I have been blogging for sixteen years! My first blog was on March 18th 2007 and I wrote about creating a snail trail quilt using my embroidery machine – I never did finish that quilt.
810 posts and 1234 images
Back in the early days it was all about the quilting and the sewing. I did a lot of machine embroidery. I made the girls applique t-shirts for Easter and Christmas
And I went through a phase of making embroidered patchwork cards
I thought I could somehow turn my craft into a viable business, I tried making personalised T-Shirts. I went to that disastrous market and I even set up an Etsy store, but it was just a big fat failure.
And then, in January 2008, my love affair with knitting socks started. Over the years, I have had a lot of knitting failures; necklines too small, necklines too big, but the socks were always reliable. As far as my knitting goes, I am most proud of my Chemo blanket and Miss A’s blanket.
I was very chuffed with my Advent Calendar, which we still use every year
I have included book reviews and baking (I don’t do much baking now days).
In 2015, I started a Canvas work class, cue my interest in hand embroidery, in particular counted embroidery.
And I have bought so many hoops, embroidery stands, Q snaps (twice because I gave the first lot away!), but I think I have now settled on my lowery stand
Now that I look back over the past sixteen years, I can see that my more successful projects involved machine embroidery (why did I stop?). Miss A’s quilt (the sampler quilt) stopped me quilting altogether. I love doing cross stitch. My stash purchasing (for all crafts) is far greater than my ability to use these supplies and this makes me feel guilty.
A few knitting things I’m proud of
Machine embroidery
My redback spider costume
My hand embroidery sampler
What will happen in the next sixteen years?
Hopefully, I will finally finish the Sampler Quilt! And get back into more machine embroidery, more sock knitting, more cross stitch, more blanket knitting, maybe some shawls, more book reviews, and possibly a bit of weaving.
I get so much joy, contentment and satisfaction from crafting, despite not being very good at it. I now feel that I can do it simply because I enjoy it, with no need to turn it into some kind of side hustle.