Daily Check-In Post 5th March 2021

[pensnest]

Hi all, and sorry I'm rather late today! Welcome to the regular daily check-in post, for this week hosted by me, pensnest. 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: What was the first craft project you ever made that you were proud of? (If you have a pic, we'd love to see it!)

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]

Another 4 arm warmer rows, 2 rows on each one.

I think the first thing I remember being proud of was the first matinee coat I made for my nephew. It was in white baby quick knit and the pattern was fiendishly complicated for a novice knitter, it took me umpteen attempts to get it right because it had a sort of scallop shell pattern on the skirt, with a lot of wrapping the yarn around the needle several times on one row, and then purling 15 - yes, you read that right, 15 - together on the following row. It's actually not as hard as it sounds once you know what you're doing, all the wrapping of yarn around the needle gets unwrapped and the long loops purled together, but it took me forever to figure that out.

Sadly I didn't take photographs back then, digital photography wasn't a thing and processing film wasn't cheap, but I stil have the pattern somewhere. It's sad that traditional hand-knitted baby clothes seem to have gone out of fashion because I still have a load I made for a shop that unfortunately closed down.

[pensnest]

That matinée jacket sounds lovely - I've done something similar to the big loop with lots of stitches when I made a peacock shawl, and it's pretty fiddly! My grandma made me some white baby jackets for my first child, and I'm ashamed to say I did not cherish them as I ought to have done.

Non-traditional baby clothes seem to be more the thing these days - dinosaur hats and Baby Surprise Jackets.

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! Yes, definitely fiddly but a lovely effect.

It all seems to be babygrows these days. I used to love knitting baby clothes, but the patterns these days don't inspire. Not that I have any babies to knit for now. Nephew is 40 and single, niece is late thirties, married, but not showing any signs of wanting to become a mum.

[pensnest]

I have been pleasantly surprised that my nephew and niece have been willing, in fact, eager, to receive garments hand-knitted by their aunt. I had not expected that, but I seem to have hit on the few minutes of time when it is cool to wear hand-knits. And they are, of course, unique garments. Though it takes a lot longer to knit them than it would to do baby-wear.

[badly_knitted]

Yes, the older they get, the bigger the items and the longer it takes to knit them. I'd hate to knit for my nephew now. He's well over 6 feet tall, long and lanky, the sleeves would go on forever!

[m_findlow]

My mum was a big baby clothes knitter as well. She tried to sell some of them at a market thirty years ago but people weren't interested even then. She's done quite a few for family friends whose children are expecting. I think she'd prefer to be knitting clothes for grandchildren but pretty sure we're past any hope of that. I'm not sure how I'd feel dressing little ones in things she knitted. I'd be too upset when they got soiled, knowing how lovely they are and how much work went into them.
Can't quite convince her that I'd love a cable knit jumper myself. I've bought a couple of lovely knitted jumpers over the years, but perhaps need to start dropping less subtle hints.

[moth2fic]

I don't think they've gone out of fashion exactly. It's more that people can't afford them! Yarns cost more than cheap baby clothes and grannies haven't time to sit and knit. so somebody like you with the skills and desire to create must be the whole family's dream!

[badly_knitted]

Sadly I don't know of any families that might require my services. Pity, because I still have some baby 3-ply yarn.

[smallhobbit]

I'm on the decreasing for my hat!

I don't remember what the first craft project I was proud of - it's too long ago. I do remember knitting a smart Thomas the tank engine jumper for my son when he was two. Which was, um, 31 years ago.

[pensnest]

Isn't it disconcerting to realise how old our children have, mysteriously, managed to get!

My first properly knitted item was a sweater for my daughter. Three colours in a row, and my technique was terrible but I learned a lot and she did wear it very happily. A Thomas jumper sounds lovely, and I bet he was very happy with it.

[smallhobbit]

Definitely!

So long as they liked wearing it, that's what mattered. My son loved his jumper - the only trouble was whenever anyone asked him his name he would point to the jumper and say Thomas (which he wasn't).

[pensnest]

That's a bit awkward... but unless your name is Thomas, James, Edward, Gordon or, er, one of the others, getting a matching train jumper is going to be a challenge. But I love that your son gave his sweater precedence.

[badly_knitted]

Woohooo! Some have a hat to keep your head warm! Just as the weather gets warmer.

More than 40 years since the first matinee coat I made for my nephew!

[moth2fic]

I can't really remember. I was hopeless at knitting and sewing at school and gleefully abandoned them in favour of extra languages. Then my mother did a dressmaking course and passed on what she learnt - and somehow that 'took' in a way school lessons didn't. So some kind of summer dress, I think. I occasionally make clothes now but fabrics tend to be expensive, so not often. Also, when my daughter was young I used to make her clothes and then she requested something with a proper shop label in it so that she could compare with other girls when changing for PE...

