Check-In Post - July 9th 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: What do you like to listen to / watch while crafting?


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]

Made some progress on the final seashell design. Outer and inner borders are finished (the inner border is just a single stitch wide all the way around), and I started the shell.


I was out all morning in town, getting some essential shopping done, so I had less stitching time available, but I'm happy with progress.

[darkcedars]

Nearly there. Glad you had some craft time even with errands.

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! Maybe get it finished in a day or two.

[nagi_schwarz]

Excellent progress despite the busy morning!

[badly_knitted]

Thank you!

[spiralicious]

Well done! Glad you had time to work on it even with your errands.

[badly_knitted]

I made time by having my lowest daily writing word count of the year. It almost pained me, lol!

[spiralicious]

Lol, I can understand why

[badly_knitted]

I've had two more low days since then. Trying to convince myself it's okay, because my version of 'low' is still over 600 words.

[spiralicious]

All word counts are good, but over 600 is definitely not anything to sneeze at.

[badly_knitted]

Still so far keeping over 600, and usually higher than that. It's very rainy so I don't have the energy for inclination to work in the garden, meaning I have more tome for writing and crafts.

[spiralicious]

That's awesome! (Word counts, not the weather)

At least you have more craft time :)

[badly_knitted]

Yes, I've already written double what I pledged at GYWO!

Craft time (and listening to music time) is very enjoyable.

[spiralicious]

That's awesome!

Indeed :)

[badly_knitted]

Thanks! Already closing in on my total for all of last year!

[spiralicious]

Excellent!

[badly_knitted]

Thanks!

[darkcedars]

Yesterday I finished the second trivet, so got them felted in the washer today. Tomorrow I'll trim the lint off and it will be ready to go.

Next project - need to make another baby basket.

[badly_knitted]

Yay, well done!

Good luck with the next baby basket!

[nagi_schwarz]

Look at you go! Woohoo! High five fellow baby blanket maker.

...I see you actually wrote basket.

But still. High five fellow baby gear maker!

[darkcedars]

Haha, I used to always make blankets but the baskets are a lot less intensive. They're a good size for the diaper stash or toys.

[spiralicious]

Very nice!

Good luck with the baby basket.

[althea_valara]

No fiber arts today, but I did make some Dreamwidth icons! They're here if anybody wants to see them.

[nagi_schwarz]

Your icons are so pretty!

[spiralicious]

They are lovely!

[badly_knitted]

Lovely, well done!

[nagi_schwarz]

I helped One make a letter to send to a friend (she was inspired to send some kid art to my friend, and so I wrote a quick note to include as well). One picked out the paper I wrote on, and the color of the wax for the seal, and the seal itself. Two...shouted "Happy Birthday!" and blew out the candle as One and I were counting out the drops of wax for the seal so we came up a bit short but it looked all right in the end.

Did some letter-locking experiments and tried out more of my vinyl stamp collection and learned some things about how to get cleaner images with the stamps, so that was nice.

Also I made progress on the baby blanket while One and Two played and then hilariously while they were finishing dinner (they are slow eaters and I had to rock Three in her bouncy chair so everyone else could keep eating in peace).

[spiralicious]

Very well done all around!

[badly_knitted]

Your oldest two sound like real characters!

You'll have to share your knowledge of using vinyl stamps here.

Eating should not be rushed.

[nagi_schwarz]

I wished I could have had the chance to savor my meal but crying baby prevailed over food meditation.

Honestly the biggest thing I learned was to put the stamp on a suitably large acrylic block, at least one row of squares bigger than the stamp all around for better handling, and then the images came out better. I tried using acrylic blocks closer to the size of the stamps and it didn't go as well. So. Lesson learned.

[badly_knitted]

Sorry about that, but I guess you're used to having to put baby first.

That is a valuable piece of information, thank you!

[spiralicious]

This is the first night in weeks I haven't fallen asleep knitting, so I thought I'd check in. Today, I put my daily 10 rows on the same scarf I've been working on and I did some catch up rows on the rain tracking shawl. It is now up to date through May 21st.

Since my last check in, it's pretty much all been prepping for crafting at my birthday party, which didn't end up happening (the crafting didn't happen, the party did), knitting an average of 10 rows a day on the scarf, and weekly card making with Lynne. There was also a rock painting party at the library and another bimonthly gel printing workshop. At the latest workshop, we used stencils for texture. I ended up with my best prints so far and no homework for me for the first time.

To answer the question, I tend to use movies, TV shows, or video essays for background while I craft. Just whatever floats my fancy that day. While knitting specifically, it is either whatever set of DVDs from the library Mom and I are watching for our nightly TV with dinner, Saturday night's Svengoolie episode (horror movie host show), or 1950s Superman Sunday mornings (but I haven't been around for that in a while). As for the DVDs from the library, it's never certain what is available so we have a few shows going. We were doing a complete rewatch of Poirot, but we finished that. We have also been doing a complete rewatch of Murdoch Mysteries and Midsomer Murders. Though, we are on the last available season of Murdoch (season 17, 18 just aired on TV and isn't available yet) and we are coming close to current on Midsomer (we just finished series 20). We have started watching Vera to fill the space left by Poirot, but I'm not sure what we're adding next.

[badly_knitted]

Welcome back! Sounds like you have been busy. The scarf must be coming along well, and yay for shawl progress!

The gel printing sounds fun, I would love to see the results.

You clearly enjoy variety in your entertainment while crafting. Those are some very long-running shows!

[spiralicious]

Thanks. I am doing my best to disappear less. I have XD The scarf is in that awkward phase where it's clearly growing, but somehow seemingly not getting any closer to it's end point, lol.

I'm honestly a little on the fence about the gel printing. This last workshop was definitely fun, but the previous ones were more stressful than fun. I do think it's the environment, not the process though.

Yeah, it feels a little insane to think I'm almost caught up to current on them. I think tomorrow, we're finishing up the last available episodes of Murdoch Mysteries, then we are on to set 6 of Vera or series 21 of Midsomer Murders.

[badly_knitted]

That's the trouble with scarves, and the main reason I avoid making them. They go on forever.

That's sad.

You do sound like you've got through a lot.

[spiralicious]

They definitely do that.

We do. Almost every night we start a DVD when we sit down to dinner and watch until my mother goes to bed. That's 2 episodes usually of shows like Vera or Midsomer Murders with longer episode run times and they usually only have 4 to 8 episodes a series. So we end up just burning through them.

[badly_knitted]

British series do tend to be shorter than American ones.

[spiralicious]

Yeah. Episodes tend to be longer though. I'm just happy to get what I get XD

[badly_knitted]

True, Vera is like two one hour segments to each episode or something.

[spiralicious]

Yes, on DVD, Vera episodes have an 88 to 92 minute runtime. I think the only thing we've watched with consistently longer episodes was the first series of Foyle's War.