1 Year of Stitches

 I embarked on some stitching late last year actually and decided to casually do the One Year of Stitches challenge, but on my own terms. 
You can see more about the challenge at this link : http://www.brwnpaperbag.com/1-year-of-stitches-2017/


This piece which I call "Into the Blue" was my starting point in January/February this year.

It is my own design that just sort of grew.

It is a wonderful thing to do ... just building up designs stitch by stitch.  I have started another two larger pieces that I have permanently in my standing and lap hoops so I can pick them up whenever I feel like it.  And then there is the Blue Indigo Book project that I am working on as well, I'll show that to you later when I am a bit further on with it.  Threads are everywhere.

Is anyone else doing this challenge?

Social Media - the upside to leaving it alone

I had been tossing around the idea of not interacting with social media for some years.  I know, years! Perhaps you have been too.  I worked from home, I interacted with facebook mostly on a daily basis.  I showed some of the things I was doing, some family, some art, some of my quilting and book publishing work.  It was quite nice and I had a large following of people who were interested in the type of things I was doing. It was quite flattering.

I work predominantly alone and I love that, but Facebook was a social outlet for me, or so it seemed.  Actually it made me cranky, and pushed and stretched and wasted so much time.   I know a lot of people who just said, don't go online or don't post what you are doing.   It compels you in a way. You get "involved" with other people on a social basis, discussing art, discussing craft or whatever it is that you are interested in.  I had a lot of interaction and comments with people from diverse interests.  I love spinning wool into fine yarn, saori weaving, crochet, learning to knit, art in the form of drawing, watercolour, coloured pencil art, sculpting dolls, embroidering journal covers and so on, and then there was my seven books that I wrote and illustrated over three or four years.   It was fun and I had a great time ... but

Advertisements started to creep in, algorithms that decided I might like to see this or that depending on what pages I looked at.  Then there was the great American political race for presidency.  I saw so much that I didn't want to see, political and otherwise.  I decreased the people who actually saw my posts and therefore, those posts that I didn't want to see of theirs ... down from over 700 to 300 odd.  Still wasn't enough, so I did some more culling down to about 45 people.  Mostly family and people I actually did know in the physical world.

Then I un-joined groups and pages.  Still not enough. Still so much that would pop up on my screen that I had no control over, things that I did not want to see or be exposed to for my own peace of mind.

Then I just deactivated it and here I am.   The past few weeks has been lovely.  Some days I don't even turn my computer on.  I don't miss it at all.  In fact, I would go so far to say that my life is better without it.   Do I miss some people? Yes.  Do I miss the immediacy of contact with people? Yes and then No. 

The big upside is that I feel great.  I am enjoying having time to do what I want to do, create or not. I am also starting to realise that I have been missing learning and working.  I love to learn new things and to learn things on a deeper level.  So I may just blog a little more often.  It depends on what I am doing.

So there you have it ... so I am off to do some quilting and I might just find time to read a novel or two :)   Jane x

Tangled Circles & Mandalas

I forgot to show the cover of my new book that was released in March 2017. 

With the colouring in book boom, where everyperson and their dogs it seems published a colouring in book, mine stand out in that they are hand drawn and include an instructional section at the front and a section at the back to test out colour combinations and patterns. Did I mention all have 52 hand drawn illustrations by me ... not computer generated.

I would like to thank everyone who has purchased one of my books for their support.

In a little bit of news here at home ... I have deactivated my FaceBook pages and I will make a post about that later this week to tell you why and what personal benefits I hope to get from that.      Catch you all later... Jane x