To Blog Or Not to Blog?

I have some thoughts on blogging today, like, “How much is too much?” and “Is blogging obsolete?” My answer to the first question is that I am not holding a gun to people’s heads and forcing them to read what I write. Three to four times a week seems to be a good frequency of posts. However, there are times when the words just need to come out. I am also one of those people who gets frustrated when I find a great blog, but the posts are few and far between and don’t seem to be produced on any kind of consistent schedule. I’ve got 30+ blogs in my Bloglovin’ feed and probably only a third of those bloggers post regularly. I would rather err on the side of posting too much than posting too little.

The second question was prompted by a podcast I listened to yesterday for the first time. It’s called the Very Serious Crafts Podcast. It’s produced by three women—all professional makers—who discuss crafting and business. It’s a relatively new podcast and it has potential, although the hosts need to do a better job of staying on topic. (If I wanted to listen to someone talk about cats for 20 minutes, I would listen to a cat-themed podcast.) The subject of blogging came up and there seemed to be consensus among the three of them that “the heyday of blogging is over.”

That made me instantly depressed for about 20 minutes. After I went and looked at their blogs and thought more about what they were saying and the context in which they were saying it, however, I came to the conclusion that yes, certain kinds of blogging are probably on their way out. I am specifically thinking of the genre of blogging that I refer to as “mommy blogging.” These are the blogs full of ads designed to generate extra income, or the ones containing (supposedly unbiased) reviews for products provided for free by manufacturers. They are heavily dependent on traffic and clicks. A lot of the craft-themed blogs in this category were started in order to attract book deals from publishers. Those kinds of blogs seemed to have been abandoned in favor of Instagram posting.

Endless reviews and ad revenue generation have never been (and never will be, for that matter) the goals of this blog. I am very clear that the purpose of this blog is to have a place to park my thoughts and document my life. If others of you find it entertaining and want to come along for the ride, I’m thrilled. I think there will always be a place for blogs whose intent is to provide thoughtful content. Those are the blogs that I, personally, like to read. I don’t want to have to sift through a bunch of ads or product reviews to find nuggets of information.

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We have some kind of animal(s) tearing around the walls and ceiling of our house. I am hoping it’s not the weasel, which—coincidentally—I have not seen outside since Tuesday. I was making breakfast yesterday morning and it sounded like a herd of buffalo running back and forth above our heads. Fortunately, the husband was in the kitchen with me and heard the same noise, so he couldn’t accuse me of exaggerating (much). The pager went off at 3 a.m. this morning for a fire call (a tree on fire that was extinguished before he even got dressed), and as we were lying there, trying to go back to sleep, we could hear something—multiple somethings, in fact—racing around in the wall next to our bed. I banged on the wall and told whatever it was to go back to sleep.

It’s a darned shame that black rat snakes aren’t indigenous to Montana.

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It took me an hour to get the belt back on the industrial serger yesterday morning, mostly thanks to my inability to translate what I was seeing in the manual to what I was seeing in front of me. I didn’t have the energy or desire to go any further, so I didn’t. I still need to thread it and check the oil level before I turn it on.

Instead, I went upstairs and communed with fabric. I am still working through the pile of fabric I got in Spokane. It’s all been washed and now needs to be pressed. I made significant progress on the supply of half-square triangles for the 2019 Ritzville quilt. That quilt is going to be 90% prep work and 10% actually sewing things together. Some projects are like that. It’s a good thing I like the prep work as much as I like sewing.

I have handwork:

I sat and worked on this last night while the husband watched car and truck videos on YouTube. He wanted to see what I had done. I showed him and explained the process, and he said, “I didn’t hear any swearing so it must not be that complicated.” It’s not. It’s relaxing and just what I needed.

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I happened to visit the Accuquilt website yesterday (thanks to a link from another blogger) and noticed that they have a new die for sale. (I can’t borrow a picture from their website, unfortunately.) It’s a die for the Cleopatra’s Fan quilt block. About 18 months ago, I bought fabric for this pattern intending to make a quilt with it. The fabric is in the Art Deco style, as is the Cleopatra’s Fan quilt block, and I thought they made a great pairing. The reason I haven’t started it is because the quilt block is rather complex. It consists of something like 10 pieces, all of which would have to be cut out using plastic templates. I thought it was a shame that Accuquilt didn’t have a die for it but lo and behold!—now they do. It’s on sale this week for $79.99 (from a regular price of $99.99). I am going to wait before I buy it, though. These dies go on sale every so often and I’m not ready to start that quilt yet. I’m just happy to see that the die is available.