21st Century Sewing Circles

I was talking to my friend Stacy a few days ago. She's writing a feature for the college internal newsletter about what staff and faculty do when they're done working for the day.

One of the questions was "Why did you start a blog?" 

I started it as a way to encourage myself to keep up on the patterns I was doing. It's a technological diary, a visual record of my progress. I read other stitching blogs to see what they were stitching, what they were doing, where there were good websites for patterns and supplies. Its a great way to see patterns that you may never have come across in your own wanderings.

Its also a social thing. Here's a network of people who have the same interest as I do. People I would never have connected with otherwise. People from all over this country, and the world. They love stitching enough to write about it. They also share some of their day to day world. The lady whose car drove itself along the backyard until it came to a stop down the hill. The woman who is battling an illness that saps her energy, but still posts her progress on her most current project, her blog friends that send her encouragement and sympathy. Another woman, around my age that chafes against the idea that cross stitch is for past generations, a feeling that I've sometimes had myself. She called on her friends to find a friend who might want to learn and take the time to encourage them to try. Mothers with small children and teenagers sharing the trials and joys of raising kids, working and still finding time to stitch art with tiny x's and colored thread. 

Later, talking to Stacy, she asked if I had a local group of people that I meet with. There's a shop in Spokane, WA that has a group that meets Friday afternoons. It just is too hard to find enough time to be a working mom and all the things that it involves to try to drive 35 miles each way, stitch for 2 hours and head home.  I tried to start a stitch group here in Post Fals last spring, it never seemed to work out. I still would love to find some local people to gather with and share our days and hobby with.

Toward the end, Stacy said something that really summed up my enjoyment of following other's blogs and writing my own, "it's a sewing circle." Exactly!