Observations and ramblings

There are a lot of things a busy Mum of young children misses out on in terms of time for herself and her hobbies.
Yes, it's been difficult to get the sewing machine out. I thought about it tonight at about 5pm.

"Ooh", I thought, "I could get the sewing machine out after the children are in bed, set it up outside (only space possible at the moment), and crack on with the Santa stocking for the youngest member of the family"....

Um... no. When 7:55pm came, I decided by the time I cleared and cleaned a space to sew and cut and spray and baste, there would be 45 minutes to sew and then it would be time to pack up, and that would be a late night! Woah there Nelly!

So how do people do it? And are they doing it?

I know my blog posts have suffered, but after having a look in the last week, I see that a whole lot of blogs I used to follow and read avidly, now show their last posts as 1 year ago, 2 years ago. Surely not everyone in the world had a baby in the last year.

Then I thought about it again. Blogging is largely a thing where we write, read and post while sitting at a computer desk (really, I would never type this many words on the phone). People don't have to sit at a computer desk anymore to see if they have an email (Yes!! Woohoo! Somebody wrote to me!), now they can use the internet on their phone if they want to (dang it, the phone bill is due). We are not sitting down to blog or read as we used to do. We are looking at our phones in the doctors waiting room, on the bus, eating our lunch at work or over a coffee. And we are not looking to see if anyone sent us an email.

What are we doing? It seems the new trends are: Pinning links on pinterest; Show and telling on Instagram; and raving about the latest fabric releases on Twitter. None of which have snagged me. However, facebook has fan groups (fabric designers, fabric ranges, shops, styles of quilts), and message groups, and show and tell pages, and I do get to see some inspiring works on there.

When I think about it, this really is my quilting journal, which I choose to share,  because I have been inspired by sooo many others' quilts and quilting journies, that I wanted to pay it forward and inspire others too. It is also a way of easily keeping a record of when a project was started and finished. What an easy way to archive the quilts I have made in my life by printing out a year at a time into a hard book.

There are quilts I made and gave away, and never kept a photo of, after promises by the recipients of a lovely pic with the baby when it was born. I have no idea how many quilts I made, let alone what they looked like. I was always whipping up a baby quilt and giving it away. Another reason for writing my blog - to keep a record for my ancestors and for recipients of quilts I have made. You can always find me online. Especially as I became interested in antique quilts, and if there was no label on the quilt, we didn't know its story. Always label your quilts.

Lastly, hellooo and a big wave to my quilting girlfriends all over who can keep up with my sewing, here on this blog, even if we don't keep up on the phone very often. Big Love to you all. xoxoxoxo