Sunday morning Cuppa
Sunday, May 13, 2007 at 9:37AMWell its time for a chatter before a busy week so settle back with a cuppa for a 'bits and pieces' post.
I would like to draw attention to another challenge that Robin of Beadlust has proposed. For anyone interested in bead embroidery it may be just the thing. The details are here . The idea is to produce a beaded fabric journal page once a month for 12 months. Journal pages can be any size, beaded as densely or as sparkly as you wish, and on any theme you wish. Take a look it’s a very tempting challenge.
I would simply love to join in this challenge as I love beading and simply do not do enough of it! But I know that I am nearly on overload now. I have actually been agony for 3 days over this but I have to be realisitc. When I list off what I am already doing it is not sensible to sign up only to pull out within a few months. TAST keeps me busy, we are nearly mid way through the academic year here in Australia, and I am still working on my Sumptuous Surfaces which starts on July 11th. Anyone who has taken any of my classes knows how much material is in these classes. My previous workshops printed out to over 200 pages of material! It is equal to writing a book which is why the process of creating a class takes me so long. I still have work to so on these classes so feel I can't take on the challenge but there is no reason why I can't point people to it and watch green with envy at others having fun!
Allison Aller left a comment on the How to use transfer dyes tutorial observing that the pieces are like my Photoshop work. It is true. One of the big things I learnt in art school a quarter of a century ago now, was to build imagery up in layers. I trained as a painter and became very involved with glazing techniques. I still do the same thing! No matter what I make.
For instance in crazy quilting I create the block, then do the stitching, then embellish building up the block as a whole like I would a painting. When I embroider I build up the design by first treating the foundation fabric with dye or fabric paint, then I add stitches often layering them as I would paint, in order to create rich textures. Most of my dyeing is done in order to create foundation cloths for embroidery and the fabrics in yesterdays tutorial will be used for this. The process no matter if it is Photoshop, Fabric postcards, crazy quilting, embroidery or beading is the same I build up the imagery layer upon layer. It is a way of thinking about imagery that I forget I do but others don't necessarily have the same process!
For those who like them Jerry has another of his quirky travel posts on his blog
On another note I received an email from Joan Waldman as she wanted to let me know about her blog Come Quilt With Me . Posts cover work in progress and quilts she has made or finished.
On the topic of blogs Crazy Quilt International is a new blog born out of the yahoo discussion list of the same name.
As I have mentioned I have been updating and cleaning out dead links in my blog roll. There are a good few new ones there now, which you might like to check out. Elizabeth also left a comment about blogrolls and the impression they make to anyone who is visiting for the first time. I see them as acting to link people together simply because I have had so many people say that when they first discovered stitchers blogs that was the way they surfed and realised there was so much happening in the community. There has been no academic studies done on this question, as far as I know, so the evidence is purely anecdotal. When you first discovered blogs did you find other people in the community via surfing the blogrolls? Leave a comment as it lets people know. Many of the blogs in the textile community grew out of the discussion lists but for anyone new who is just discovering the community and has not found the lists or the blogs I still feel the blogrolls are useful as it opens doors for people.
As I say leave a comment as it is silly to maintain a blogroll if they are not being used this way anymore. Things change, how people use the net changes and I see no reason to spend hours maintaining links if they ae not useful to others as I read blogs in an RSS reader.
Well that’s my 2 cents worth for this morning feel free to comment as I love receiving them.
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Reader Comments (18)
I had never read Blog One til I joined TAST. You put me onto Bloglines right away. Now I have over 150 different feeds there.
I don't think one of them has come from a blogroll. What they do come from is links within the blog posts, and then links from the new blogs. I have moved on from stitches to design blogs (which I love), plus a few quilt blogs. Just my 2 cents.
I've enjoyed the conversation about blogroll maintenance. Like you I read blogs in an RSS reader. My RSS subscription list is much longer than the blogroll I keep on my sidebar. I try to keep my blogroll limited to regular blogs that can generally be relied upon for a thoughtful, instructive or amusing read. Deleting a blog can be an angsty moment! and I do worry about the list cliqueness that your referred to. Sometimes I wonder if blogrolling is akin to setting up your own mutual admiration society! Nevertheless, thank you for adding me to you blogroll. I'm also thoroughly enjoying your Mindtracks blog.
Sharon - another supplies question as I get my embroidery practice underway after a long absence! What kind of hoops do you like to use for handwork? I'm so frustrated with flimsy plastic and splintery cheap wood, but haven't been able to find any good sources for anything better. Any suggestions on brands, etc? I'm not looking for anything all that fancy, just reliable! Thanks.
I have to admit, I still keep a blogroll on my blog for that reason - it gives other people lists of stitching blogs if they want to try some new ones out ... but I don't use it myself, instead using my newsreader. I almost deleted my blogroll entirely, but left it purely for that reason, just in case someone else found it useful :)
I love the blogrolls and sidebars, Sharon. I feel like a leapfrog, going from pad to log to rock, etc. I learn more things, meet more people, and have had such fun following blogs, comments, links, and ideas gained from such exploration.
