looking back

As I wrote on Sunday my blog and blogging life is about 1 year old these days. And as usual, I almost missed this anniversary. It happened couple of times, that I did not realize it is my birth-day, until someone reminded me on that very day. The last time I remember it was a card from a clothing retailer Matalan, which came exactly on my birthday, wishing me all the best… 🙂

I have been writing this post in my mind for quiet a few times now;  from ‘I have got so much to tell you!’ to ‘well, it was yestarday, let’s talk about today…’. But maybe, it will be interesting to go back in a history a little, because, whenever I think about my blogging beginnings it brings me back to my on-line beginings and how it influenced my life.

I have started to appreciate internet when we moved over from Slovakia to Scotland more than three years ago. It became our best friend in need. Whatever I needed to know about our new home was there. Yet, the only site which I would check regularly was BBC – Weather 🙂 – to know where to hang the many washings and what programme to make for the girls.

About  two years ago when all my interest was in contemporary embroidery I stumbled accross Downunderdale blog, written by an Australian textile artist and found a link to Sharon B’s blog. It was right at the beginning of TAST challenge which she ran at that time and that’s where I learned about Flickr as well and signed up, because I wanted to comment on some people’s work. These are the first pictures which I sent to my Flickr account few months later, when I took an on-line class with her, exploring some of the basic stitches:

I did another course with Sharon later in the summer 2007 and added some more pictures and followed her blog, otherwise, I was not active on-line (blessed times -she thinks sometimes :). When she announced Take it Further Challenge a year ago, i decided to join and set up this blog to document my progress in this challenge. I have really enjoyed it and managed to make something for 9 moths out of 11.

Then, back in February, I met Caroline and she kindly showed me how to felt. All my creative cells woke up, to me it was an absolute magic that from such a fluffy and fine fibre I could create a cloth, design it’s texture, colour, or make 3D. The process still fascinates me and I often remind myself that I need to stand back and look at it also (only) with eyes of a viewer, not a maker.

I turned my first felt into a purse – and sold in my Etsy shop which I set up in the same months. I saw it as an outlet for anything I made ‘just because’, but spent all my energy learning about felting and dyeing. Since September this year, when the younger daughter reached the nursery age and I have got a bit more time, I have decided to make to sell and see if this could be my occupation in the future. It is an interesting experience about which I might  write some other day.

Lately, I have joined Twitter and must say, I really enjoy this type of social networking. It is quick and keeps me in touch with my on-line friends.

And here is a bit of the statistics: Total views: 14,012, 122 posts, 463 comments. I don’t think blogging is my strong point, I would like my blog to be more than another Flickr where I just post images of my work or place where I write about myself. I have learnt enormous amount of information thanks to internet and would like to contribute to this massive information bank as well. Time is my enemy at the moment and if I am to choose between blogging and making  I go for the later, because … I need to.