Check-In Post April 24th 2024

[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.


This Week's Question: We all make mistakes - what's your most memorable crafting disaster?


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]

Finished the last of my tropical flowers! I still have to upload pictures onto my computer and re-size them, but they will be coming soon. Actually, it will be one pic of all three tropical flowers and a pic of my sister's birthday card.


And I'm onto my next project! I have a set of four floral designs inspired by Delft tiles. I already had the fabric cut out for them and they're relatively small, so I've started the first one. I'm working on 16hpi fabric with two strands of thread, which makes it a bit more challenging. For some reason, the first design in the set has a border that's not symmetrical, and the central flower design off-centre, so I re-charted the border to make it symmetrical so the flower (hyacinth in this one) will sit neatly in the centre. All the other designs have symmetrical borders, but it looks like they got sloppy with the first one. Anyway, I've stitched the four corners, rest of the border still to do.

[althea_valara]

Go you! And oooh, the new project sounds lovely.

[wiseheart]

Oh, Delft tiles are so beautiful - but the pattern promises to be a real challenge.

[darkcedars]

Sounds great, I'll hope to poke my nose in for pictures soon.

[m_findlow]

You're on a roll! Can't wait to see pictures.

[spiralicious]

Congratulations!

Have fun with the new set!

[althea_valara]

According to my spreadsheet, I have done 41 hours and 44 minutes of crafting this month, and the month's not over yet. I'm starting to feel drained, TBH.

So, I was working on a Starfish pillow, right? I'm a loose crocheter, and even though I went down in hook size, the front still came out too loose for my liking. Thus, I decided to cut some fabric I had laying about to use that as an interface/backing for the pillow, rather than crochet the back. Well, I tried. I didn't cut the fabric carefully enough, and had other mishaps when I tried sewing it. Today, I gave up on that idea and scraped it, and am now crocheting the back as called for in the pattern.

I've done a row and a half on niece's blanket. Today, it's been a slog working on it. I keep losing interest. Mom wandered into my room and asked how it was going, and I dutifully held it up, and she made a "not impressed" sound, so that didn't help. Yeah, I *know* I'm still way early in the blanket, but I still think I can get it done on time. It will just take a lot of persistence.

[wiseheart]

It sounds like you could really use some moral support. *hugs*

[badly_knitted]

That's a lot of crafting!

Sorry about the starfish woes. Hopefully the back will work out exactly how you need it to.

*cheers you on* Sometimes you just have to keep pushing on, especially if there are deadlines involved, but you can do it! Pay no attention to your mom in this, you'll get there, and you have everyone here behind you!

[darkcedars]

Do you need a day off of crochet? Sorry for all the annoyance today.

[illariy]

Well, it was a good idea to try that with the fabric for the pillow back. Hope the crocheting the back goes better!

At almost 42 hours of crafting done this month, I can see why you're feeling exhausted. The niece's blanket has a deadline, right? That's not very nice of your mother to react like that. :-/ I am sending you best wishes for the blanket and for the pillow, too! I have only ever crocheted small projects and never done any blanket in any kind of way ever because large projects intimidate me. So I think it is cool that you took on this blanket project and I am sure you can get it done! I'm going to look forward to your updates and am going to keep cheering you on as I see them. :-)

[m_findlow]

I sympathise with things that don't always pan out how you imagine they will, but keep persisting, and take a break of you need one! Sounds like you might need one.

[spiralicious]

That is a lot of crafting o.o

Sorry the starfish pillow is giving you such troubles.

*Hug*

[wiseheart]

I've finished pot holder #3; that means I only have one more to make. This one will be the rather large, two-handed kind one can see used in the GBBO, just because the last piece of fabric is better suited for one of those. Mum and I laughed that my pot holders are getting increasingly larger, but at least I've used up most of the shreds of her murdered gown.

[badly_knitted]

Yay! You will be able to use your potholders proudly as you bake!

[darkcedars]

Oh nice. I didn't imagine that you were getting so many out of it.

[illariy]

Hehe, pot holder gigantism FTW! I do love a large pot holder, too, they come in handy.

Best wishes for doing that last remaining one!

[m_findlow]

That's great. So pleased that you were able to salvage as much as your did and to put it to good use whilst kepping its memory alive.

[spiralicious]

You are doing great! Good luck with the last one :D

[darkcedars]

I haven't been able to work on crafts due to house projects. The muppet basket is still headless.

This moment my husband is running a fever with the stomach flu. So that is likely my future!

[badly_knitted]

Poor muppet basket. Still sounds like it's better off than your husband. Hoping you don't catch it!

[illariy]

Sucks about lack of time for crafting due to house projects and your husband's illness. I, too, hope you don't catch it and that he gets well soon.

[m_findlow]

Look after yourself! Hope you don't catch it!

[illariy]

Seeing this post finally made me get off my arse and do a little crafting. I decorated two envelopes in order to prepare for hopefully writing the associated penpal letters this weekend.

My greatest crafting disaster, hm. It's not a particularly huge disaster but sometime last year, I decorated an envelope in a similar manner, with motif paper with torn edges glued to a shop bought envelope. I am not 100% sure but I think I must have been sloppy and not glued on one of the edges too tightly so it came off in the letter sorting machines of Deutsche Post. As I sent the letter to one of my German penpals and she said it arrived with an envelope that had like a third of it torn off and a chunk of each page of the letter papers missing, too. It was wholly illegible due to it and I had to redo the entire letter. That made both me and her very sad. I think it must have been one of the edges of my deco paper because it would fit with the location of the tear. Been using a lot more glue on my envelopes since!

[badly_knitted]

Yay for inspiring crafting!

Oh no! How awful! I hate when I lose an email I'm typing, but having to re-do a hand-written letter, trying to remember what you wrote about before... That feels a bit soul destroying.

[m_findlow]

Completed not one, but two projects!

First, the chunky scarf. It took two goes to put on the other end of tassels. The first time I had too many and it made the end of the scarf fan out (more so than it already did because of casting off row) so I undid them all and re-spaced them with slightly less. Looks better now and quite happy with it overall.



Second was finally getting to the framers earlier this week to get a coloured matt board picked out for my cross stitch and getting it cut to size.
I spent this morning stretching it properly with backing card (which I've cheated and not done in the past, but this one is much larger and at risk of shifting in the frame) and stitching it all tightly in place which took two hours, then fitting it snugly in the frame.
All that's needed now is to put a second hook in the wall to hang it, as it needs two hooks and the ones that were already there are spaced too far apart, so one has to be removed and another put in closer to the original. A lot of work but very worth it. The first time I've picked out a design specifically for a room and a certain colour scheme.
It's bigger than it looks in the photo, 55 x 75cm, which makes it look like a decent piece of wall art.

[badly_knitted]

The scarf looks super snuggly, should keep you lovely and warm, and your picture is huge! That must have taken a lot of work, but it's obviously been worth all the effort you've put into it. Well done!