I’m very glad to have been pretty regular about posting through the last year through all the changes my family has gone through. So thanks for sticking around and being a reader or commentator.
As the friendly ghost at my dentist’s office says: “Boo-lieve in yourself!”
Last year I wrote a long post about this blog's 18th anniversary. I kind of covered it all there looking backwards over all these years keeping up this blog. As you know, I've definitely had varied results each year, sometimes a lot more regularly than others. This year I wanted to look forwards instead to the year 2042. (How sci fi does that sound?) I will be almost 78 then, will I still be making stuff and blogging about it? I hope so!
Will blogger still exist 19 years from now? It seems so improbable that it's remained for these 19 years, doesn't it? With the way various tech platforms come and go in and out of our lives (do you remember live journal?) it doesn't seem possible that blogger will still be around in nineteen *more* years. Maybe it will still exist but be in a different form. I could see it being integrated within other apps we all regularly use. Will there still be the digital divide between Apple products and everything else? Or will there be some industry standard imposed by actual US government regulation? Don't laugh, it could happen--maybe.
Here's to hoping that there is still some way for non-journalists to write like this publicly in nineteen years. And even more generally, here's to hoping we all make it to the year 2042 with the ability to connect, converse, and share beauty and creativity. Thanks for coming along on the ride with me, I appreciate it more than I can express here.
Well, it's that day of the year, my blog-i-versary. Way back in 2004, eighteen years ago, I started this blog, a lot unsure about what exactly it would be for, and what purpose it would serve for me. It's been a lot of things over all of these years, but in the here and now, I see it as a record for myself, of what I've done and how much (or how little) I've changed.
Back in 2004 I was 39 years old, my oldest was about to turn 11, my youngest was 9, our house was quite a bit smaller than it is now, and I had a teeny tiny sewing room. I had been quilting for a few years and had recently thrown myself into what was then called "art quilting" and wow was I ever into it! I was sewing on my very basic Pfaff and doing a lot of dyeing and fabric design. I shared very very blurry photos on here, taken with our first digital camera.
And now I am still here blogging, now 57, my oldest is about to turn 29 (what!?), and my youngest is 27, our house has greatly expanded, and so has my sewing room. I have been quilting this whole time, and am on my second Janome. I'm not dyeing or surface designing like I used to and I have a hard to imagine back in 2004, totally great camera in my cellphone.
It's interesting to look back at that first post where I referenced three blogs that had inspired to start my own, out of those three, one of them is still going. Musing In Textile, Dijanne Cevaal's blog as always been inspiring over the years. One of the others, is someone I actually know from the old days in a yahoogroups, and have even met in person (so wonderful), and she has been documenting her stuff mostly on Facebook. The other, I have no idea and honestly do not even recall her work I am quite sorry to say and well, the blog is just gone.
The infinite cats website I highlighted in my second ever post is still up, but I'm not sure if it's being updated. But they are up to 1,856 cats in the chain which is quite a lot more than required for the cats to take the world back over according the Neil Gaiman's The Sandman - Dream of A Thousand Cats.
I'm glad I've kept blogging, for a lot of reasons. The continuity of it as a personal history of my artistic interest and endeavors is useful to me. Personally though, the publicness of it is sometimes challenging. I'm glad to have kept up some personal connections here by sharing my work and thoughts, etc. In this current era of influencer as a career choice, it's a bit odd to be off here in blog-land still doing my thing. But it works for me, and I'm really glad you're still here reading along.
Happy 17th birthday to my blog.
Here's a mosaic of some of my favorite pictures of just this last year. 
Zelda, on the other hand, doesn't mind at all, and is able to sleep through the whole ordeal. And hey, the purple hat matches her purple collar.
And hey! 
Today is the third anniversary of this blog. Hard to believe, but there it is. A lot has happened in these past three years, and I've shared quite a lot of that with the readers of this blog. 
