Check-In Post July 29th 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 is your most essential piece of crafting equipment?


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 three hours in the garden, making great progress. Although I still have the other end of the path to clear, this section looking towards the house is mostly done.


Here are before and after pictures, although the before picture was taken after I'd already cleared long grass, weeds, ivy, hypericum, and some other stuff, so it's more of a stage two picture.


Before:



After:



Although made fair progress on the cross stitch. Still a lot to do there as well.

[darkcedars]

Oh my goodness! Wouldn't have guessed there was a path under there at all.

[badly_knitted]

It's been so long since I last saw it, I couldn't remember what it looked like!

[illariy]

Wow, that difference is amazing! And yay for good cross stitch progress, too. :D

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! It's taken me a week and a half, working on it two to four hours most days to get that far. Worth the effort, but exhausting.

[wiseheart]

Fantastic job!

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! There's still a lot to do going in the other direction, but I am reclaiming my path!

[spiralicious]

It is looking great!

[darkcedars]

I'm slowly messing with my trivet project. Had my parents here earlier. It's dad's birthday so I made brownies with pecans and dark chocolate chips.

It's 95F/35C and expected to be hotter the rest of the week, so garden tasks are only watering (and early in the day).

[badly_knitted]

Baking in such heat can't have been fun, but the brownies sound delicious. Hope your dad had a good birthday.

Yay for trivet project progress.

[darkcedars]

I made them earlier yesterday. Weather was cooler! I have some chicken to bake soon, thinking of cooking it in the early morning and eating it cold for dinner.

[badly_knitted]

That sounds a sensible way of handling things. You don't want the oven blasting out hear in the hottest part of the day.

[wiseheart]

I definitely agree! I haven't been able to bake for weeks by now and am getting withdrawal symptoms, but it's still better than getting heat stroke. I've reverted to morning cooking, too.

most essential piece of crafting equipment

[illariy]

Been weeks since I did any crafting and about 2 weeks since I was even on DW but wanted to pop in and say hello. I just handed in the stuff for my last uni deadline, now only 2 exams till uni free time! Hopefully, I can catch up on my penpal letters, finally make envelopes by hand like I have been dreaming and potentially finally select a first return-to-crochet project, get the stuff for it and start. Ambitious dreams, hehe!

About the question: My most essential piece of crafting equipment is scissors. I need them to even open my penpal letters and do lots of cutting in general. Scissors are closely followed by the second place, it was almost a tie. Second place is my trusty glue stick. My fave is Pritt, Uhu is also acceptable. These two are always on top of my desk so I can access them easily.

Re: most essential piece of crafting equipment

[badly_knitted]

Congrats on handing in your last uni work, and good luck with your exams. Hope you can get back to crafting soon.

Oh yes, for all paper crafts, scissors and a good glue stick are essential! I like Pritt sticks.

Re: most essential piece of crafting equipment

[wiseheart]

I'm definitely with you re: scissors. They are essential to both sewing and paper craft - and needed by baking, too, to cut the baking paper to the right size. *g*

Re: most essential piece of crafting equipment

[darkcedars]

Congrats on being nearly finished with your semester work. Enjoy your crafts.

Re: most essential piece of crafting equipment

[spiralicious]

Congrats on handing in the last of your uni work and good luck with your exams!

[wiseheart]

My invaluable morning hour was spent outside of the house, but at least I bought some craft supplies. Still, I worked a tiny bit on my next embroidered card in the afternoon and pre-prickled three more, just so that I had something in reserve. This particular pattern is not complicated, just fussy and takes longer than the other ones.

[badly_knitted]

Well, I hope the craft supplies were worth the venturing out. Well done for making some progress despite your busy morning!

[wiseheart]

Originally, I wanted to buy some light summer clothes but found nothing I'd like - well, save for one light dress, but it was sized XS. I'd need XXL at the very least. So I had to comfort myself with some crafty stuff. Trying to shop for clothes is so frustrating. Only finding shoes for my deformed feet is worse.

[badly_knitted]

Clothes shopping is never fun when you're not a standard size. I've actually stopped buying ladies blouses and started getting men's shirts instead. They're longer, better fabric, and the buttons don't fall off as easily.

[darkcedars]

Glad you got some craft time after all.

[wiseheart]

So am I, honestly. Sometimes it's hard to squeeze in any crafty times.

[althea_valara]

I am commenting mostly to answer this question:

This Week's Question: What is your most essential piece of crafting equipment?

That's an easy one: my brain. I sometimes make my own patterns, and I could not do it without the knowledge I've gained over the years AND my spark of creativity and curiosity. So yeah, definitely my brain.

Today I spent a half hour working on a crocheted bag, but that's it. I had chosen it as a potential Nerdopolis project, but the round is ending soon and I just don't have enough time to do an entire bag before it does. Well, okay, I probably COULD have done it if I did nothing but crochet today, but that sounded too much like work. I'll make the bag eventually because it's cute (it's a tote bag made up of squares done in tapestry crochet, featuring silhouettes of cats).

Tomorrow I intend to find my Zoom Loom and finish the square I was making on it. I've misplaced the thing somewhere, curses!

Other than that, haven't done too much.

[badly_knitted]

Where would we be without our brains and all the accumulated knowledge they hold?

The bag does sound very cute.

Hope you find your loom! It's amazing how easily things can be misplaced. Then they turn up when you're looking for something else entirely. Last week while looking for my stopwatch, I found my fabric gauge I've been searching for the last few months.