Planet Nice Crafts

Looking back at the blog’s archives, I discovered that a January post has occurred EVERY year since Planet Nice Crafts' inception in 2018 and now 2025 with the 8 th is no different. The holiday season is wrapping up with Lunar New Year in a couple weeks and of course Valentine’s Day next month. We have had a wonderfully cold winter here in the Chicago area. I am completely serious, I much more prefer 20 degrees than 45 but I do have limits, single and negative digits are pushing it. It just feels right to be a little chilly and hopefully with experience and wisdom, I know how to handle it better and better. The sunlight has been spectacular and even now, the longer days are noticeable. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, the pictures of the wildfires in the Los Angeles area give a feeling of horror – thinking a lot about the people who have been affected. In January posts of the past, baking is a major topic and is no different in 2025. There were six fruitcakes, three t...

Hello Everyone! I hope you have thrived in at least one way during this hot summer. The summer that had kick in it until yesterday?  Now on to Fall or Autumn. All is well here; some extra self-care was required because allergies were worse than in previous years. But there is nothing wrong with more self-care. Not much free time devoted to crafts except for a session on repair work that had been stacking up. What has been happening and this is the big REVEAL is the development of PLANET NICE ODYSSEY (PNO) on Etsy. YES! Okay this is not official yet as I haven't signed up, but I'm getting there. What is this new adventure? I haven’t exactly drafted a mission statement but in macro terms I would say it is a presentation of craft materials, goods, and experiences/services by the practitioner of Planet Nice Crafts, me. The purpose of this blog and PNO is to share my adventures in crafts with some baking, gardening, jigsaw puzzles, reading, and other hobbies of necessity (plumbi...

I apologize greatly Earthlings for postponing a blog post time and time again. Planet Nice is still in existence..it is still rotating on its axis…it is just stretched a little too thin from time to time. I was able to take a short fieldtrip to the Art Institute of Chicago with the main purpose of seeing the Georg Jensen: Scandinavian Design for Living special exhibit (the closing date was September 9 th ). It was very worthwhile: many silver pieces and a few furniture and other home product pieces in addition to the background information on the designers and their sketches. The notable time periods were Art Deco and the iconic, sleek Mid-century modern. I never know if photos in museums will turn out worthwhile so I focused only on the chairs, but in two of the photos you can see tableware pieces in the background. Here is the sample: The one below has a light fixture too, I believe its style is called artichoke - very similar aesthetic to the pieces I saw on my travels ...

The last summer school assignment was completed last Friday so now I have three weeks before the Fall semester begins. It sounds like a long time but it will be filled with catch-up activities such as creating blog posts 😊. Knitting continues. Planet Nice Crafts did make the goal of having FOUR knitting entries for the Lake County Fair. Here they are: Yes, there are some additions that have not been mentioned before. The hat utilizing the 5-ply dark green cashmere yarn was completed since the last post; the pattern is “Milanese Lace Topper” by Tante Ehm with a modification. I like the pattern for this chunkier yarn, but towards the end there were several mistakes in the lace pattern SO I may rip it out and re-do it. Every row has lace stitches and keeping the pattern required uninterrupted concentration, unfortunately, with looming assignments and late nights, there were plenty of breaks in concentration hence the mistakes. It did have a photo shoot on the head mannequin...

Planet Nice really enjoys the month of World Cup as it provides the best background to the crafting activities. Duration is long so you have a full day, this year from 7 AM to about 3:30 pm, to give the environment a little extra energy. This post is a couple days later than I wanted; this semester, school is a full-time venture and I am attempting to keep disciplined, putting homework before Planet Nice. As for project updates, a reverse in orbit has occurred since I last posted. Here is a picture of the headband: No, you are not seeing things. It IS the yarn back in a ball. The previous headband was going very well and there was yarn left so it did grow to a cap. A problem arose when I washed the cap, it stretched and grew to a very large size! I was hoping for a bit of shrinkage but I received quite the opposite. After trying three attempts to shrink it, one even involving the use of a microwave and reading that this was not uncommon for superwash wool – I decided that...

With a break in school, the industriousness of Planet Nice has increased. This will be short-lived as Summer semester starts next week. A planetnicecrafts Instagram account was opened and there is a widget showing the photos on the Blog’s website ( planetnicecrafts.blogspot.com ). A preliminary logo was used in the profile: The first photo is a crayfish so not a craft project. The goal is to explore how Instagram can be used along with the Blog, there will be a wider breadth of photography topics than the Blog and some photos will display Photoshop’s more artistic tools. The craft projects, however, will remain the bread and butter of Planet Nice Crafts. The next knitting project was started with this: It is Lorna’s Laces 100% superwash wool, leftover from a pair of socks knitted a couple years ago. It is a quite fine wool yarn and again, I had only a very rough idea of how much yarn remained. I decided to go for a hat but knew that most likely it would be a headba...

Though the hours of daylight have been increasing as we march to the Summer Solstice, here in the workshop of Planet Nice, there has been a loss of ambient light. How? Is this evidence that the workshop is truly on another planet? No, the workshop is not on a different planet but now that the trees have budded out and the leaves are nearly full size, the great Southern windows are shaded. Though ambient light is now more strongly filtered, the advantage is that temperatures are almost always comfortable no matter how hot it gets outside…humidity is another story. 😉 An update to the cashmere neck warmer or scarfette is well – here goes. It made it to 8 inches: Then it made it to the previous goal of 15 inches with plenty of yarn left: The FINAL length is 24.5”, which is a wonderful length for a scarfette. So, I am very very pleased because at this length, it can be a useful item for someone. The knitting did become familiar but because of the multi-ply nature of ...

Hello loyal readers! Now that the quilt is finished, time yesterday was spent on planning the next projects for Planet Nice. Thank you to those who took the survey – it was fun to collect some data and it did influence the decision process. The most attractive time periods of design were post-World War II or Mid-Century Modern and the big block between the two World Wars with Art and Crafts, Art Deco, and Art Nouveau. The most popular project types were women’s clothing and home accessories. There are endless possibilities here. After looking at the survey results, I started going through my existing supplies: books, fabrics, patterns, laces, kits, and everything else. I did want to have a project that was more portable this time, because I am hoping to make it to Needlework Night at the local library to spread the joy of Planet Nice! And, I would like to have a project that minimized the supplies necessary to be purchased. One of the motivations of Planet Nice is to start using ...