Check-In Post - June 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: 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

[peaceful_sands]

Little bit of progress on the cardigan and on writing.

Can I ask badly_knitted for some gooseberry advice? So I have one singular gooseberry bush that I acquired earlier in the year. I'd been keeping a close eye on it, following your battles earlier in the year with the caterpillars until... We had a few days of absolutely torrential rain and then I was working really long days - when I looked out of the window last Wednesday, all of a sudden my nicely growing beginning to look like it's establishing itself gooseberry bush looks devastated! So on Thursday I went out and before work, I pulled off about 100+ caterpillars. I went out at lunch and found another 12 - 15 and the following morning I found about 5 more. I've been checking it daily since, despite my ridiculously long work hours at the moment and haven't seen anymore. But what do I do now, do I cut it right back down and hope it grows up again with leaves etc or do I leave as is and hope it can re-establish itself from where it is? This is my first attempt at growing any kind of berry bush so I'm an absolute dunce at this point and open to suggestions for saving it.

[badly_knitted]

As long as you're keeping an eye on it for caterpillars, it should be fine to leave as it is. It might grow more leaves. The shoots will continue growing and that will bring more leaves into play. Do you have any berries on it? I haven't picked mine yet, they don't look quite ready, but I think they will be soon. Gooseberries are surprisingly resilient. Mine got completely stripped of every leaf one year when I didn't have time to deal with caterpillars, but they were just fine the next year.

Any pruning is best done in the winter, when the bushes aren't in active growth. Then it's mostly a case of removing older shoots to allow for new growth. Mine are a bit straggly at present, so I'll prune this winter.

A little bit of progress is better than none.

[peaceful_sands]

No gooseberries in sight as yet - I wasn't sure whether to expect any this year as it's a brand new plant or whether it would take a year to bed in before reaping the benefits!

[badly_knitted]

You probably won't get any until next year then, once it's more established. Something to look forward to.