Check-In Post November 20th 2021

[badly_knitted]

Hello to all members, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


Today's Question: No question today.


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!

Comments

[badly_knitted]

The last 4 plain meeces are no longer in pieces! So, instead of Three Blind Mice I now have 25 of them. The next step will be to stitch their eyes and noses. Most will be black, but I have two or three where the black won't show up, so they'll probably have blue eyes and pink noses.

After that, I'll ned to start sorting colour combinations for the next batch. I'll have to do that in daylight so I can see how colours look together. At this point I'm aiming for 5 batches of 10 striped meeces, although I might do something else in between batches.

[wiseheart]

Blue eyes and pink noses sound cute.

How many meeces are planned altogether? 75? Or more?

[badly_knitted]

It'll be more fiddly using two colours but will look more effective on the dark purple and air-force blue meeces. Possibly on the dark rose-pink one as well.

If I stick to my plan for 50 striped meeces, then yes, 75. That should be enough for now. Then I have to sew the bouncy spiders, and I wanted to make some felt teddy bears now I've found the template for them. They're just two pieces, front and back, so fairly simple.

[wiseheart]

Oh, felt teddy bears are so cute! I made a few of them (five, actually) for the last Christmas fair that had still taken place, back in 2019, but they were a bit more complicated. One of them was a girl and had a kirtle, the others were boys, either in waistcoats or in trousers. You can take a look here, if you want:
Teddy Bears.

[badly_knitted]

I remember them when you made them! Mine are much simpler, but they don't need to be fancy for little kids,

[wiseheart]

True, mine were made to be sold - and they did, too!

[badly_knitted]

I'll bet they did! You put a lot of work into them.

More cookie picspam

[wiseheart]

Behold the third batch of the GCBC:



From the left:
1. The ruinous pecan-marshmallow cookies, discreetly covered in chocolate
2. Maple-pecan cookies
3. Princess Krapferln (coconut, marzipan and almonds)
4. Cookies with white chocolate, chopped almonds and pine nuts
5. Pecan-caramel cookies
6. Almond-orange financiers

Re: More cookie picspam

[badly_knitted]

More yumminess, especially the financiers. They look and sound particularly delectable.

Re: More cookie picspam

[wiseheart]

They mostly serve the purpose to use up leftover egg whites. Too many recipes ask for egg yolks only. The other advantage of the financier recipe is that it is highly adaptable: you can use basically any kinds of nuts and add to the basic dough whatever you want: chocolate chips, candied fruit, aromas, spices... whatever you have left and want to use up before they would lose flavour.

Re: More cookie picspam

[badly_knitted]

The very most useful cookie recipe there is, by the sound of it.

Re: More cookie picspam

[wiseheart]

Not to mention ridiculously easy to make!

[m_findlow]

*waves* Another bulk update to make up for weeks of being AWOL.

Mostly it's been house stuff and not crafting, though I did manage one batch of mini cards and have finally photographed all the ones I didn't have reference pictures for.

I did however use my crafting skills to help with the house furniture planning. After days and days of trawling the shops (now that we're finally out of what will hopefully be the last lockdown) I made a short-list of options. I drew up a scale model of the major rooms then made little scale model paper cut outs of the various furniture pieces and used blue tack to arrange them in different ways to see what would fit best. And because I'm a bit OCD, each brand or style was cut in its own colour paper to distinguish them.
After that, mum and I made full scale versions from newspapers and laid them on the floors before finally deciding. I thought it would be quick, but it took us a few days to do them all and try the different arrangements. It was worth it though, seeing it in full scale and using masking tape on the walls to indicate heights and corners. All the big items I finished ordering this morning, with the last of them being a coffee table, lamp table, some barstools and an entertainment unit which we only went looking at once the sofas were bedded down. That necessitated another round of newspaper footprints, but I think it should all work out. Lucky for us all the major furniture stores are in one long mega mile just around the corner from home, so going back two or three times was no hassle, and lots of post-lockdown/Black Friday sales on, so snaffled some good discounts, or bought things I wouldn't have contemplated at full price. None of it will arrive until late Jan, but it's done, so only little things now to buy at my leisure.

Below is the catchup from my last few months crafting, a mix of Christmas and non Christmas:

[badly_knitted]

Once again, I have to say I admire your cards so much, the way you bring so many different elements together is inspiring!

You're so organised with the laying out of furnishings! You should be an interior designer, I'm sure your skill with cardmaking helped with all the layouts, because you're accustomed to moving things around to see how they work best.

Sucks that you have to wait until January to get the rest of your furniture, but it's great that you could get so much in the sales!

[m_findlow]

Yeah, the sales were definitely good timing. Now I can resume having some free time until it all arrives.
A lot of the cards I've made lately are just the same layout replicated with different papers. If I cut them all at once I can do them in about a third of the time than doing them one by one.

[badly_knitted]

But you still have to choose the colour schemes for each one, and work out the layout for the first one.

[wiseheart]

Your cards are simply amazing, as always.
That's good news about the furnishing of the house. I hope you can arrange everything to your satisfaction.

[m_findlow]

Thamk you. I hope it will work out alright. Everything fits, it's just a question of whether it all looks okay with the real thing.