Check-In Post May 17th 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: What's the most complicated project you've ever tackled?


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]

A much more productive stitching day! All I have left to stitch are the fairy's hands, head, hat, and wings, plus two little bluebirds. And the backstitch of course.


Also started the long process of working out the height and width of the various designs (in terms of maximum number of stitches each way) so I can calculate the sizes of the pieces of fabric I need to cut, Trying to decide whether or not to stitch border around the dragon designs to make them bigger. If I decide to do that, I'll need to cut the fabric a bit bigger.

[wiseheart]

Decisions, decisions...

Congratulations to your success! Still a lot to do, it seems, but you are well underway.

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! I'm hoping to get these three done in around a week each.

It will depend on the size of the dragons. A border could be nice, but I might not need one.

[illariy]

Wow, sounds like you are making great progress!

I missed a couple of check-ups so the dragons are done, yes? They must look so cute! Some difficult design decisions to make, I hope you can come to a satisfying decision in good time. :-)

[badly_knitted]

No, not even started yet. First I need to calculate the sizes of the fabric I'll need to cut for them, and for a bunch of other designs, then figure out what threads I'll need... still quite a way to go before I can get to them. There are 10 dragon designs in this set, and they are very cute, so I do want to stitch them, but they'll have to wait their turn. I'm working on some fairies at the moment.

[illariy]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Yes, sounds like there is lots to do before you can even get started stitching them. The fairies sound pretty, though, too!

[badly_knitted]

Luckily I have fabric already cut and prepared for several other projects which will give me something to do while I'm making my calculations and cutting fabric for other designs. I may be a little over-ambitious, lol!

[spiralicious]

You are just zipping along!

[badly_knitted]

Doing my best to! There are so many designs I want to get stitched this year!

[spiralicious]

I hope you get to do them all :D

[badly_knitted]

It's not too likely, but at least I can maybe get the fabric cut and prepared...

[wiseheart]

I did a lot of crafting in-between household tasks: 15 out of the 20 tiny teddies now have their gift boxes, lovingly decorated and labelled. I've decided to combine colours with names. Therefore all brown teddies are named Teddy (how original!), all purple ones are Uschi (a nickname for Ursula in German - the pink, purple and white teddies are girls), all yellow ones are Pooh (for obvious reasons), the blue ones are called Petzi (another German influence), the pink ones are Mitzi, the grey ones are Brummi and the white ones are Lilly. The names are on the label, in the same colour as the teddies - save for the white and the yellow ones that wouldn't be visible enough. *g*

[illariy]

Yay, that is a lot of crafting done! The tiny teddies with their colour and name combos sound too cute. As a German, a teddy named Uschi amuses me so much. XD So good you could make time for this despite the household tasks! :D

[wiseheart]

My grandfather was a Transylvanian German and I used to teach German for a living in primary school, so German names for teddies sounded like a good idea. And the purple teddies were supposed to be girls, hence: Uschi. They started out as Ursels but that didn't fit with the other names so well. :)

[badly_knitted]

What a cute idea! And well done with your progress!

[wiseheart]

Thanks! Group photo is coming up in tomorrow's comment.

[badly_knitted]

Looking forward to seeing it!

[spiralicious]

That is such a cute idea! You also made a lot of progress. Great job :)

[wiseheart]

I try my best. *insert false modesty*

[spiralicious]

:D

[illariy]

Checking in here now because it is the most current post but I did the crafting on Wednesday: one more letter arrived this week and I realised I had 3 letters in my reply pile but no decorated envelopes left so I quickly decorated 3 more envelopes, hehe.

Tonight, I don't think I am going to get time for crafting nor for writing a letter as I put off beginning to study for too long, ugh! But I hope to get some letter writing and/or envelope making or decorating done this weekend. Lately my life has felt as if all I do is study, look for jobs/go to interviews etc. and endlessly scroll on my phone and it is beginning to get me down, hehe.

[wiseheart]

Alltagstrott can be detrimental to creativity. *hugs*

[illariy]

Truer words have seldom been spoken. Many thanks for the hugs, much appreciated. :-)

[badly_knitted]

Ugh, studying! So glad my studying days are far behind me. Good luck with yours though, and with your job search!

I hope you do find fine for letter writing at the weekend, and for more envelope decorating. As important as the studying and job hunt are, you still need to give your creativity an outlet. It's god for lowering stress.

[spiralicious]

Good luck with your studying & job hunting. Hopefully you'll have time for letter writing & envelope decorating this weekend.

Great job decorating some envelopes earlier in the week :)

[illariy]

Thank you for the good wishes! Tomorrow (Sunday) will me my day off from studying and also from my to do list so hopefully, plenty of time for letter writing and envelopes. Can't wait!

[spiralicious]

I hope you got to do all the letter writing and envelope decorating you wanted!

[illariy]

Yes, indeed I did. Last Sunday, I was able to write two letters. Then on Wednesday, I was able to decorate one envelope and used it immediately for a letter I wrote the same day. I don't think that has ever happened before, decorating and using an envelope the same day! Or at least, it is fairly rare in my world. So that was extra fun.

Today, I am busy studying and then going on a walk and for dinner with a friend. But tomorrow, I hope to have the time to write the last remaining letter in my to-reply pile.

[malurette]

No internet at home for four whole weeks now means more time to knit so I'm making good progress on my newest scarf. Plus, I sewed two buttons on a labcoat (replaced an ordinary one that hat gone missing + added a colourful one on the top position because why not?)

[spiralicious]

Hurray for knitting!

Good job replacing the lab coat buttons :)

[badly_knitted]

Why not indeed? A bit of colour is good to brighten things up a bit.

Yay for scarf progress, boo for lack of home internet. Hope you get it back soon.

[illariy]

Oh, that is a long time without internet at home! Would drive me batshit crazy. Hurrah for using the time to do knitting and sewing on buttons! The colourful button sounds particularly cool.

[spiralicious]

Stitch-n-scream is technically long over, but the last day of it was the first day I was super sick. Now that I'm feeling well enough to, I wanted to finish the last 3 sessions I had planned to do that last day. I only got to 2 of them today. Both were replacement movies. First I watched Promising Young Woman. It replaced the day 4 movie that I couldn't get to work on the streaming service. Technically, it's a thriller, not a horror movie, but it felt thematically on point. The second movie was The Haunted Mansion. It replaced the day 5 movie, which I just could not find anywhere. It also isn't a horror movie, but I needed something lighter and it was also thematically fitting. The project I worked on was knitting on the wingspan shawl. I'm starting to get concerned my needles are going to be long enough to make it to the end. We shall see.

[badly_knitted]

Glad you managed to catch up a bit with Stitch 'N' Scream. One movie left!

Good luck with the shawl, hope your needles don't end up being too short.

[spiralicious]

Thanks!

[illariy]

Happy to hear you were able to adapt Stitch-n-scream to your needs.

Keeping my fingers crossed that your needles are long enough!

[spiralicious]

Thank you x2!