Check-In Post July 7th 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]

Today has been exhausting, but at least it's been dry, sunny, and warm. The eye test and choosing new frames took a long time so I wasn't able to do much shopping after (parking is limited to 3 hours), but I found a nice corner punch in one charity shop, and naughty me got a bag of fabric scraps in another shop. Not that I NEED more fabric, put one piece is cherries, another has chickens on it, and a third is cacti and succulents, such unusual designs sand the pieces are really quite big, plus it was cheap.


By skipping chores because I was too tired for them, I managed to find enough time to make 5 spiders. Now for the rest of the evening I plan on doing as little as possible.

[wiseheart]

Spiders are definitely more important than chores. And yay for crafty shopping! You can never have enough corner punches, and those fabric scraps sound very pretty. The one piece I bought on Wednesday has forest animals; it is lovely, but it was outrageously expensive. So you've done better than I.

[badly_knitted]

The spider would agree, I'm sure. I just couldn't doing chores after the tiring morning I'd had.

When I went to the counter in the charity shop to buy some cheap reels of sewing thread, the woman behind the counter was just folding and bagging up the fabric ready to sell, and I was like, "Ooh, fabric. No, I must not even LOOK, unless you've got some plain black." She hadn't, and I asked what price she was putting on the bagful. £2.25. It was so low I couldn't just walk away, so I said, "I'll have it." No one else got a chance! There's a half metre of the cherry design, a full metre of a floral fabric, a half metre of the cactus one, nearly half a metre of the chickens, and ten smaller pieces. A real bargain.

[wiseheart]

It truly is! Congratulations!

[badly_knitted]

Thanks =)

[m_findlow]

Well done you on all your crafty purchases! I wish our charity shops were stockes with goodies like that.

[badly_knitted]

It's just a case of being there at the right time, I think. Sometimes I get lucky, other times there's just nothing. I went in 6 shops but only bought from 3.

[wiseheart]

My crafting was... interesting today. I worked on the inside of the mill, cutting out and stitching on the major background panels. And I improvised the fence for Page 8, using a piece of felt "track" that hadn't worked out for a previous project. I managed to make my own work complicated by cutting it horizontally first... only to realize that it wouldn't look like a fence that way. So I had to stitch it together again - fussy work, and the outcome isn't even that pretty. But the major part of it will be hidden by the pocket for the finger puppets anyway, so I might not take it down again. We'll see...

[badly_knitted]

Sounds like you're making good progress. Hoping your fence works out.

[wiseheart]

So do I! I'd hate to undo it after all that work I've put into it.

[badly_knitted]

Having to do that is never fun.

[m_findlow]

Fingers crossed that it works out okay. Hindsight is such a nuisance sometimes!

[wiseheart]

It really is. Thanks for the good wishes.

[m_findlow]

Making progress of my cross stitch, about three quarters complete now. Just hoping that when I wash out the printed pattern that the dark blue sections don't bleed.



Trying out making cinnamon rolls today. Never made anything with yeast before but started early this morning so the first rise will be done by eleven. Not sure how it will turn out but the kitchen does smell sweet and yeasty right now.

[badly_knitted]

That is so pretty! If the thread came with the kit then it should be colourfast.

Yum, that sounds delicious! Hope they taste as good as they smell!

[m_findlow]

It was all one kit but it was a cheap import from China so I'll wash with caution. They were packaged as DMC skeins but you can never be sure.

I think the cinnamon rolls turned out okay for a first time effort. Much bigger than I thought they'd be and probably baked just a tad too long. Next time I'd take them out earlier and experiment with the filling, adding a bit of apple or apricot puree to the sugar mix and make them smaller.

[badly_knitted]

Fingers crossed then. I think most halfway decent threads are colourfast, so with luck you'll be fine.

Yeast can surprise you, it's hard to gauge how big something will end up, but as long as they're tasty you can always just have half a bun if a whole one is too much.

[wiseheart]

Apricot puree sounds like a good idea. It works with just about everything in baking.