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.

[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]

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

[wiseheart]

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

[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]

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!

[badly_knitted]

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

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! I'm hoping they'll look good once they're done.

[darkcedars]

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

[darkcedars]

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

[darkcedars]

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

[badly_knitted]

Not really, I charted out the changes on graph paper and it's pretty straight forward. With the corners completed the rest of the border won't be a problem. Each of the designs has a different border, which adds to the fun.

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! Hoping to get the pictures sorted for tomorrow or the day after.

[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!

[darkcedars]

Fingers crossed, soup made. Sigh.

[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!

[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.

[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!

[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. :-)

[badly_knitted]

Fingers crossed... Check. Good luck!

[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.

[illariy]

Yeah, it was a little soul destroying for sure as it wasn't a short letter, either.

But I wrote about the postal machines and the incident to several penpals and their commiseration helped a lot at that time.

I don't think I've ever lost an email before but that doesn't sound good, either. Especially because it was only on a computer screen or smartphone screen and could feel like it was never there as it vanished into thin air? Hm. I hope that never happens to you again but that might be a big thing to hope!

[badly_knitted]

Having people to share your woes with does help to take out some of the sting. Glad it helped.

There was a weird glitch with my email provider a while back where I kept getting logged out while I was typing and not saving the draft. After it did that the third time on the same short email, I typed it in notepad instead and copy and pasted it, but years ago I kept losing long emails thanks to a cranky old computer, and that was seriously not fun. Again, the solution was to type it elsewhere then copy it to the email window. Those kinds of solutions don't work for handwritten letters though.