Day: 4 October 2008

craft, miscellaneous, musings

Why have a craft blog?

I’ve been blogging since February 2007 – so for well over a year and a half now.  Lately I’ve been wondering why I blog, and why others blog.  I started my blog when I first found craft blogs (I stumbled across Heather Bailey’s blog when googling for a headband pattern, and from then on I was hooked).  I figured that “hey, I sew and make things – I can do some show and tell too”!  My mother lives in the country and I’m in the city, so it’s also a way of keeping her up to date with what I’ve been making.  However, I’ve discovered that there are both pros and cons to having a craft blog.  Will I start with the positives that I can identify?

  • community – the support and encouragement of other crafters.  Those comments mean so much!
  • motivation – having a craft blog keeps me going with my projects instead of having them lapse into UFO territory.
  • inspiration – there are so many ideas so generously shared.
  • instruction – all those tips and tutorials!  Thanks so much to everyone who comes up with them – tutorials are incredibly helpful and I’m sure that they are very time-consuming to prepare.
  • connection – with family and friends, and with the friends I’ve made online.
  • record – blogging my projects means that they are recorded for posterity (well, until WordPress decides that they’ve had enough of archiving blog posts).
  • advice – whenever I have a crafty problem, there is usually someone who can help.
  • business – although this doesn’t apply to me, if you have a craft-related business then blogging is a brilliant way to lift your profile and connect with potential customers.
  • real life friends – I’ve met some of my blog friends in real life!  Wow!

Birthday flowers by you.

But there are also some negatives:

  • time – wow, blogging sucks up time.  And I only do the basics.  My posts are pretty simple, my blog isn’t fancy, I don’t use photoshop or other programs to pretty up my pictures, I have a basic camera and just take quick snaps.  Let alone the time taken READING blogs and responding to comments.  Which is why I don’t respond as often as I should.
  • feelings of inadequacy – so many craft bloggers are SO DAMN GOOD!  They’re good at their craft, they’re great at writing, their posts are funny, witty and informative.  They post tutorials, they do giveaways, they leave comments for lots of other bloggers.  They get many more comments than I do.  There is just no way that I can hope to measure up.
  • overexposure – sometimes I have seen fabrics so often on craft blogs that by the time they are available here, I am over them!  They lose that freshness and newness.  Although there is always more newness coming up.
  • pressure – the problem of too many “shoulds”!  I should respond to every comment.  I should leave more comments.  I should be more encouraging of others.  I should make my blog look better.  I should take better photos.  I should post more often.  I should be more interesting.  I should be funnier.  I should do giveaways.  I should participate in more memes.  I should, I should, I should.

At the moment my life is a little overwhelmed by all the shoulds, and maybe that is impacting on how I see blogging.  I’m a little down in the dumps (financial pressures, work and motherhood, yada yada yada) and have lost confidence in many areas.  Maybe blogging is just one of those areas – or maybe I do really suck a bit at blogging.  After all, I have never kept a diary – someone might find it and discover what I really think and feel and what I’m really like – and we’d never want that now, would we!  Okay, enough of my public pity party (especially since Mum will be reading this too, and I don’t want to worry her – I’m okay really Mum, you know that)!

Why do YOU have a craft blog?  Or if you don’t have one, but read them avidly (yes you Kerry) why DON’T you have a craft blog?  I’m certainly going to keep mine going, despite the negatives (that are currently weighing a little too heavily).  What could you add to my lists?  I really would love to know what others think.

by thornberry
fabric stash, sewing

Share your stash week – Saturday

Saturday’s instalment of June’s stash belongs to Liberty print silk (yes, the selvedge has the magic words “Liberty of London” printed on it):

June's stash 4 - Liberty silk by you.

and then there are these two sheer fabrics.

June's stash 2 by you.

All of June’s stash has been sitting in my stash for a while now.  I have used a fair amount of it, but there was so much to start with that there is barely a dent!  Tomorrow I’ll show you the 80s polyester prints (which are very likely to stay in my stash forever – I have no idea how I’d ever use them).

Back to the Liberty print theme – I also have this Liberty tana lawn given to me by a friend.

Liberty tana lawn by you.

It’s large enough for me to make a sleeveless top for myself.  Thanks again to Pip for Share Your Stash week – I’m really enjoying seeing the fabrics in other people’s stashes.

Prompted by Hoppo Bumpo’s musing on why she stashes fabric, I considered my own reasons.  I have been stashing fabric for some years now, originally in plastic boxes (before I got my lovely new sewing room – it’s all on shelves now).  Until recently I’ve stashed fabrics for dressmaking.  Now I stash fabrics for bagmaking, quilting, dressmaking, and crafts that are yet to come.  I used to buy fabrics for specific projects, but over the past few years I have found that often the fabric will inspire the project, so now I buy fabrics that I like and wait for the project idea to strike.  The chicken or the egg – which comes first, the fabric or the project/pattern?  I tend to buy fabric when it is on sale, when it is something that I use a lot of, when it is something that I need for a particular project, or when it is something that I love.  I love having my fabrics on open shelves, because I enjoy looking at the colours and textures and considering the potential that they contain.

by thornberry