Check-In Post - October 12th 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 piece of advice would you give someone interested in trying your favourite craft?


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]

The craft and gifts fair I went to this morning was a huge disappointment. They used to have a huge tent in the square, 20 to 30 stalls selling all kinds of handcrafted items. This time there were maybe 5 stalls selling crafted items, each in its own mini tent, a stall selling Pokemon, two selling manufactured toys, and one selling cakes that had practically nothing. I did get two or three small gifts, but it was a disappointing turn-out, and it was raining, which didn't help. I went to some charity shops and found a couple of large balls of yarn, one shades of pink and the other rainbow, so I nabbed those, but there was very little that was crafty even there.


I have managed to finish knitting the first of a pair of arm warmers, not cast off yet, and started its mate, so 50 arm warmer rows completed.

[wiseheart]

I worked a bit on Christmas card #33. It has 3 identical Christmas ornaments hanging from a green branch... sort of. It is a very abstract branch, but I managed not to mess up the end swirl too much. One ornament is finished, two more to go. That will be the last piece of the horrid orange cards I had in my stock. I'm glad to have them out of my hair, they're so hard to combine with any sensible colour thread I have.

[wiseheart]

What a disappointment indeed! I'm sorry you had to go there for nothing.

[badly_knitted]

Well done! Bet you'll avoid buying anything with orange card in now.

[badly_knitted]

Well, not entirely nothing, and the stallholders I spoke with were lovely, but things have certainly gone downhill since the pandemic began. The fairs used to be packed with stallholders and buyers. I miss the old days of 5 years ago.

[illariy]

Folks, something good has happened: this check in post appeared on my circle page and I decided to crochet for 30.min today after all. I just finished. It was great!

But a third gauge appears to be a necessity. I have trouble keeping the edges even, I appear to lose stitches on one side and gain them on the other. Not in every row but more than just at the start. Got to look up fixes for that and practice making turns and neat edges on a third, much thinner gauge so I can practice lots of turns.

I also kinda went crazy at Action. Maybe tomorrow I am going to post on what craft supplies I got there but I can already say it was more than I had planned. Stress shopping again. Ugh. But the stuff I got is gorgeous and will keep me busy in the upcoming winter.

[illariy]

Card no. 33 sounds beautiful. I can see why Orange cards are difficult to work with!

I have had similar issues before: a glue stick that could only used on the insides of letters because it was not strong enough for envelopes, design paper that was pretty but too thick and hard to adhere to envelopes safely and also made any letters much heavier and thus more expensive to mail. Ugh. I guess we learn through these experiences,haha.

[illariy]

Very sad about the craft and gifts fair. And disappointing about the charity shops, too!

Good on the arm warmer, though! Yay!

[ebrillblaiddes]

Project tote is on hold bc I'm out of the solid color I started with -- the order with the next color actually came in, but I haven't opened it up yet bc an out-of-town cousin and I ordered from the same sale and were planning to have an unboxing party Zoom call, and she just popped into the hospital for a couple days (nothing tooooo bad fortunately, she got back out today) so holding off on that until she feels up to it.

Meanwhile, working on the corner-to-corner cardigan, and it is taking foreeeeeever LOL

[ebrillblaiddes]

One thing that's helped me with avoiding losing crochet stitches is putting a stitch marker in each end stitch.

[badly_knitted]

Yay for crochet practice! I hope you can quickly figure out what's not going quite right so that you can start your... cardigan, is it?

Stress shopping is fun, but often results in some guilt. On the other hand, you're stocked up with supplies for winter crafting, so that's great!

[badly_knitted]

On the plus side, at least I didn't overspend. Well, not too much.

Not that I really NEED more arm warmers for myself, but they're good for knitting while watching TV.

[badly_knitted]

I hope your cousin feels up to the Zoom party soon so you can both enjoy your purchases and you can get back to working on your tote.

Good luck with the corner to corner cardigan!

[ebrillblaiddes]

Thank you!

It's my own fault it's taking forever, of course -- what did I expect from attempting plus-size wearables out of yarn consistent with a 3.5mm hook?

[badly_knitted]

>.< Yes, I'm not surprised it's a bit slow going. But you will get it done. *cheers you on*

[darkcedars]

Disappointing and strange for the craft fair.

[darkcedars]

Hooray for being done with orange!

[darkcedars]

That's great you got some practice in. You'll get there with the edges.

I made a small shawl scarf thing once where you specifically lost stitches on one end and added to the other.

[darkcedars]

Unboxing call sounds fun!

[wiseheart]

I will try, but it’s not always possible.

[wiseheart]

Learning through pain…

[wiseheart]

Yes, please, tell us all about the cool stuff you got!

[m_findlow]

Such a shame. The craft markets of days gone by seem to be just that.
I took Mum to one last year which was our local council monthly and almost all the "craft" stalls were just selling cheap imported jewellery. Very little was made by hand. Even the stalls that used to sell cards and soaps were gone. There were maybe one or two knitted item stalls with a very small offering.
Maybe it's the cost to hire a stall or the poor margins, or maybe people just don't fancy the handmade stuff any more. Sad either way. :(

[badly_knitted]

Yes, things have really gone downhill since the pandemic started. Plus the local council doesn't seem to be doing anything to promote the fairs.

[badly_knitted]

Probably the cost balanced against how much they're likely to sell. My local council charges the earth for everything, we have so many shops empty on the high street because rent and rates are so high. We've lost some of the most popular stores both during and after the pandemic.

The two jewellery stores were both selling handmade things, and the crochet stall many of the designs were her own, so that was good to see. It is sad that such markets seem to be fading away.