Check-In Post - April 21st 2026

[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: Does your crafting change with the seasons, certain crafts at certain times of the year?


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 orange bees I knitted yesterday are finished and in the bag. 32 in that bag so far.

Here are the mustard yellow bee quartet... Not the best background to photograph them on, sorry.





Click the images to make them bigger.

[nagi_schwarz]

Wow! Way to go! They are adorable!

So many bees!

[wiseheart]

Oh, they are just too cute!

[nagi_schwarz]

I finally sewed up the little knitted cardigan that will definitely not fit the baby and also does not fit the toddler, so I’ll try it on the first-grader.

Also I finally got the two swans connected! Need to finish the second round of the second swan, and then it’s on to the heart.

Also managed a few rounds on the sweater scarf that feels much more useful in the wake of the recent cold snap.

[wiseheart]

I forced myself to go to choir practice, even though I didn't feel like going one bit. But I'm glad I did, in the end. On my way I paid a craft supply shop that's slightly out of my usual routes a visit and spent a bit too much money on candle decorating supplies: mainly thin wax plates and ready-made wax decorative elements. I'd bought a few candles in recent months and might do a bit of decorating eventually; it is such a calming craft.

Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

We are currently searching for a feather dip pen to help our headmates that are used to those write in front. It's way more difficult than one imagines... 😮‍💨

[badly_knitted]

Thank you!

Yes, many bees, and soon to bee more. I want to have three bags with 40 in each, so by my calculations, I have to make another 40 bees, but 8 are already knitted so I have 32 left to knit. Still need to crochet some more wings though.

[badly_knitted]

Yay! Guess it didn't turn out so little...

Woohoo! Good luck, sounds like it's coming along well.

And yay again! Good luck on finishing the sweater scarf while you need it.

[badly_knitted]

Sounds like that was worth doing then. You could use something relaxing and calming to do.

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! When I have the first bag of 40 completed I might take a group shot to show off the different shades, although two shades of yellow I can only tell apart under ultraviolet light...

Re: Feather dip pen

[badly_knitted]

Do you mean like a quill pen with a sharpened point? It might not be easy to buy one of those, I don't know if anyone even still makes them. I hope you can either buy one of perhaps make your own. I wonder if there are any tutorials somewhere like YouTube...

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

We mean a feather pen with a metal nib and you dip it into the ink. The end is like a fountain pen! Some of them are very beautiful, but it takes a bit of practice to write well with them

Re: Feather dip pen

[dialecticdreamer]

Quill pen:

When I was homeschooling the boys, in elementary school, I had to use boiled/bleached turkey feathers and cut my own nibs to have the kids spend time writing the way that students did in Shakespeare's day. It is as big a PITA, relatively speaking, as cleaning pig intestine to make chitlin's.

Don't.

EVEN starting with boiled, bleached feathers, you have to
-select a feather that curls gently in your hand. Right-handed people need feathers from the right wing, and no, you can't just turn them in your hand. Also, adult hands need longer, shallower curves in the feather, while a feather which would fit a seven-year-old if trimmed into a quill is absurdly delicate and difficult to trim.
-then cut the rachis on the feather first to open it up,
-clear out the remnants of the dried bone marrow--rather like cleaning bits of cork out of something too small to clean with a brush, so a toothpick is the easy tool to use.
-TRIM the feathers. This makes a TREMENDOUS mess. Only the top inch or two of the quill were left tufted.
-TRIM the quill rachis again, this time at an angle that makes the ink flow slowly instead of gushing. The angle is generally a range, like 30-45 degrees, BUT, there is nothing but practice to show you which angle works for YOU.
-SPLIT the longer end of the trimmed quill, vertically. This is NOT EASY. Do it wrong and all the work is wasted, because you generally don't have a large enough diameter rachis to cut an entirely new nib from scratch. Again, practice teaches. Some people need an absolutely perfect split, while others get better ink flow if the split is offset a millimeter or so, making fewer splotches.
-test the pen. Adjust, trimming thin curls, about the diameter of a human hair. Retest.

IF you finally get a working nib, it'll get dull as you write. Trimming it again ALWAYS risks another bad split in the vertical cut, because you have to have a minimum vertical space so the sides of the quill flex properly as you write.

Instead, look at this antique dip pen.

https://www.townsends.us/products/1890s-dip-pen?_pos=1&_sid=a7b074755&_ss=r&variant=52149977710866

By the by, when I "magically" produced slates and styli for them after our messy experiment, they were RELIEVED, not insulted. It was now PERFECTLY clear why kids were writing on slates or with a rare, expensive pencil more than a hundred years after that!

Re: Feather dip pen

[dialecticdreamer]

If you find a supplier for the metal nibs, PLEASE linky? I haven't had one in almost twenty years!

