Check-In Post June 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: Do you like to finish one project at a time or do you prefer having several on the go?


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]

Sheep number two is currently mostly headless, but I'm hoping to fix that in a bit while watching TV.

[yarnofariadne]

Hooray for a sheep head!

[badly_knitted]

Well, a whole sheep now. 2 sheep down, another 7 and a sheepdog to go. The next is the black sheep.

[wiseheart]

Yeah, let's hope you can fix it, or else you might dream of headless sheep, and that would be... well, disturbing. *g*

[badly_knitted]

No more disturbing than most of my dreams, to be honest, but the second sheep is now complete with head. Do two sheep qualify as a flock?

[wiseheart]

It's the beginning of a flock if one is male and the other one female. ;))

[badly_knitted]

No, both female, although there will be a ram later.

[wiseheart]

You see? There is still hope for a flock!

[badly_knitted]

There will be 9 sheep in total, 8 ewes and a ram, so that should be enough for a small flock. After that, it'll be up to them ;)

[spiralicious]

I am giggling at that statement too hard to form a better comment.

[badly_knitted]

Headless sheep did get a head in the end, you'll be glad to know. I now have 2 sheeps!

[spiralicious]

Wonderful! Though ovine eldritch horror was always an option ;)

[badly_knitted]

There are plenty more sheep to go so the ovine horror is still a possibility...

[spiralicious]

Hehehe

[yarnofariadne]

One more row on the beach cover-up! I had to do a new-to-me stitch in this row and I was very nervous about it but it turned out to be super easy and I didn't have any problems with it. Very pleased with myself :D

[wiseheart]

Go you!

[badly_knitted]

Yay, well done! Most knitting stitches are fairly easy once you've mastered the basics. You should be proud of yourself with how far you've come since you started knitting!

[spiralicious]

Hurray for another row and learning a new stitch! It's always scary to suddenly have to learn a new stitch for a project. Be very proud of yourself!

[wiseheart]

I made another lavender sachet - will take a picture when some more are done, as they look fairly similar.

Aaaand I've sewn in another page of the felt songbook, which means my fingers won't be ready for any strenuous activities for the next weeks or so.

[badly_knitted]

Well done, that's very brave of you! Now rest your fingers with easy stitching.

[wiseheart]

That is the plan, yes. More lavender sachets ahead.

[spiralicious]

Hurray! Well done!

[fred_mouse]

Accidentally found myself playing yarn chicken. I finished the row (crochet in the round for a blanket), but it is the second of four in the pattern. Am now contemplating whether a) it is large enough and b) whether I like it as a finishing row. Might have to go buy more yarn, which is a non-trivial risk for buying more than I need (I managed to buy just one ball on the previous occasion, but I am not usually that good about it)

I'm a many projects on the go, but with the hope of only having one of each craft type. The exception I have to that is making crochet squares, which are a 'don't have the oomph for anything else' type of activity.

[badly_knitted]

Argh! Hate when that happens. Sounds like you have a difficult decision to make about yarn. Good luck with only getting what you need if you do decide to get more.

Having something easy that you can pick up whenever is always a good idea.

[spiralicious]

Good luck with the yarn chicken! It can be so stressful for such a low stakes game.

[spiralicious]

This is another long one and I should probably wait for the next post, but I am also afraid if I don't check in now, it will be like Thursday before I do so again.

The father's day card: It did get done in time, though just barely. Late Saturday night, I decided to just completely change my design and wing it as I go, as what I had been doing 1) just wasn't working, and 2) probably wasn't working because it was being pressured on my by someone else. I folded some white cardstock in half to get an oversized card. I quickly did a wash in dark blue green and a warm reddish brown in water color around the edges, not quite stripes, and only a little blended. When that was dry enough I could draw on the paper (but honestly still damp enough I shouldn't) I took the finest tipped drawing pen I had and drew a rough, sketchy square around the white area of the card, overlapping the watercolor in spots. In that white area, I drew wavy lines, inspired by zentangles, and intended to be reminiscent of mountains, rivers, moving sand. Every other space between the wavy lines, I filled with random sized dots. The previous watercolor back grounds I made? I cut that into strips and glued it across the front of the card, covering most of what I just did, but letting it peeking through the gaps of the strips. I then placed the card under a giant stack of books to flatten it overnight, hoping it would finish drying and that the glue would hold. Sunday morning, I took it out and everything seemed to be holding, so I took the one piece of my collected collage materials I decided to still use - from a 1960 western paperback, I cut out this repeating image of a cowboy on a horse trying to cross a river. It was set up like a photo booth photo strip, but in each square its the same imaged, just zoomed in a bit more. I glued that strip down the middle of everything. On the inside, I looked up a western themed front I could hand draw out, and lettered "Happy Father's Day." Then I signed it. I have no clue if he liked it or not.

Card making with Lynne Monday: The card making itself went great. It was an easy layered card. I had precut all the pieces, all everyone had to do was stack them on top of each other. Everyone was happy. The issues came afterwards. I was designing and making the kit for the card we will be making week after next, but somehow Lynne was both in a good mood and also difficult at the same time. Which feels unfair to say, as I know she doesn't have control over these things and had a horrible obvious "she's getting worse" moment yesterday that she still remembered today. She had a lot of trouble focusing today, which happens, but it also meant keeping her occupied while I worked was nearly impossible. Like at one point, we were chatting while I cut papers and she suddenly just had to do laundry, but also couldn't figure out how to make the laundry soap bottle work. I should have stopped that sooner, but she was behind me and I thought she was getting a snack from the fridge. (They are next to each other had she had been looking for cookies not long before.) In the end, we all had cards, I got the kit made, and we ended the visit on a high note. Next week, we are playing with stickers. I am a little scared.

Currently, I am on a bit of a "vacation" at Mimi & Charlie's playhouse (where I was house-sitting at over Christmas and New Year's). I'm technically not house-sitting, but was given permission to stay over and use the owner's computer while she's gone. My goal was to do some writing, which has thus far not happened.

[badly_knitted]

Sounds busy and complicated. Glad you got a card made, and I hope your dad did like it. Also hope Lynne will be better next week and the stickers won't be a nightmare.

Hope you can relax and get some writing done.

[spiralicious]

It was both those things, but it came together in the end. Thanks. I really have no clue, he looked at it for a second or two then opened his gift. I will likely never find out. Thanks. My fingers are crossed. I just wish I knew if there was a better way I could be helping her. At least there should be no tape runner drama.

Thanks. I've got my writing prompts sorted, so writing might happen. Relaxing though, I dunno. The cats got me up at 5 am to open the curtains so they could watch the birds, then tried to talk me into letting them outside. (They are inside only cats and one of them only has one eye.) Then one of them woke me up again a couple of hours later, intent that I should do something about the neighbor watering the lawn. I don't know what he wanted me to do, but clearly he thought I should do something about it. Then I couldn't find the other one for 3 hours. (She was under the couch.) And I just heard a loud bang.

[badly_knitted]

Men *sigh* They think women can read their minds. It never occurs to them to actually SAY something.

*fingers crossed*

Good luck with the writing, and the cat wrangling. Sounds like you're going to need it if the cats keep being perverse. I hope the bang wasn't a cat exploding...

[spiralicious]

Never, ever *eye roll*

Thanks.

Thank you. They are a mischievous duo. (The tiny skittish one is why the other one only has one eye XD) I could not find the source of the bang, which I am pretending to not be concerned about. Both cats are accounted for though, so that's something.

[badly_knitted]

I hate when I can't find the source of a strange noise. At least the cats are okay.