Feeding the Social Media Monster

A theme has popped up among several of the content creators I follow. It fascinates me because it’s a form of groupthink that emerges independently but simultaneously. Johanna Lundstrom and Malena Hjerpe discussed it at length in this week’s episode of their podcast, Stitching Tales. Those of us who call ourselves content creators are all struggling with marketing and the need to feed the social media monster.

I hate Instagram. I may have to have DD#2 sit down with me for an hour or two and show me what to do. It doesn’t help that 1) I don’t like doing anything on my phone and 2) almost every time I try to look at IG, it thinks I am a bot and makes me go through an annoying verification process. There is a way to trick IG into thinking my desktop computer is a phone—I installed the developer tools plug-in—but I still don’t know what I am doing.

The people who seem to have a strong social media presence either hire staff or have children who are part of their businesses. I said to the husband that we should have had more kids. He asked me if this was the modern equivalent of not having enough labor to help with farm chores. (Yes.) Sherri McConnell’s son, Billy, does all of their YouTube videos, and her daughter Chelsi—who also has a quilting business—does the bulk of their fabric line design work. Kate McIvor, owner of The Confident Stitch and the guest on this week’s podcast, has an employee with a side hustle theatre company.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of spending so much time feeding the social media monster that I don’t have time to be creative. Social media posting can be a form of creativity, but it’s not one that interests me. If the podcast keeps growing at its current rate, I think I may have to hire help.

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Of note, all of the commercial pattern company patterns have disappeared from the Joann Fabrics website. I’m teaching a class in town today and may stop in at our Joanns store on my way home just to see if anything there has changed.

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I get so discombobulated at this time of year. Other people struggle with the gloom of winter; I struggle with the transition to a different routine and more demands on my time. And this rollercoaster of weather doesn’t help, either. Preparing for winter is much easier than preparing for summer, even with all of the harvesting and food storage work.

Right now, I am frustrated by a bottleneck in my sewing workflow. I want to work on that Portsmith Tote, but I’ve been waiting for the tension assembly part for the Necchi BV. (It is supposed to arrive today.) Yesterday afternoon, I made T-shirts for two little boys. I’ve been collecting knit fabrics featuring trains, fire engines, and construction equipment—all things that bring joy to Susan’s grandsons—and I thought that getting started on some T-shirts would be a good, quick project. It was, until I couldn’t locate any black knit ribbing fabric for the neckbands. I know I have several pieces, because I buy the remnants at Joanns when I see them. All of my garment fabrics are sorted into labeled bins. I found the white ribbing fabric, but the black ribbing fabric is MIA.

Four T-shirts are waiting for neckbands. I’ll either have to get some ribbing at Joanns or wait until the black ribbing resurfaces. (I don’t want to make self-fabric neckbands because I want these to be stretchy enough to get over little heads.) I may go ahead and make the rest of the T-shirts and do all the neckbands in one fell swoop.

I do much better when my routine is settled and I can be productive. Now is not that time of year and it is driving me nuts.