October is National Craft-Making Month!

So, that was NaCraMaMo 2023! At first glance, I didn't think I did THAT much. But I counted things up:

Things washed: 12 skeins of yarn, 4 cross-stitch projects

Brown sugar batches: 2

Jewelry repair: 1

Baking sessions: 5

Socks darned: 1

Baby hats knitted: 5

Skeins of yarn prepped for washing: 4

Center pull balls of yarn made: 9

Axolatl toys made: 1

Those numbers look pretty good to me!

I'm been doing pretty well in the challenge in that I am ACTUALLY doing something craft every day, but I fail TERRIBLY in doing the posting part of the challenge.

Day 25

I made brown sugar, because I was completely out of that golden goodness:



[ID:A metal mixing bowl containing brown sugar surrounding a metal paddle on a red mixer. End ID]

then, I finished making the center-pull ball of variegated pastel yarn that I started on the 24th:



[ID: A finished center-pull ball of variegated pastel yarn. End ID]

After that I spent the Wednesday stitch-in completely finishing winding a skein of variegated cool pastel yarn into a center pull ball:



[ID: A finished center-pull ball of variegated cool pastel colors. End ID]

Day 26

I was going through some yarn to make room for some "new" knitting looms that I picked up on the weekend, and came across some eyelash yarn (5 skeins of white, 4 skeins of pink and 1 skein of blue) that I hadn't quite known what to with. I decided to pair a white skein with some textured pink yarn. It looks like it will knit up into a baby hat pretty well.



[ID 8 rows of fuzzy-looking knitting in pink/white yarn on a purple round loom. End ID]

Day 27

I went outside for a while, and I wound a skein of yarn for washing, but forgot to take a photo.

Then I finished up the baby hat. The eyelash yarn did work ok, and the hat is very fuzzy!. I am going to have to be more careful about clean hands, as the dirt really shows on light colors.



[ID: A finished baby hat in very light pink and white fuzzy yarn. End ID]

Then, I wound about 2/3 of a skein of blue/tan/white yarn into a center pull barn, until I hit a tangle and stopped for the evening.



[ID: a partial center-pull ball of blue/tan/white variegated yarn on a cardboard nostepinne. End ID]

Day 28

After I put out a very few Halloween decorations (my kids weren't into decorating this year), I went back to work on the center pull yarn ball that I started on the 27th. I had to start a ball from the other end to make it through the tangles, but I finally finished the ball while attending the Saturday stitch-in.



[ID: a finished center-pull ball of blue/tan/white variegated yarn on a cardboard nostepinne. End ID]

After I finished the ball, I started another baby hat using pink yarn paired with pink eyelash yarn:



[ID: 8 rows of knitting in fuzzy-looking pink yarn on a purple round loom. End ID]

This time period was stupidly busy because it was the Kids' birthday and the other driving parent was gone so I had to shuttle the other kid to activities.

Day 19

We celebrated the kids' birthday a bit early, since one of them would be away for the actual day. I made a double batch of oatmeal cookies as one kid's dessert:



I also made a double batch of chocolate chip cookie dough for the other kid, to be baked the next day:



[ID: Rolls of Chocolate Chip Cookie dough wrapped in parchment paper on a white plate in the freezer. End ID]

I fixed a kid's broken chain clasp:



[ID: 2 photos of a black chain, the first with a broken silver clasp and the second with a new, whole, silver clasp attached. End ID]

I think I also knitted about 5 rows on a baby hat, but forgot to take a photo.

Day 20

I washed 4 skeins of yarn:



[ID: 4 just-washed skeins of yarn of various colors draped over hangers and hung out to dry on a porch beam. End ID]

And made 4 1/2 center-pull yarn balls. The one skein of yarn that's tangled mess is the one that gave me so much trouble getting into a skein for washing.



[ID: 4 center-pull balls of yarn in various colors, and a half-ball wrapped on a cardboard nostepinne, on top of a tangled mess of pastel variegated yarn. End ID]

And I baked a couple of pans of chocolate chip cookies, of which I forgot to take a photo.

Day 21

This day was really quite busy, so all I had the energy to do was bake a couple of pans of chocolate chip cookies (of which I forgot to take a photo), and work on winding the current center-pull ball of yarn. Unfortunately, the yarn got caught on something, and broke, so I'll just wind a second ball of this yarn.



