobby, you get no deduction. And you can?t carry over the deductions to use in future years when you earn income but you lose them forever.
Say, you collect antiques. This year, you spent $5K buying antiques and earned no income from the activity. The IRS determines that this activity is a hobby. As a result, your $5K in expenses can be deducted only from income you earned from your hobby. Because say, you earned no money from antique collecting during the year, you can?t deduct any of these expenses this year?and you can?t carry over the deduction to any future years.
Even if you have income from your hobby, you must deduct your expenses in a way that is less advantageous (and more complicated) than regular business deductions. Hobby expenses are deductible only as a Miscellaneous Itemized Deduction on IRS Sch A .This means that you need to itemize your hobby expenses only on Sch A of 1040 instead of taking the standard deduction. You can itemize deductions only if your total deductions are greater than the standard deduction. If you do itemize, your hobby expenses can be used to offset your hobby income but only to the extent that your expenses plus your other miscellaneous itemized deductions exceed 2% of your AGI.