Old Skool Blogging

Back in ye olden days, circa 2008, when I started blogging, blogs were more like personal journals that you shared with cyberspace. These days there seems to be more focus, both in terms of writing (clearly, most people are not posting their first drafts) and in terms of the content shared (yay for all those picture tutorials). Also, I don't remember more than a handful of bloggers making money off of their blogs and now there are professional bloggers with sponsors. (Good for you! If I could pull it off, I totally would.)

I was reading how when you start blogging as a paying endeavor (full-time or not), you have to be more mindful of more than just what you want to write. Does your sponsor require that you make a project with one of their products? Or at least mention them regularly? Did you remember to disclose affiliated links? (As an aside, does anyone really care? I mean if I'm reading your blog and you link to something that I want to buy and you make some money off the transaction I don't see what the big deal is unless that item somehow costs me more because you are getting a commission. But I digress...) Do you feel pressured to post tutorials as soon as you figure out how to make something? (Again, total sidebar, I read one blogger who was concerned that this pressure has led to some bloggers posting tutorials for techniques that they barely know, thereby possibly leading others down the wrong path.)

I feel like I'm still stuck in the old skool paradigm but everything has shifted. Ironically enough, at work I'm considered the most tech-savvy. I like computers and I usually understand the logic of how everything works so when we get error messages I can figure out what's wrong. However, I never really got into social media (I'm talking about Friendster and the inital incarnations of MySpace and Facebook). Now there are so many outlets, the big ones being FB, Pinterest, Flickr (making a comeback), MySpace (also making a comeback by specializing a little more), Instagram, Google+ and SnapChat. I can't keep up with them all and I'm feeling a little lost in terms of which really fit my need to find an online community (since I haven't found one IRL) and in which I can realistically participate.

How cute from www.peachpops.com

Dude, I don't even know what some of those icons are for...

How do you decide which ones you want to participate in? How do you keep up when you have a job, kids, and never seem to have enough time for non-essentials? (Seriously, I have yet to figure out how to get more than 6 hours total of sleep and that doesn't include the days I just say f* it and stay up to do something just for me.)

A List and A Prayer

I'm putting my plan out there to help me stay focused and actually finish some things. Knowing me, I'm giving myself lots of time to complete it.

So here is what I'm hoping to accomplish in the next year (in no particular order):

1. finish the 3 (oops make that 4) quilts I started and never finished
2. make the Marlborough bra
3. make the Lakeside Pajamas
4. make Vogue V1419, aka the Ralph Rucci coat

I have purchased the fabric for #2-4 and (in theory) have all the fabric for the quilts in #1.

Now this may seem rather random but there is a method to the madness. First, those quilts are actually all pretty far along except for the 4th. I've slowly been acquiring what I need to complete them so the real challenge will be finding the time since 2 really just need the quilting done. For me at least, quilting is not something I can do in short spurts. As for the rest of the sewing list, I'll get into more detail with project posts but I decided to go with things I want to make and wear rather than "easy" (or apparently logical). We'll see how that adventure turns out.

The first quilt on my radar is one I started years ago, Lover's Knot by Eleanor Burns. Seriously, I think it was 2007.  I started this for a friend's little girl who is not so little so anymore. I think it will just become a lap quilt for the house. Technically its still big enough for the girl in question but (1) I would feel compelled to have something equally awesome for child #2 and (2) I really like this one and don't really want to part with it.

I stalled out on this one because I never found a backing fabric that I felt went with the top. There are 2 fabrics that I purchased but neither really worked for me so it just fell to the wayside. Since then, I have discovered that you can just make a pieced back however you want. I know, it seems so obvious now in retrospect. Don't judge me. To give you some background, I had only taken a couple of quilting classes at this point and backing fabric was always something purchased separately to cover the entire back. It never occurred to me that I could create a pieced back. Cue the modern quilting that I have "discovered" and I went back and pieced the fabric that I had left from the original.

I think the back is a little smaller but I have a plan for how I'm going to make it work. I picked up some metallic pink quilting thread and all I need is to get the fabric adhesive spray to baste this together and then some straight line quilting. If I get this basted this weekend, I could, just maybe, actually get this done before the end of the month. I'll keep you posted.

I've seen lots of other lists making the rounds in the blogosphere--what do you have on your agenda? Do you make realistic plans or just go all out, sky's the limit type planning?