Check-In Post - Sept 20th 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: Share your favourite crafting tip, if you have one.


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]

Another 5 pumpkins stuffed! 4 awaiting stuffing, but I have plans to knit pumpkins while watching the Strictly Come Dancing launch show. Wish me luck! I have a fresh ball of yarn, the first pumpkin cast on and the increase row done...

[wiseheart]

You are unstoppable!

[badly_knitted]

I do my best!

[nagi_schwarz]

Good luck! You've got this! Enjoy your show!

[badly_knitted]

I got three knitted, which wasn't bad, and the show was great! Looking forward to the actual dancing...

[spiralicious]

Good luck and well done!

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! I managed to knit three.

[spiralicious]

Nice!

[badly_knitted]

Thanks!

[wiseheart]

Moderately crafty today. I made some more surprise packages for the fair (having rediscovered small items to put into the boxes), and then worked a bit on my dollhouse themed quiet book. Among the rediscovered items were a bag of glow-in-the-dark shapes, little stars mostly, two of which I decided to use as the dressing room lamps. This is my first quiet book with built-in illumination. *g*

Also, the vanity table of one book is finished; it looks... adequate. The glow-in-the-dark stars I fixed with two-sided tape and covered with a piece of tulle each, which I've sewn of firmly. I don't want any little girls swallow those stars!

[badly_knitted]

Well done Great progress on both projects! I love the lamp idea!

[wiseheart]

I've wanted to do something like that for a while - I just needed the right opportunity. ;)

[nagi_schwarz]

A quiet book with built-in illumination sounds amazing!

[wiseheart]

And teaches the little ones about fluorescent stuff by experience. ;)

[spiralicious]

Congrats on rediscovering small items for the boxes!

The self illumination in the quiet book is going to be just magical for the girls that get them.

[wiseheart]

I hope they will like it.

[spiralicious]

My fingers are crossed

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yesterday we went to the Autumn Fest in Marshall, Illinois. It's still running Saturday-Sunday if anyone wants to go. There were so many crafts! I listed some of them in my post. I picked up a new tie-dye T-shirt. It has kind of a chevron pattern with orange and yellow in the middle, while the top and bottom are purple and dark blue -- very autumn-esque. :D

>>This Week's Question: Share your favourite crafting tip, if you have one.<<

One vendor had a sign up reading, "$5 and Under Table." If you peddle crafts at an event, and you have a bargain section, marking that clearly is helpful to shoppers.

The event also had a "mother-child comfort station" with signs up pointing to it. That's another thing you could create if you organize events, or your crafts target that market (e.g. soft toys, baby slings).

Re: Thoughts

[badly_knitted]

Every craft stall should have a bargain section. People come for the low price items, they might buy something else, and even if they don't, you're in with a good chance of still selling something.

The Autumn Fest sounds lovely, and so does your new T-shirt.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Every craft stall should have a bargain section. People come for the low price items, they might buy something else, and even if they don't, you're in with a good chance of still selling something.<<

I would say most, rather than all. A majority of crafts can range from affordable to luxury items, and it's usually to a vendor's advantage to maximize their possible audience. But there are a few things that are consistently expensive (e.g. handmade musical instruments) or cheap (e.g. 3D-printed knickknacks) and that's okay in an event that has a bunch of different vendors.

Re: Thoughts

[badly_knitted]

Fair point. Some handcrafted items are expensive for good reasons, the amount of time and effort that goes into making them, the cost of the materials and the tools required...

Re: Thoughts

[nagi_schwarz]

That sounds like so much fun! And you found some super cute things!

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

I love visiting local events where I can see different crafters. There's a historical one and a flea market next weekend too.

Re: Thoughts

[spiralicious]

The fest sounds like a great time :)

[nagi_schwarz]

I have finally repaired Mommy Duck (some of her stitching came undone and then Two unstuffed her a bit, so I had to add more stuffing and stitch her back up) (she's from a set of stuffed ducks for the Five Little Ducks song).

Also I did another row of vertical stitching while baking cookies, so small progress has been achieved! Really need to step up my crocheting game though for reals...

[badly_knitted]

I'm sure the healed Mommy Duck is very happy now!

Well done on blanket progress!

You've only got one pair of hands, you can't do everything at once.

[spiralicious]

I'm sure Mommy Duck is very happy to be repaired.

That is some serious multitasking.

[wiseheart]

I'm sure Mommy Duck appreciates your efforts. ;)

[spiralicious]

This week got weird fast, but I should expect that by now.

This is more craft adjacent probably, but one of the major accomplishments this week was reassembling my bed, adding cushioning to the box spring so my hip doesn't rest directly on a slat of wood all night, create a support for the head of my bed to keep my head from sinking below my feet in the night, and making a new cover for my mattress to help with sliding. My bed still sucks, but this is definitely an improvement.

Knitting wise, I'm very close to finishing the first half of the cable hat, like under 6 rows left. I also managed to make a test swatch of the horseshoe lace scarf with the evil yarn (which the actual scarf had already been started with) and sent it through a test spin in the wash machine. Against all bets, it survived. So I have some thinking to do.

Today was the second part of the tile mosaic workshop and the button machine demo at the library. At the mosaic workshop, they decided to go ahead and cut out the finished mosaics from last week instead of waiting for everyone to be done. We had made our designs on a square of plywood and the guy running it cut away the excess wood from around our pieces between workshops. For those of us that were done, they provided black paint and brushes to paint the raw edges before we took them home. It was very nice. Both the library staff member in charge and the guy leading the workshop are hoping to do this again in a couple months.

The button machine demo also went well. It was an all day long, drop in thing. Earlier this year, the library got a button maker machine for patron usage (10 to 25 cents a button depending on size), but the supplies for using it just came in. They had a staff member in the maker space all day walking anyone though the process of making a free button that wanted to. They provided four images to chose from, I went with the Edgar Allen Poe joke: the passive aggressive raven that says, "nevermind." My mom picked a picture of Snoopy and Woodstock. I think the other two images were a smiley face and an Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe. Aside from your button you made, you could also take home a copy of written instructions for the machine and a guide to how big to cut your paper for different button sizes.

[badly_knitted]

Well done on bed improvements, hopefully you'll be a little more comfortable.

That's great progress on the hat, and I am amazed the evil yarn test swatch survived the washer.

Yay for completed mosaic, and the possibility of another workshop.

II wish our library had a button machine. It would be so cool being able to make buttons. I used to collect them, many years ago, and wore different ones all the time. I love the Nevermind Raven, I would SO wear that one! *grins*

[spiralicious]

Thanks. It's an improvement to be sure.

Thanks. I am really liking how the hat is shaping up. I think we're all amazed the evil yarn test swatch survived the washing machine.

Now I just have to figure out how to display it.

:D I collect buttons and enamel pins. Having button machine access is very exciting. Now I just have to narrow down the ideas!

[badly_knitted]

Glad to hear that!

I hope your hat will be cosy.

Buttons and pins are so much fun. I rarely see anything interesting these days though. I still have hundreds from when I collected them. I'm sure you'll come up with some great ideas!

[spiralicious]

Thanks!

They really are. :) Thanks.

[wiseheart]

Sounds like an eventful week indeed! I'm impressed by your skills to renovate your bed; I hope you'll sleep better in it from now on.

[spiralicious]

Thanks! It's an improvement.