[ID: A center-pull ball of pastel variegated yarn on a cardboard nostepinne, with a tangled mess of the same pastel yarn to the right. End ID]

Day 22

I knitted the last 13 rows on the baby hat:



[ID: 25 rows of white/yellow/orange/pink/blue/purple variegated yarn knitted on a purple round loom. End ID]

And then finished the hat completely. I liked how the yellow bits of the yarn formed almost a lightning bolt. (I didn't plan that!)



[ID: A knitted baby hat made from white/yellow/orange/pink/blue/purple variegated yarn. The yellow and white bit of the yarn form a shape like a lightning bolt (not planned). End ID]

I got that tamed skein of yarn wound into a center pull ball!



[ID: A large center-pull ball of cool-colored variegated yarn. End ID]

Maybe tomorrow, I'll get to actually create more than order from chaos...

Day 9

After a longish day, but a nice visit with my mom over lunch, I only had energy to put 5 more rows in the baby hat, but that included a yarn change:



[ID: 20 rows of knitting, 10 in a reddish yarn and then 9 in a navy blue, followed by 1 row of the red-ish yarn again, on a purple round loom. End ID]

Day 10

A few little things: I found some frames for a couple of small stitched pieces, I finally remembered to bring in the yarn that I washed over the weekend, and I finished the two-toned baby hat! (Weaving in all the ends was time-consuming.)



[ID: A completed baby hat with a wide navy stripe in the middle, bordered by narrower red-ish stripes. End ID]

[Posting a day behind again]

It's still too freaking hot. I went outside in the late afternoon to work on yarn, when the yard was in shade, with a wet towel around my neck and a bunch of ice pops in an insulated bag.

I detangled a few more tangles in the yarn I worked with on Day 5, and got it tamed into a ball:



[ID: A wound ball of detangled baby-pastel variegated yarn. End ID]

Then, I wound that yarn into a skein for washing:



[ID: A large skein of baby-pastel variegated yarn, tied up for washing. End ID]

Then, I wound 2 more skeins of yarn into washings skeins; these were a lot easier to wind, because they were pretty much brand new skeins that had been donated and left in a zip top bag:



[ID: 2 skeins of cool-toned baby-pastel yarn, tied up for washing. End ID]

After dinner, I knitted the final 7 rows on the current baby hat,



[ID: 25 rows of knitted red-ish yarn on a purple round loom. End ID]

and finished the hat by closing the top and tightening the brim.



[ID: A red-ish knitted premie hat. End ID]

I finished assembling the axolotl! It took longer to stuff, close, and attach all the pieces than it did to knit all the pieces!




[ID: A completed knitted axolotl doll, knitted in a variegated gold/white/grey/brown yarn. End ID]

I found the pattern at Loomahat.com !

It was kind of an intense day, so I really didn't get into much. So I watched the instructional video on how to put together the all the pieces of the axolotl. Later on, I washed 4 stitching projects. THAT took a lot longer that I thought it would, and the pieces were really dirtier than I expected, and I discovered a couple of stains on one piece that wouldn't come out, but those should be covered up by the framing, so I'm trying not to sweat it.



[ID: Four now-clean stitching projects, clipped onto 2 hangers for drying with clothes pins. End ID]

Hi all! I am your erstwhile community maintainer and cheerleader. I'm a Domestics Goddess (if you have to manage 5 different diets and preferences and still manage to eat mostly the same meal, you ARE a goddess!), and parent to nearly 12-year-old-twins. I've been dealing with injury, surgery, and mono (and getting ready to jump down the ME/CFS rabbithole) for the past YEAR. I've picked up a few new hobbies, though; I've learned to loom knit (mostly hats and fingerless gloves, but I'm branching out), and darn socks and do decorative mending, and I continue to bead and cross stitch when my brain has the spoons.

As for projects from me, you're probably going to see a lot of knitting, a lot of yarn washing and winding, some WIP finishing (I have a lot of cross stitch projects that need washing, mounting and framing) and probably some mending, because all of those things take less spoons than jewelry design/making and cross stitch counting.

I hope others decide to join in this month!