Check-In Post - July 16th 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]

More progress made on the second hearts and flowers cross stitch design. I stitched two checked hearts, the pot the flowers are in, two small leaves, and parts on two of the three flowers.


Nothing exciting on my tapes today, except some songs I'd forgotten about but still apparently know most of the words to. Brains are strange.

[wiseheart]

Strange indeed. It has been my experience that if I sing seemingly forgotten songs several times, the words gradually come back to me.

You've made great progress! That sounds like a lovely pattern.

[badly_knitted]

With me, I'm just hearing the music start and launching straight into the song. I don't always get all the words right, but I know the songs, I know the melody, I know the singer, and even though I sing badly, I'm belting the words out. So I have the lyrics of dozens of older songs floating around in my brain, and at the same time I'm learning the lyrics for several songs I only started listening to recently, and how does my brain have room for all that? I'm loving reacquainting myself with so many old favourites.

[peaceful_sands]

Well done on your progress. I like to listen to old stuff and do (with some of it) find myself singing a long and enjoying it (singing in a very very loose interpretation of the word! ha ha!)

[badly_knitted]

Same here, my singing has never been good, but I enjoy it, even if it probably sets all the local dogs howling!

[nagi_schwarz]

Way to go on stitching! Also it is wild, isn't it, how we can still remember all the words to a song we haven't heard in years? Kinda fun, though.

[badly_knitted]

Thank you!

Very much fun! I hear the into music, and I'm grinning! I have so many of them on my youtube playlists now, constantly adding more. Every day I find a few more on the cassettes that I love! I have one song on my playlists by three different artists, and I love all three versions for different reasons. I might add a fourth version soon, by the guy who wrote it.

Quiet books once again

[wiseheart]

Getting a bit fed up with all those Christmas fair preparations, I picked up those doll house-themed quiet books again. The original plan had been to make two identical "Hello Kitty" dollhouse books for the two granddaughter of a colleague (also retired now), but today I decided to drop the cat and make them actual, simple doll houses. The design will remain identical, only the colour concept will be a bit different. Currently, I'm working on the bedrooms; one of them is nearly done (I have figured out how to do the lace curtain, after all!), only a lamp is missing and the fishbowl on the bedside table. I might add a wall clock and a bookshelf above the bed, but again, I might not. We'll see. The other bedroom is in a very basic state: the floor and the window are sewn on, the parts for the bed and the bedside table are cut out, and I've chosen the colour concept. I'm content with my progress so far; let's hope it won't take six months to pick it up again.

Re: Quiet books once again

[badly_knitted]

Well done, that's great progress! I like the idea of them just being doll's house books.

Re: Quiet books once again

[wiseheart]

Me, too. I have already done the Hello Kitty booklet in paper and just can’t face all that pink again.

Re: Quiet books once again

[peaceful_sands]

Sounds like you are doing well.

Re: Quiet books once again

[wiseheart]

Surprisingly, yes!

Re: Quiet books once again

[nagi_schwarz]

The Christmas fair preparations sound like A LOT so I don't blame you for taking a break. The doll house quiet books sound like they're gonna be super adorable!

Re: Quiet books once again

[wiseheart]

I hope so. I always have those grand ideas, but they rarely look as planned in the end.

[peaceful_sands]

So I finished the cardigan on Monday evening and have worn it to work today! It's comfy and just warm enough for being in the office in the air con particularly as it was raining first thing so I was a bit chilly when I arrived this morning. Unfortunately as it warmed up this afternoon, when I got back from lunch I had warmed up and so I took it off, but it has shed over the top I was wearing, so I had to put it straight back on again to hide the ridiculous amount of fluff I was covered in!

Time for a new project - first gift for the upcoming baby - so I've found a part done Winnie-the-Pooh cross-stitch and one from Jungle Book. I'm thinking the Winnie one as it's nearer finished. I have that and two patterns for toys - one is various sizes of butterfly and the other is for a rabbit. I am going to try a butterfly first as I think I'll be able to do that with leftover DK yarn which would be great to use some of them up and it calls for a mix of colours. The rabbit pattern says it needs Aran wool so I'm not sure if I have any of that and how much thicker than the DK it is, whether I could make the pattern work with a close enough crochet stitch in the lighter weight yarn to keep the stuffing both inside and hidden. It wouldn't matter if it crocheted up slightly smaller. (A rabbit as a baby gift is special to me as a toy, as one of my first toys was a rabbit and I didn't have a 'teddy' as such until I was a older - my rabbit aptly named as 'Bunny' was handmade - my great gran was blind and she used to go to a club with other people who were also blind and they each had different things that they could make, so she knitted a sweater for someone else while they made her the rabbit to give to me - it was pink with a yellow tummy and I still have it now). So the plan is to alternate between a toy and the cross-stitch for the next couple of weeks, depending on time and how I'm feeling for the next few weeks.

[nagi_schwarz]

That story behind your bunny was so sweet and heartwarming! As a kid I also had a stuffed bunny instead of a teddy (the bunny was named Charlie from Bedknobs and Broomsticks). I have a lot of bunny-themed baby stuff because Two was born in the Year of the Rabbit.

Also yay for finishing and being able to wear your cardigan! That's got to feel so satisfying.

[badly_knitted]

Congratulations on finishing the cardigan, but oops at having it fluff all over you. Some yarns are like that, unfortunately.

Great projects to work on! I think Aran is not quite twice as thick as DK, from looking at both in my knitting basket.

I absolutely agree on rabbits being ideal first baby gifts. My own Bun is a small lambswool shop-bought one that was like my first stuffie. I still have him. I also didn't have a teddy bear for a while, and I preferred rabbits anyway. I think the rabbit came from my mum's oldest sister, but I'm not sure and there's no one left alive that I can ask. But Bun is very precious.

Enjoy working on your projects!

[wiseheart]

Not even being fluffy and adorable does always work, unfortunately. That bunny sounds lovely, I hope you’ll be able to make one eventually.

[yarnandglue]

Yay on finishing a cardigan!!

[nagi_schwarz]

Got a decent amount on the blanket done at crafting yesterday and also managed a couple of rows today. Turns out my friend is getting induced tomorrow, so the twins will arrive before I finish the blankets, but I know I'm pretty close to finishing this one (one more, two pattern repetitions at most) so I am not too worried.

Also I bought some crochet patterns for some KDH characters (all three Huntrix girls and the tiger, and also a tiger hat, with an eye toward themed Halloween costumes for my kiddos and their best friends). So much I want to make, so little time.

[badly_knitted]

Well done on blanket progress, and best wishes to mum to be for an uneventful delivery, if you know what I mean. The blankets will be ready by the time the babies have use for them, I'm sure.

Good luck with the Halloween costumes! There are always more projects than there is time to make them.

[wiseheart]

I am still awed that you manage to do so much. You must ne a pro in multitasking.