P.S. Case in point...your seahorse logo advertising your class. Click on it and it takes you to Joggles. Get your attention caught by the wild art dolls. Click on one of them or the creators' names and follow that link. You might end up in an assemblage site, or a visual journalling site, or the site of a textile artist in Norway (this has happened, see my own sidebar!!) And you may find that you have an affinity for one of these new skills and find a whole new interest...all this from your seahorse logo!! see?!!!
Hi, Sharon! I love the blogrolls and definitely use them to find other blogs of interest. Thanks for going to the trouble of maintaining them.
Hi Jess I use wooden hoops - and try and find solid hoops. Many of the cheap Chinees ones are flimsy but I have found a german hoop which is three times the price but wonderful!
Hope this is helpful
I love the blog rolls-don't know how to do readers and have to much stuff coming in already but have bookmarked stuff of all kinds from blogroll links. It is amazing what wide variety of interests you can be linked to from just one blogroll.
Well after reading your posts I went through and did a sweep of the blog links I have listed on my blog too and freshened it up a bit and now I'll make it a point to do that regularly.
Hi Sharon,
I still go through blog rolls when I have time, but you put me onto RSS feeds, which is brilliant, and now I find it's a mixture of links from other blogs as I read them, and blog rolls. while I can see that people could think it's a bit clique-y, I actually found it quite reassuring seeing the same names on blogs when I started, - sort of knowing you were heading along the right road.
Good morning Sharon. I confess, I read your Sunday morning cuppa instead of a newspaper! My husband doesn't understand me!
I lurked around the blogs for a good year or so before I finally put my toe in the water and set up my own. It was the Boss who suggested I look on the internet for people interested in embroidery, because I wasn't finding any around here. He found Layers of Meaning (http://layersofmeaning.org/wp/) for me. From the sidebar, I found Inaminuteago. I was thrilled to bits and linked to all the blogs in your blogroll, looked at all the blogs mentioned in your posts and all the people who left comments. I did the same with all the blogs I found there. I also discovered what the 'ring' logos meant and used those too. In those early days (well, my early days) I found that most of the blogs belonged to quilters, cross stitchers or knitters, there seemed to be very few dedicated to free, experimental or creative embroidery. Most of the bloggers then seemed to come from the USA or Australia and I was disappointed to find very few from the UK although I was so excited to see work from abroad that I would never normally have access to. Of course, all that has changed now, there is a huge community out there and I use an RSS feed now, but I still follow up links in sidebars and comments to find new blogs to read. I think novice internet users and virgin bloggers still need the sidebar links and blogrolls to help them start to get around. (Finding out how to maintain mine on the new Blogger is there, on the backburner!).
In your previous post on this subject, you mentioned 'cliques' in blogrolls etc. I think it is natural that people link to others with the same interest, and that can make specific blogs easier to find, but I did find I felt like an 'outsider' when I joined a list, and I haven't really bothered since.
Hi, Sharon. A friend sent me the URL to your blog to show me one of your 100 details. After seeing that, I have been going to your blog every day. From Personal Library of Stitches and TAST, I discovered many other stitching blogs and from you I learned about bloglines, which is where I read blogs now. I haven't used blogrolls but I follow links mentioned in blog posts and often add those blogs to my RSS. Now I have TOO much to read! I'm trying to resist adding any more blogs to my list.
Hi Sharon,
Blogrolls were definitely the way in for me. I hadn't used discussion lists and although I knew about blogs it hadn't really occurred to me there would be stitching ones so I'd never bothered to explore them. I found your site by doing a Google search for paisley as I was interested in finding out about the paisley motif. Once I saw your site I was away, clicking on links all over the place. Thanks to the TAST challenge I decided to set up my own blog and also thanks to your recent post I've started using Google reader and love having all the new posts sitting there on my home page when I log on for the day. But the blogrolls are definitely ways of discovering more and thanks for linking to mine!
Hi Sharon,
I'm a big fan of blogrolls, that's how I found this one! I've found some of my favourite blogs this way and while I do use a reader, I also sometimes "wander" through blogrolls til I find an interesting blog to add to my list.
Hi! Long time random lurker, first time poster! Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that I love blogrolls and that exactly how I find new people to read. I found you through a blogroll and I'm about to add you to mine. Anyway, since you asked, there ya go!
I'm another lover of blogrolls - I think that's how I found your blog. I'm guilty of neglet where my blog is concerned but not because I dont want to update it - it's just my health problems dont allow me a lot of time at the computer. I should probably go through my blogroll too but maybe not tonight :)
Hi Sharon
I have put both week 20 and 21 up on my blog--I don't know where the time goes,but I am still enjoying the challenge and I am building a nice sample folder.
Regards Doreen Grey
http://doreeng.blogspot.com/