Re: Feather dip pen

[dialecticdreamer]

Something like this?
https://thecovenscottage.com/products/metal-feather-quill-set-small?variant=43225922666614

[ripplestitch]

Oh!!! They’re even cuter than I expected

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

Some people here are commiserating with you on that 😅😥 that's why everyone is very happy we're looking for fountain pen tips, and not actual feather pens!
The process is fascinating to know though, thank you so much for sharing!

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

We're finding it very useful to browse Vinted for that... We've seen sets of a dozen sold for pennies, and they looked like in good condition

Re: Feather dip pen

[dialecticdreamer]

Some time ago Townsends (James Townsends and sons) put up a set of videos on You Tube that go into the whole process of writing with a quill, including prepping iron gall ink. (Which we also did. The ink was MUCH easier... but the spill stain never did come out of the Formica tabletop.

The Townsends recipes are generally a lot of fun, but particularly hilarious when something goes wrong.

Re: Feather dip pen

[badly_knitted]

That sounds quite fancy, I've never heard of those =)

I'll have to look those up now, I'm curious!

I can imagine there'd be a knack to writing with one though.

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

You definitely need some practice, and you need to learn how to write as much as you can while stopping to dip it in ink as few times as you can. It's a balance than most people are definitely not used to, but it forces you to write slowly and to really think about what you're writing... Very useful for gratitude or personal diary entries, and also for letters

[althea_valara]

SO CUTE!

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! They're small, just under 2 inches in length, but people seem to like them.

Re: Feather dip pen

[dialecticdreamer]

By the by, sorry for the confusion. You said quill pen, not dip pen, so I wasn't sure if you knew what kind of HASSLE was involved. (The iron gall ink ALSO stained the lino, through a layer of newsprint!)

Re: Feather dip pen

[badly_knitted]

I envy anyone who can write neatly with anything, my handwriting has never been good but now my arthritic fingers cramp up when holding a pen for more than a few minutes, so I doubt I'd be able to master the technique, but I can wish. =)

[althea_valara]

I kept checking USPS tracking to see when my needles would arrive, and once they did, walked out to the mailbox IN THE RAIN to retrieve them. I was impatient! Dog didn't seem to mind going out then, either (she's tucked out in her crate right now).

I have always assumed I row out with my purls, so the very first thing I did was put a US5 on one end and US4 on the other to do a swatch for the knitted tee. OH. MY. I am only a few rows into my generously-sized swatch and I'm already enamored with the fabric I'm creating.

Then I made myself do more work. Boo, hiss. (actually I do like my job, it's just not comfortable working on it from mom's laptop)

Now I am going to go back to the swatching. It will be interesting to see if I'm anywhere near gauge. It sure is pretty, though! But I'm going to need to be careful with these needles, they already started coming loose on me once, probably because I didn't tighten them with the tightening tool, just screwed them on.

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! I'm happy with them.

[badly_knitted]

Yay for new needles, and how great that you can attach different sizes! Hope that will fix the problems you've been having.

Perhaps best to use the tightening tool so the needles don't come adrift at a bad moment.

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

We feel you: with hEDS, both us and our partner have difficulty with the kind of movements that involve fine motor control and/or joints...

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

Never heard of the Townsends! Is there a YouTube channel?

Re: Feather dip pen

[kharyn_thequeerecosystem]

Absolutely no worries :) actually we think one of us researched The Hassle™ once, because everything you said was vaguely familiar. But it's difficult to access her memories nowadays, so thanks for the interesting reminder

Re: Feather dip pen

[badly_knitted]

Thanks. Part of getting older, I guess, but knitting helps keep my hands flexible. I hope you and your partner have ways of managing your own issues.

Re: Feather dip pen

[dialecticdreamer]

A HUGE collection of mostly recipe videos. Their historical topics are lovely, too, but it began because Townsends makes replica gear for reenactments, and people kept asking, "But what do I cook?"

My favorite videos are a pair that cross the Townsends with the British Heritage Museum You Tube channel.

The Townsends get a package from Mrs. Crocombe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-x9ZxpPvG0
(His youngest usually is NOT in videos, but it's such a delightfully warm interaction that I don't care that it breaks pattern, LOL)

Mrs. Crocombe gets a package from the Townsend family:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fU43YzYm57s
(If you get caught up watching more of the English Heritage videos, which are largely recipes too, the "staff" are all reenactment employees of the English Heritage Society, and I believe that there's a new "Mrs. Crocombe" in the most recent videos.)

If you notice in the Crocombe video the "don't forget the nutmeg" comment, that's a running joke in the Townsends video because of the number of authentic recipes that use nutmeg in them!

Tightening needles

[dialecticdreamer]

If you are left-handed, you're more likely "unscrewing" slightly when you turn the needles in your hands, moreso than I would as a right-handed person. Use the tool for peace of mind-- ALSO-- using two different color needles helps remind me which row I'm on (wrong side or right side).