Hello there! In our household, school finished for the year yesterday (for one of my boys) and so that means, today is the first day of my Summer Craft Challenge for 2025!
In case you haven’t come across one of my Summer Craft Challenges before, it first started way back on 9th July 2016. At the time, I was living in Gibraltar with my family. I was a full-time stay-at-home Mum, I had 3 young men in my life (aged 12, 8 and 4 at that time) and I was staring down the barrel of a 10-week-long school summer break.
Having lived in Gibraltar for 7 years by then, I was well used to the chaos of the long summer break. I would often find myself at home, parenting alone for long stretches due to my former husband’s work schedule and frequent trips away. It was hard work.
Being creative is amazingly important to me for supporting my mood. If I go for too long without making something – I get grumpy!
So, back in 2016 I challenged myself to do something crafty every day of that 10-week-long holiday (even if it was only for 5 minutes), take a photo of myself doing it and post it to Instagram to keep me accountable and it worked! Not only did I feel better but I had a nice crafty photo diary of my summer!
(This was my first ever Summer Craft Challenge Photo – taken on 9th July 2016 in our back patio as we enjoyed a start of the summer holiday barbecue).
My Summer Craft Challenge wasn’t just for days when we were at home, my projects came away with us on family holidays including in 2016 when we visited the Norfolk Broads!
Always having a project with me wherever I was during the summer holidays meant that sometimes I just found myself in the perfect situation to take a photo of what I was working on including when I took my Little Box of Crochet project (designed by Eleonora Tully from Coastal Crochet) away with me to finish on holiday in Southwold in Suffolk in 2018.
It has come on planes with me – along with my mascot for the summer of 2017 – Europa the Unicorn, who accompanied the family to England, France, Italy & Portugal that year – much to the embarrassment of my boys! (I made Europa on the first day of my Summer Craft Challenge 2017 using a kit from Simply Crochet Magazine).
I continued working on that shawl while escaping the heat of the midday sun in Carcasonne in Southern France in 2017.
My crochet also joined me on the beach in Portugal! (2017)
Not all of my summer making has been in such exotic locations though, I’ve done sock knitting between rain showers at the top of a hill in the West of Scotland! (2022)
Oh the glamour of knitting on a wet and windy Scottish hillside… I enjoyed it so much the last time, I did it again last year!
And that brings me bang up to date and this year’s challenge. It kicks off today and I have decided it was appropriate to begin with making a little heart for the North West and North Wales Paediatric Transport Service yarny hearts appeal which my last blog post was all about. (Please, if you can make a trio of matching hearts for the appeal, it would be very much appreciated!).
I love my Summer Craft Challenge, even though life is so different now to how it was when I first started, we are now a family of 4, my boys are 21, 17 & 13 and I work now too, so my time is a lot more limited than it once was. However, doing this reminds me of lovely summer memories of days gone by and it still helps keep me on an even keel with the juggle of work, family and everything else.
The best thing about the Summer Craft Challenge though is when others join in. Each year, the number of people joining in has grown and grown and that’s so lovely. If you want to join, please do – you don’t need to commit to doing it every day (sometimes I can’t manage it these days) but you are very welcome to dip in and out at any time. If you share a photo of your current project online, please use the hashtag #SummerCraftChallenge2025 so everyone can see what you’ve been up to! Please do give it a go – the more the merrier!
I’ll be sharing my photos daily on Instagram and writing a weekly blog post looking back at what I’ve been up to as well. I can’t wait to see what you get up to yourself though!
Happy Summer Crafting!
Lindsay x
What a lovely idea, I look forward to seeing what you work on!
Thanks so much! I do enjoy these challenges such a lot! 😊