I definitely have ebbs and flows to my… I don’t know how to put it. Online participation? It’s a complicated issue, and one of the reasons why I created this blog. Mostly so I wasn’t the product; I wasn’t being advertised to, it wasn’t frenetic. It was just a space to post stuff, and maybe write.
The tide is turning on social media, and I know a lot of people feel it. It’s too fast, it’s too much, it’s too much advertising. You’re caught in a tide rather than riding the wave. I like the idea of instagram (the only social media I’m actively using), but the practice is getting farther and farther removed from what I like about it. But I’ve also made some wonderful connections on there with people who have become actual friends (both online and in real life). Since they changed hashtags now to basically be completely useless, I’ve really stopped wanting to bother. Unless you have a thousand likes you won’t show up anywhere, and that makes it really hard to find the cool small creators that I love to find.
So what I have been doing lately is sitting quietly, and making my stuff when I have a moment. I’ve been knitting a bigger size of Storyline for the baby (I will call her that until she absolutely won’t let me anymore). I’m using left over yarn from my Storyline (I always use so much less yarn than their patterns call for). I’ve been making smaller quilted items which I’ve dubbed Quilted Things. Having no plans what to do with them, I’ve attached hangers on the back during the binding process so they can be hung, but that’s not necessarily what they’ll be for.
I’ve been doing some much needed mending too, since things have been in my basket for far too long. I spun a skein of yarn, which was a lovely thing to do since I haven’t done that since Tour de Fleece last year.
And gardening. That’s the thing right now. This time of year there is a deep desire to get my hands dirty again, which I have been doing in full force. I’ve even joined the community garden so I can have a bit more space; mostly for potatoes and zucchini.
When I’m not gardening though, I’m particularly drawn to hand stitching these days. I received Arounna Khounnoraj’s Embroidery book for my birthday that I want to dive into. I tried embroidery a few years ago, and it didn’t really stick. But I find her things particularly inspiring, so I’m looking forward to trying some of those projects.
I’ve been working on a stitch book as well. Not an embroidery stitch sampler book, but a book that is using my various naturally dyed scraps that are too small to do anything else with. This one is a longer-term project, and I’m not sure something I’ll share here. We’ll see. But I am using this method for creating the book.
I’ve started making some jean/canvas tote bags out of my old pants. The past 18-ish months I’ve been doing some slow and steady weight loss, which is not something I talk too much about here or online in general. Like a lot of people, I gained a bit of weight during the pandemic, but during pregnancy I gained way more, and it’s been a process to lose that weight. Slow and steady has worked, albeit frustrating at times, but it also necessitated a few purchases of pants throughout that time. Which means I now have more pants than I like that don’t fit me.
I could donate them, but I’m always hesitant to do that because I hate the idea of my old clothes (which are perfectly good!) ending up in the Atacama desert. So, I’m making tote bags instead using Svetlana Skumanicova’s super easy to follow video tutorial. I’ve purchased a few of her bag patterns in the past, and I absolutely love everything she does, and her stuff is incredibly easy to follow.
So as you can see, it’s a lot of bits and bobs here and there. Which I’m good with right now. Sometimes I like to delve in and really focus on one project; other times I’m doing a bunch of smaller things kind of randomly. I’m gearing up for my next big quilt, which still requires some dyeing and deciding on exactly what colour I want as my background, so smaller projects that let my mind wander are perfect right now.