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

[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.