Check-In Post - April 17th 2025

[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 change crafts with the season or stick to the same crafts year round?


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]

Very busy and mildly eventful day. I did a bit more digging on the patch destined to become a flower bed, widening it in a couple of places. Unearthed a huge beetle larva, probably a cockchafer. I know they eat tree roots, but I put it back in the ground anyway, under a shrub. Maybe there are others down there, but I like beetles.


My friend cut the lawn for me, I can't get the lawnmower out of the shed. I untangled the cable for him, and as I pulled on one bit, the piece that plugs into the mower flew up and hit me right on the nose, which set us both off laughing. Anyway, the lawn got mown, I swept the path, because there were grass clippings all over it, so that's nice and tidy now, then I went back to the patio bit and continued clearing the mound of soil and roots at one side. Cleared another square foot, and filled a bucket with soil. I'm getting there slowly. It would go faster if there weren't so many thick ivy roots in it, some of them are more than an inch in diameter, so I have to use my loppers on them.


No crafting, unsurprisingly, but I was given 8 more sets of cutting dies for my Cuttlebug as an Easter gift, very excited to trey them out when I have time.

[wiseheart]

The Germans have a saying that I couldn't translate into English for my life: "Vorfreude ist die schönste Freude" - meaning that being happy in advance for something is even better than being happy for the actual thing when it happens. :)

[badly_knitted]

I googled it and came up with "Anticipation is the greatest joy", a very apt phrase =D

[wiseheart]

Oh, great, I'll have to remember that!

[badly_knitted]

It's surprisingly easy to translate things into English online. I found myself trying it a while back when someone was commenting on a post in... Spanish, I think. I copied and pasted the comments into my web browser, and got something I could understand, which meant I could reply. In English of course.

[nagi_schwarz]

Oooh, those cutting does sound like an awesome gift! Very kind of your friend to mow the lawn for you. Hope your nose is all right!

[badly_knitted]

They really are, and they're not single dies, they're sets, so I have lots to play with =D

My nose seems undamaged, and it still works, judging by this morning's sneezing fit, lol!

[wiseheart]

I finally brought up the willpower to do some crafty preparations. I cut out the lining for 12 pincushions and also outlined and pinned together the fabric for their outer covers. The idea is to use all those identical hand lotion plastic pots that I didn't have the heart to throw out and turn them into little sewing kits. A couple of weeks ago I had bought some cheap sewing needles and sewing pins at Tedi, and I've got pretty (albeit somewhat useless) little safety needles and a bunch of buttons I can't really use for anything to fill the kits. I'll decorate the pots with bee stickers and label them as "The Little Sewing Bee". That's the plan. We'll see how they turn out. The first step is to make the pin cushions, and I'll be occupied with that for quite some time. But I do have time until December, when the next Christmas fair rolls in.

[badly_knitted]

Well done with your preparations! I hope the pincushions work out this time. Mini sewing kits are always handy to have.

Go you!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Gosh, it's been ages since I've made a pincushion, but there are some cute ones.

[nagi_schwarz]

The little pincushions sound adorable! I'm sure they'll look great.

[viskozni_varhanik]

oh, I love little kits like that!! and with a handmade pincushion and with little bee friends to top it off! I can tell I'd be very tempted to pick one up if i came upon them at a fair.

Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Today I spread compost on the telephone garden flowerbed and made a protective cover for it using a roll of plastic mesh fence and some garden pins. Hopefully this will discourage the squirrels from digging it up.

Re: Done!

[nagi_schwarz]

Fingers crossed that the squirrels keep their paws off your garden!

Re: Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, they're digging little holes all over the yard. :/

Re: Done!

[badly_knitted]

Good luck with that! Squirrels can be fiends.

Re: Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I like squirrels. They're fun to watch when they come to the feeders. I just wish they would content themselves with digging in the large majority of the yard that is not a dedicated garden.

Re: Done!

[badly_knitted]

I have one garden visitor I call Cyril, I swear it's the one that as a baby a couple of years ago, caused havoc by deciding that inside the wheel under an Amazon delivery van was the perfect place to sit. I was working in my driveway at the time, watching this agitated delivery driver, and I was wearing heavy gardening gloves, so when he told me what the problem was, I was able to get the young squirrel out. It sat on my hand and chittered at me all the way down the garden, where I put it in the apple tree. Crazy times.

[nagi_schwarz]

Got the new threads joined in on the tatting and that's about it. If I have the willpower after a mildly disastrous day (unsupervised toddler, now-empty pot of diaper cream), I will try to complete the next phase of the popup cube boxes I plan on making for mother's day gifts. Who knows.

[badly_knitted]

Toddlers and anything that can make a mess are just headaches for moms waiting to happen. So sorry you had that to deal with, but yay for getting the new threads joined in, and good luck with the cube books!

[viskozni_varhanik]

Despite the harsh temperature jump in the last two days, I managed to finish the metallic thread last if the keychain. Same then decided the contrast is too low, so now I'm about a third into backstitching the entire thing. I'm very happy about that decision, though. Think it'll turn out neat :)

Haven't been too productive apart from that. Had a minor scare with my practice el. pipe organ, but it seems avoiding extension cords fixes it. Still, the anxiety tired me out, sigh.

[badly_knitted]

Anxiety is exhausting. Glad the organ is okay.

Backstitch can really make designs pop. I love it, even though I know a lot of people don't. It can be a bit tedious, but it's so worth doing.

[viskozni_varhanik]

I'm very new to backstitch in cross stitch, and honestly I've loved all of it so far :D I enjoy the pixel like look of crossstitch, but I've seen it used very smartly to add small environmental details & co., and I adore that.

[badly_knitted]

It's great to add detail as well as to outline, it can separate foreground from background in a design, and just makes certain kinds of design clearer. I do most of my cross stitch as greetings cards for friends and family, and I love the way backstitch can take what looks like a jumble of colours and turn it into a clear image.

[malurette]

The torso is finished and I resumed working on that sleeve!

[badly_knitted]

Woo! You're doing so well, you'll have it finished before you know it!