As of today, I have been blogging about my creative journey (and I guess, a lot more) for three years! Hard to believe I've sustained it for that long, through lots of personal upheavals that impacted what got done in the studio, through triumphs and defeats, through a lot of soul searching and not a little frivolity. I've maintained it primarily for my own needs, one of which I discovered was the need to share my knowledge and what I've learned along the way with others. So while blogging may have started as being all about me, it quickly included being all about you - my readers. Thanks so much for coming along on the journey and becoming such an integral part of it.
So here I am at my 600th post. I'm not sure why acknowledging numbered landmarks is so important to humans, but it is. I suppose it gives us an excuse to pause and reflect on our progress and achievements (or lack thereof) within a manageable time frame. It's easier to look back and analyze what happened in 100 posts rather than 600, in 1 year rather than 3. With one exception, I've missed celebrating my blogging landmarks until now. Instead of trying to summarize what I've written about over these three years, I decided to see what I was writing about each 100th post.
Post 100 was actually noting that it was post 100!. May 18, 2006 had me reiterating my blogging goals stated in the very first post and contemplating if things had worked out as I'd hoped. They had and the blogging continued.
Post 200 was about my goals for the week of December 11, 2006 and much more. I started posting weekly goals shortly after starting the blog, on December 6, 2005. I've always been list driven, and posting weekly goals on the blog put more pressure on me to follow through and get more work done. Read here my reasoning for setting weekly goals and posting them publicly. I faithfully made these weekly goal lists and posted them for quite awhile, but fell away from it this year. Not a good thing and something I need to get back in the habit of doing. To prove the point, I see that the 200th post leads off with this observation: "Boy, having no goals last week was a mistake - I drifted and got very little done, when I definitely could have been more productive."
So here I am at my 600th post. I'm not sure why acknowledging numbered landmarks is so important to humans, but it is. I suppose it gives us an excuse to pause and reflect on our progress and achievements (or lack thereof) within a manageable time frame. It's easier to look back and analyze what happened in 100 posts rather than 600, in 1 year rather than 3. With one exception, I've missed celebrating my blogging landmarks until now. Instead of trying to summarize what I've written about over these three years, I decided to see what I was writing about each 100th post.
Post 100 was actually noting that it was post 100!. May 18, 2006 had me reiterating my blogging goals stated in the very first post and contemplating if things had worked out as I'd hoped. They had and the blogging continued.
Post 200 was about my goals for the week of December 11, 2006 and much more. I started posting weekly goals shortly after starting the blog, on December 6, 2005. I've always been list driven, and posting weekly goals on the blog put more pressure on me to follow through and get more work done. Read here my reasoning for setting weekly goals and posting them publicly. I faithfully made these weekly goal lists and posted them for quite awhile, but fell away from it this year. Not a good thing and something I need to get back in the habit of doing. To prove the point, I see that the 200th post leads off with this observation: "Boy, having no goals last week was a mistake - I drifted and got very little done, when I definitely could have been more productive."
Post 300 on June 10, 2007 was all about my love affair with birches and texture. At that point in my journey, I was starting to worry that perhaps I was doing too much birch-related art. Since then, I've come to realize that I need not worry, as long as I don't simply repeat the same idea over and over. Birches are a part of my consciousness I can't deny. As for texture - I'm still entranced by it, but am having a harder time figuring out how to incorporate it in my work. Always room for growth.
Post 400 shared a 2007 Christmas gift that later became fodder for a surface design experiment with paintstiks. The wrought iron cross hangs in my kitchen near the table where I play with paints, a continual inspiration.
Post 500 takes us to June 7th of this year when I became fascinated with the color combinations of a group of azaleas near my house. I'd brought some of the blooms into the studio to match with fabrics in my stash. In this post, I show another way of matching nature to fabric using photo manipulation in my Corel Paintshop Pro program.
And that brings us back to this post, the big 600! Congrats to you if you have read this far. If you leave a comment today (I moderate comments so don't panic if you don't see yours show up on the post right away), you'll be eligible to win two quilt greeting cards (one each with my quilts "Strawberry Moon" and "Wisdom" on the front) featured in my cafepress shop - Idaho Beauty's Textile Art. This is my small way of saying "thank you" for keeping me company on this journey.
Post 400 shared a 2007 Christmas gift that later became fodder for a surface design experiment with paintstiks. The wrought iron cross hangs in my kitchen near the table where I play with paints, a continual inspiration.
Post 500 takes us to June 7th of this year when I became fascinated with the color combinations of a group of azaleas near my house. I'd brought some of the blooms into the studio to match with fabrics in my stash. In this post, I show another way of matching nature to fabric using photo manipulation in my Corel Paintshop Pro program.
And that brings us back to this post, the big 600! Congrats to you if you have read this far. If you leave a comment today (I moderate comments so don't panic if you don't see yours show up on the post right away), you'll be eligible to win two quilt greeting cards (one each with my quilts "Strawberry Moon" and "Wisdom" on the front) featured in my cafepress shop - Idaho Beauty's Textile Art. This is my small way of saying "thank you" for keeping me company on this journey.
4 comments:
CONGRATULATIONS on your 600th post!!!
Congratulations.
You manage to write far more faithfully on your blog than I on mine.
Living just 80 or so miles north of Sandpoint I enjoy your blog as hearing from "one of the neighbours."
Congratulations Sheila, 600 is a lot of posts! I know what you mean about how it was all about you and then became about the readers - having a blog is a great motivator to keep going.
I relate to so many things you say about your process (although I'm too scatty to follow lists!) and it's so cool that there is someone else out there ;) who loves quilts and follows bikes!!
Thanks for adding me to your follow list!
Congratulations on the Journey so far - look forward to hearing more.
Mags
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