[pensnest]

I remember hating our needlework classes at school - I suspect I never saw the point of what we had to make. I think there was a crimplene blouse, at some point, which I gratefully abandoned. Learning from your mum sounds much more satisfactory. How sad that your daughter preferred shop-bought with a label! But I can understand that being able to be on a par with the others would be important.

[moth2fic]

I vaguely remember socks I didn't need and a nightdress I didn't like, so yes, the lessons clearly weren't designed for me!!

[badly_knitted]

Everything is so expensive these days. It often works out cheaper to buy factory made clothes than to make your own, except then there's the worry of whether or not they were made by people who were earning a fair wage...

[moth2fic]

Very true - but even things made locally can be cheaper than making your own. I only make things now if I really can't find what I want.

[badly_knitted]

I make all my own sweaters but I can't sew to save my life.

[medievalrosalie]

I'm the other way around. Sewing, yes. Knitting, not to save my life. Even in high school, I got someone else to knit my things and I did their art homework in return.

[badly_knitted]

We never had knitting in school, sadly. But my sewing was a disaster. I was always way behind because the sewing machines broke every time I looked at them.

[pensnest]

I have a policy of not even trying to make things that would be easier and cheaper and less boring to buy - like, a plain, simple knitted jumper or cardigan. I don't find acres of stocking stitch very satisfying, so I want there to be something a bit special in what I'm knitting, ideally in both design and yarn. Though in fact I knit a lot of scarves and shawls because there's no sewing, and the tension is usually more a suggestion than a requirement. \o/

[badly_knitted]

*Laughs*

If I have a lot of stocking stitch I read or watch TV while I knit. I'm useless at fairisle or knitting with multiple colours so all my picture sweaters are stocking stitch with the pictures swiss darned on the top. It does make for some extra warmth though.

[medievalrosalie]

Kids are so funny like that. My sister made some cotton dresses from comic book material and when her daughter wore one there was a stampede from the other mothers to know where she got them because the other girls wanted them and they weren't in shops. No, you can't just buy them, was the take her daughter took. They're bespoke. She was then the envy of all her friends who hassled their mothers because all they had were shop bought clothes. Kids are weird. My sister and I were extremely glad she wasn't teased for having home-made clothes which could easily have been the case.

[moth2fic]

It really could! I suppose it depends on the kids in the same class. My daughter's peer group were evidently the type who boasted about e.g. Nike trainers, and thought a lack of label denoted a lack of upward mobility... I made a lot of her dresses from kits from a company called Clothkits who had unusual fabrics and lovely patterns. They were absolutely beautiful and drew admiring looks and comments from all adults, but evidently not from other kids!! By secondary school, of course, they were all in uniform and that dampened the arguments!

[pensnest]

I've heard good things about Clothkits - did they cease trading a while ago? Not that it helps me one way or another as my kids are grown, and I can't sew anyway.

There is much to be said for school uniform.

[moth2fic]

https://www.clothkits.co.uk/pages/50-years-of-clothkits that tells you about the old and new... I think they did/do knitting and crochet patterns/yarns as well but I can't do either or rather, I can knit but prefer not to!

School uniforms are great for preventing bullying etc. but not so great if the schools are too rigid. I went to boarding school and we didn't have any options!!

[pensnest]

I went to boarding school, and the rule was that we had to change out of our uniforms when we got back to the boarding house. (It's where I learned the word 'mufti'.) But mine was perhaps unusual in that the boarding house was for just 50 of the 900 students there.

[moth2fic]

Mine was smaller, and virtually all boarding. We had to change into 'home clothes' at tea time... But we were only allowed two 'home dresses' per term. Oh, the agony of choosing!

I knew the term mufti but only because my father was a vicar and took off his dog collar on holiday and called it being in mufti...

[pensnest]

A dress made of comic book material sounds extremely covetable. Something that little bit extra special that you can only get made by hand. I wonder if it means that 'home made clothes' are noticed in a bad way if they simply attempt to be just like what you get in the shops? But I suspect it's just the gestalt in whichever environment applies at the time.

[medievalrosalie]

First craft project was some kind of stuffed felt dog. I guess it was ther same shape both sides and just stitched together and stuffed with cotton balls. It was blue, but I don't remember much else about it. I would have been quite young-ish.

[pensnest]

It sounds akin to my first stuffed something, a little owl (named Flaccidity, presumably because it was a little short on stuffing). But it's nice to be able to create something when you're not very old.