Community and Interaction......

This week I've been catching up on blogs and came across a post by Kate from A Playful Day she is doing a Love Your Blog series throughout April and is challenging us to fall back in love with our blogs.

This could not have come at a better time for me, after not posting for so long, I nearly made the decision to stop blogging. I was still posting photos onto my Instagram feed which is quick and easy and has a great knitting/crochet community.

I started my blog at the beginning of 2010 after a friend kept nagging me to start one, showing my card making and scrapbooking, entering them into blog challenges. I really didn't think people would want to read and see what I'd been creating but a few people did.

My blog has evolved over the years and now serves as a bit of a diary for myself, mostly about knitting and my everyday life. I wasn't really sure if other people were interested in what I posted but having those few weeks off from blogging I was getting messages from people asking if I was ok and that they missed my posts. I was very touched by this and started thinking about my blog and the people I've met through it so I made the decision that I should carry on with it.

There is a whole community of knitters and crochters on the blogging scene and I became involved in some KAL/CAL's before I even knew about Ravelry. These were my flower hexagons from the Bloomin' Crochet Along, organised by Chrissie Crafts and Ladybird Diaries.

I also met some wonderful ladies from the Midlands blogging scene organised by Gilly, it was a great day with good company and a delicious lunch cooked by Gilly. I still see Gilly every now and again in Stratford and often pop over to the multi talented Jo's blog to see what she's been up too. I also still see Sarah and Helen who I met through a monthly scrapbooking crop.

I would never have met and become friends with Helen from Curious Handmade if it hadn't been for blogging, Ravelry and Instagram. Social media can be a good thing when used in the right way. I've known Helen for about 18 months now when I first discovered her podcast and blog. I fell in love with her patterns especially the beautiful shawls, I then became a test and sample knitter for her. This is the latest sample that i've just finished, it's a new, larger version of the Pebble Beach which will be released at the beginning of May.

We finally got to meet at Unwind Brighton in July 2014 after many months of communicating through social media and emails. I'm hoping to get down to London in June, to meet up again for the Muse Connection Volume 2, organised by Helen and Kate, again bringing the knitting community together.

I also got to meet PJ, who I'd done an organised swap with many years ago and have been following her blog, The Snail Garden, ever since. In fact she was the first person that I saw at Unwind Brighton whilst we were in the queue, waiting for the doors to open and PJ came over and introduced herself which was so nice.

I also met Zena from the Little Yellow Uke podcast and blog who I've since met up with again as she's fairly local to me.

Last year, I also taught three online papercrafting classes for Mel who hosted Camp Aloha Friends, we chatted via Skype and email, again I would not have had this opportunity if it wasn't for blogging.

After writing this post, it's made me realise that blogging is important to me. I sometimes find it hard to write the words and I'm not the most fluent or most natural writer but I do enjoy it. If I hadn't started blogging all those years ago, I wouldn't have met so many wonderful, like-minded people.

Thanks for stopping by.

xxxxDebxxxx