It Was 16 Years Ago Today

 That I started my blog.  I wanted somewhere where I could journal my makes and some family life dropped in now and again.  Looking back at that first year I was a member of a couple of Yahoo groups (which sadly no longer exist) making postcards and sometimes some experimental techniques (heating fabrics, using an embellisher machine) and swapping.  I also had a Flickr page (that’s still going, just Google ‘Sue Wild Flickr’ and that comes up with my profile and photos).With my friend Brenda we hosted sixty quilters with a Quilting Day, which happened to be on St Patrick’s Day that year. So it was kept busy with quilting/sewing projects.

International Quilting Day organised by Brenda (left) and myself.

On a personal side,  I became a grandmother for the second time (to Leo, now a tall 15 year old and due to take his GCSE exams later this year!) and also a mother-in-law to Carly and Mary as they married my sons Jamie and Alex, that year.  And I managed to fit in a full time job too (how did I find the time?).

So what has changed?  Blogging was popular at the time and there was something called a blog ring, so the blog could be linked up with other people’s blogs with the same interest. One was run by Canadian quilter Michele Foster called Quilting Gallery and the blog ring was called Quilting Bloggers with blogs from around the world but that was disbanded.  She now runs a site called Aiming for Accuracy  I used to keep links in my sidebar of those I follow, but that’s no longer in use.  

One of my postcards, made for my sister, when she moved into her bungalow in 2018

A lot of other blogs are not kept up, but I’ve kept on with mine although I don’t get many visitors as it’s good to look back at what’s been achieved.  I’m not that brilliant at keeping journals so I’ve found it a good place to use mine as such.  Going through the years and changes that I’ve made, moving from and returning to my home town of Poole, working, retiring, holidays and works in progress.

A set of postcards, there are seven as I kept one for myself) on the theme of shoes for BQL postcard swap in 2007

Recently on one of the Facebook pages, UKQU (UK Quilters United) one of the admins said about a bag challenge this year on their sister UK Sewing Challenge group.  Another person mentioned about BQL bag challenge years back and looking through my blog I found I took part in that challenge in 2008 and one of those bags is still in use now for a knitting project! I wrote a blog post, but didn’t say a lot about it, here

Other things that have changed is that the postcard swaps are no more, which is a shame as I liked being challenged with a theme.  The BQL and Arts In the Mail went some years ago, before the demise of the Yahoo groups, but UKQU had a one to one postcard swap but that stopped a couple of years ago during Covid lockdowns.

A pouch from a sew a long earlier this year.

As for my own work, I would have called myself a quilter a few years back, but now knitting and crochet had returned into my craft life, together with embroidery and recently a bit of paper crafting. I have said that I don’t want to go down another rabbit hole, but who knows where things will lead. Quilting is not as important to me as it once was and I guess everyone evolves in one way or another as artists don’t always stick to the same techniques. So long as I can hold a sewing or knitting needle or crochet hook or pencil I will keep crafting in one form or another.

Thank you for bearing with me over my brief look back at the last 16 years.