Check-In Post - June 3rd 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: We all probably have multiple WiPs, but which of yours has been hanging around longest, waiting to be finished?


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 cow now had a complete body, including tail, and most of her head, so I'm getting there.

[althea_valara]

MOO!!! I mean--good work!

[wiseheart]

MOO indeed! *g* Great job!

[badly_knitted]

I'll take MOO!

Thank moo! ;)

[peaceful_sands]

You're making good progress.

[badly_knitted]

Thanks, I am. I might even finish the cow today and start on the pony... We shall see.

[nagi_schwarz]

Way to go! You're making so much progress so fast!

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! It's a much smaller and much simpler project than the gift for my friend.

[wiseheart]

No actual crafting today, but I've made detailed plans for the Christmas fair, which can be read here, in case anybody is interested. And I got some of the tools (=little jam jars) that I'll need for those plans, so that counts to a certain extent, I guess.

[badly_knitted]

That is A LOT planned. I hope all goes to plan!

[wiseheart]

So do I, to be honest.

[peaceful_sands]

Planning is important too.

[wiseheart]

Oh, I'm very big at planning. The problem is with making those plans work, usually.

[nagi_schwarz]

Plans are important. You can do it! Your plans sound delicious to me. And supplies are the first (and very vital) step of any project.

[wiseheart]

That is very true.

[althea_valara]

I should be looking for a new job, or studying Python, but I'm crafting instead. So far today I have done 34 minutes on the cardi and 40 minutes on the capybara. Pattern for the capybara is decent for the most part, but I really quibble with how the designer wrote round 6 of the first motif. I understand what she's asking us to do, but she pretty much paraphrased instructions rather than spell them out, which isn't the best way to write a pattern IMO.

Now I am trying to decide if I want to work on Alphi some more, or cast on the scarf. Probably gonna go for the latter, as new projects are exciting, even if they are simple projects. I guess I have second boot syndrome with Alphi. I could forego the second boot for now and start on his pants, though... hmm... well, either way I'm planning on more crafting today, as I have nothing else that needs doing right now. Well okay the aforementioned job hunting or studying, but those aren't as fun.

[badly_knitted]

You certainly have plenty of things to do, fun ones and not so fun. Good luck with whatever you work on.

[peaceful_sands]

Sounds like you're enjoying your crafting, cherish the time while you can. The rest of the world interferes enough!

[nagi_schwarz]

Excellent crafty progress! So may projects! For sure job hunting and studying aren't nearly as fun...

Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

I made the post for the Poetry Fishbowl; today's theme is "Gentleness Is Strength."

Re: Done!

[badly_knitted]

Excellent!

Re: Done!

[peaceful_sands]

Well done.

Re: Done!

[nagi_schwarz]

Way to go!

Re: Done!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yeah, we're having fun with it. I've finished several poems already. :D

[peaceful_sands]

I went to the cinema after work with a friend, but then have spent the rest of the evening, trying to make my way through photos to work out which ones to get printed out next - It's tricky because there are dozens of CDs, some of which are labelled, some of which seem to be duplicates, some have missing folders that are on other CDs. All of this makes it time consuming to try and work out which photos are the best that I should be getting printed. I found a missing folder for one of the parts of the trip that I've already finished writing about - and all the time I thought it was really odd that I didn't have any photos from one particular place that I visited for a couple of hours - now I know why! Anyway, I now have 2 discs of photos to take with me to work on Thursday and at lunch time, I'll go and try to get the long list of photos that I want printed out. I'm going to have to tackle another couple of CDs soon as there will be some overlapping of events and I returned to Beijing 4 times while I was in China - I did different things each time, only revisiting one or two of the major sites, but I'll have fun trying to work out which sites were visited on which trip and which temple/garden/bit of wall/painting was which!

In terms of projects that have been hanging around longest waiting to be finished - it probably is this travelogue one given that it was nearly 20 years ago that I took the trip! After that it would either be the dreamcatcher cross-stitch that I'm working on or a blanket. Although I did happen across an almost finished handbag that I was crocheting and it's anyone's guess how long ago that was (all I know is more recent than the trip because the pattern book was printed after the trip!) I have been doing well over the last 2 years at locating and finishing long forgotten projects that are partially done, or undoing them and reusing the yarn (usually) for something else - I have given up on one blanket that wasn't working and can't see me ever finishing it in its current form, but I have been pondering utilising the yarn in a different way. The original pattern was for a blanket made up of different crocheted squares, each one using a different type of stitch - some of the squares I couldn't get to work, now matter how often I undid them and tried again with a smaller hook until the hook was too small to handle the yarn and the squares were still coming up huge - because of the nature of the squares some of them I couldn't figure a way to cut out of the pattern and make the effect work - that's why it got thrown in a cupboard in disgust!

[nagi_schwarz]

That crochet square blanket progress sounds complicated for reals and I might also have given up on it.

That travelogue sounds fun, and will be worth it even 20 years later!

[peaceful_sands]

I think the travelogue is actually gaining something from the distance - I think if I'd actually done it as soon as I got back from travelling, I'd have just put my diary entries in with the photos, whereas with the benefit of time and distance - I've still got the diary entries or a synopsis of them in there, but I can be more reflective about the experience and I've added some background research - things I found out at the time but with a bit more depth or details. Probably didn't need to have left it quite this long though.

[badly_knitted]

Hope you enjoyed your cinema trip, and good luck getting your phots sorted, figuring which ones belong to which part of your trip. Storing stuff on disc used to be great, but working out what's on the discs can be a bit of a nightmare. I've had that battle with fanfic I've saved.

The dreamcatcher cross stitch will be pretty, and yay for finding the almost completed bag, but that blanket sounds like a real nightmare.

[wiseheart]

This travelogue sounds like gargantual work, but it must be nice to virtually revisiting all those places.

[peaceful_sands]

It is - and seeing photos of brings back so much more depth to some of the memories - and I've been looking some of the places up online and how much they've changed since I was there... I would really love to go back to some of them, or meet up again with some of the people.

[fadingfootsteps]

I had work today (overtime hours) so not much got done. A few scales but not many- though the 11th row marches on!

[nagi_schwarz]

Some scales are more than none. Way to go!

[badly_knitted]

That you're on the 11th row already is amazing! Well done.

[nagi_schwarz]

Today was crafting group, so I got a decent amount of crocheting done, and also assisted in teaching a new attendee with learning how to knit (so many things I CAN do but don't think about so teaching them throws me for a loop sometimes). I also wielded my hot glue gun in service of repairing a toy tiara.

[badly_knitted]

Yay crochet progress!

And yes, our hands know how to do things, without us having to tell them by now, but teaching others is HARD.

Excellent tiara mending.

[wiseheart]

People who can wield a hot glue gun impress the living daylight out of me.