Hello there, here’s the first installment of my Summer Craft Challenge for this year. In case you missed my last post or are new to the blog, back in 2016, when we lived in Gibraltar and I was a full-time stay at home Mum to three young boys, I was staring down the barrel of a 10 week long summer school holiday.

Whilst I loved being at home with my boys, the prospect of entertaining them for 10 weeks filled me with slight trepidation, so in order to force myself to spend a bit of time each day doing something that gave me joy, I set myself the challenge of doing something crafty every single day. I started it, not knowing if I’d be able to achieve my target, but I did. I also amazed myself at how much I actually created.

So, each summer since then (apart from in 2020) I have repeated my challenge – some years have been better than others! Here is Week 1 of this year’s challenge:

Day 1 : Saturday 22nd July

I started off my day with some calm crochet before the storm that was about to be a 12th birthday party and sleep over…. (should read ‘not-much-sleep’ over). I sat in my pjs as the rest of the house was quiet and hooked up a few rows on the prototype of a crochet commission I’m currently working on.

I also managed some crochet while I sat and waited for the birthday boy and his friends to finish their Laser Quest session!

Day 2 : Sunday 23rd July

Sunday was a quiet one. Once our guests had departed and the house had been returned to ‘normal’ I spent a lot of time just sitting and crocheting (and not feeling guilty about it due to the lack of sleep the night before).

Day 3 : Monday 24th July

No time for a long lazy day on the sofa on Monday, back to work for me but at least it was a nice sunny evening when I took Youngest to football training. I took my project with me, sat on a bench with a couple of other football Mums and chatted while I hooked – it was very pleasant!

Day 4 : Tuesday 25th July

I can’t show you what I hooked on Tuesday as it’s for a top secret project but when I saw these two balls of yarn side by side I was sent on a trip down memory lane to my childhood and some chewy mints called Pacers. Do you remember Pacers?

Day 5 : Wednesday 26th July

Time for a bit of non-commission crochet for a change. I picked up this shawl I’ve been working on for a while, my aim is to get this completed over this challenge – there’s really not much left to do, but I keep doing a bit and putting it down – it’s taking forever!

Day 6 : Thursday 27th July

It was a super busy day full of Zoom meetings for me, then a hectic evening later so I knew my crochet time would be limited. I opted to crochet during one of the 15 minute comfort breaks in the midst of my working day – it’s all looking a bit black though isn’t it?!

Day 7 : Friday 28th July

I did such a lot of crochet on Friday but alas I cannot share it. What I can share is this cute bunny who was completed exactly a week ago ready to move in with his new family 🩵. I started him at a Crochet Sanctuary away day in March (the same one I made my Mindful Mandala at which was featured in my previous post), and I held off finishing him until his new owner had safely arrived – I’m pleased to say baby & and bunny have met and are getting on together just fine!

That’s it for this week’s Summer Craft Challenge, do you fancy joining in? If so, just tag any of your photos with #summercraftchallenge2023 on Instagram and we can all share our summer of creativity together.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lindsay x