Check-In Post May 13th 2023

[badly_knitted]

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, 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]

I think my brain has gone AWOL. A while ago I almost posted the new challenge for one of my writing communities here by mistake o_O Good thing I caught the error in time.


I got some writing done, and then because it's actually dry and sunny today, I went out in the garden, thinking I'd cut back an invasive shrub I'm trying to get rid of. Instead, I found myself pulling weeds because I couldn't even see the shrub, it's buried under grass, sticky weed, two-foot tall docks, and rampant Brunonia, which is a pretty flowering plant but also incredibly invasive. I rue the day I got a few seeds from a friend because now the stuff is everywhere and I can't get rid of it. It's even growing on the compost heap. Anyway, I carted away 4 overflowing buckets of assorted weeds and plants. It's barely made a dent.


Also, my Euphorbias have shot up, I now have a forest of sturdy, 3-foot tall plants and had to pull a few up just to make a path through them. Thankfully they're shallow rooted and thick-stemmed so they aren't too hard to pull up.

[wiseheart]

Oh, dear! I have the feeling that your back didn't thank you for all that "exercise"!

[badly_knitted]

The gardening was a lot less painful than my physio exercises!

[darkcedars]

*didn't even make it to the shrub!* Yikes.

[badly_knitted]

It's there somewhere. Actually, it's in a number of places because it's one of those that roots whenever a branch touches the ground.

[darkcedars]

Ah, yes, I dug a bunch of baby forsythia up when I pruned that bush. Same method.

[badly_knitted]

I have rampant forsythia on the other side of the garden. Lovely when it flowers, but it rends to take over.

[wiseheart]

I've put in all the temporary stitches to the outer cover of my textile book. It was a lot of work; I had to stitch double rows because of the lining. Those will be ironed on later, but it has been my experience that they aren't as self-adhesive as they are said to be, hence the stitching. I don't want the fabric to wander off under my hands when I'm putting the book together. It's bad enough that the fabric inevitably stretches and loses some of it shape when being hand-sewn.

I also started to re-learn how to knit. It was a present surprise to realize that I actually still remembered how to do the two most basic stitches. Now I have a small practice piece on which I can experiment how to create various patterns using aforementioned basic stitches. It is more fun than I expected.

[badly_knitted]

It sounds very tricky, but with luck it will all come together right.

YAY! Have fun with your experiments. One you gain a bit of confidence you can make yourself something nice.

[wiseheart]

Hah! The only thing I've ever knitted was a scarf... well, two scarves, actually, and both ended up rather lopsided. But experimenting is fun. *g*

[badly_knitted]

You never know what you can do until you try. In my experience, finding something you really WANT to make is what inspires you to keep trying until you succeed. The first thing I made from a pattern that I actually finished was a little matinee coat when my sister was expecting her first baby. It might well have ben the most complicated pattern in the shop, but I loved it. Took me forever to figure out the pattern, I kept having to start over, but then it clicked and I've been knitting ever since.

If you're knitting something that doesn't excite you, that makes it easy to lose interest and give up.

[darkcedars]

That's a lot of progress, and good luck with the knitting.

[althea_valara]

I have started my Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest art submission! Alas, I can't tell you what it is because it's not supposed to be posted anywhere beforehand, but I will say this: (1) it is knitted, (2) something I haven't knit before, (3) so thus I am making up the pattern as I go along, (4) I keep finding errors in "think ahead and write down what to do next" instructions, (5) I AM HAVING A BLAST! Let's hope I can finish the thing by the May 31st deadline, fingers crossed.

[darkcedars]

Good luck! Making up as you go along is both fun and frustrating.

[badly_knitted]

*crosses fingers*

Good luck, glad to hear you're having so much fun with your project! That always helps when there's a deadline. It makes you want to keep going with it.

[darkcedars]

I've been gardening, gardening, gardening. I think after tomorrow I will have the last planting done and I can just weed and water after. Yesterday we chopped the spirea nearly back to the ground. It was huge and needed started over but it makes the yard look SO WEIRD.

[badly_knitted]

Spirea can so easily get out of control. I had a lovely pink one growing near the greenhouse. Then it started coming up IN the greenhouse...

Well done with all your planting!

I had such great plans for this year, but the ground is so wet, and all the rain has made the weeds flourish. =(

[darkcedars]

I'm going to try to keep the bushes a reasonable, non-house and non-sidewalk eating size.

[badly_knitted]

Good luck with that!

sewing

[house_wren]

My crafty accomplishment was going yesterday to the local sewing shop to buy a cake of beeswax & a thimble in preparation for sewing by hand. This thimble is leather, which I think I will prefer over the metal kind. The shop is small & the women who work their are always kind.

It was comforting, which surprised me. But I grew up sewing & even though my mum was often a tyrant, I missed her then. When she was old & blind, no longer able to sew, she sometimes wanted fabric to use in some non-sewing way. I would take her to the store & describe the fabric while she touched it.

Re: sewing

[badly_knitted]

I like the sound of that leather thimble, that would be so much more flexible and comfortable than metal. Mine are all metal and plastic.

It's curious the things that remind us of our mums. Mine used to be very good at sewing but the talent didn't pass on to me. When I'm out, I often see things and think, 'Mum would like that'. She's been gone 8 years.

That was so kind of you to do for your mum, I think it would have meant a lot to her.

Re: sewing

[wiseheart]

My grandmother has been gone since 1996, but Mum and I mention her daily, being reminded of her by a thousand little things. Small wonder, really; the three of us lived together practically since my birth.

Grandma was excellent at crocheting; neither of us has inherited the passion for that. But the wondrous things she created are still all over the flat, and we admire them time and time again.