Grow Your Blog Party!

I discovered this event, being run by Vicki of 2 Bags Full only just in time to sign up - thus my not being able to publicise the event until now.  Still, you can hop over to her blog if you like and see who you'd like to visit from the 360-odd sign up comments (as of when I signed up - there may be more since) on the Grow Your Blog event page, and I hope that qualifies as my having done the best I could at advertising under the circs.=)

So, down to business:

Hi!  Welcome to Sew In Love whoever you are and wherever you've arrived from, but especially if you've come through the Grow Your Blog blog party event.  I'm a 41 year old (even though I look more like 14...) textile hobbyist living in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England, originally from 30 miles north of here - from Leeds in West Yorkshire.  I'm married with no kids and don't work much just now owing to poor health - but I always live in hopes that that can be changed....!=)  I used to be involved in the teaching of Mandarin Chinese to beginners at Leeds University, but left that just about 3½ years ago when my hubby and I went over to Taiwan to take part in intensive advanced Chinese language classes.  I was lucky enough to get a scholarship and he went self-financed.  If and when I can return to work, I'll look for some part-time/ad hoc admin work and also try to do something more creative, independently, on the side.

I love to travel and have been to 19 countries so far, if one cheats and includes England, Scotland and Wales as three separate countries (I dare say our Welsh and Scottish neighbours wouldn't object=) ), but I'd love to make it up to 30 or more some day.  Some day....  Maps showing which countries those 19 are are on our travel blog, Brauns on Tour, (which needs updating with photos from Durham, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Caerphilly and Windsor) and one of my main dreams is to have the 'need' to increase its scope somewhat, esp. to include Scandinavia, more of Italy, the five tiny countries/states/principalities in Europe, Canada, Mongolia, Spitsbergen and Antarctica!!  We have our eyes on some of those nice escorted coach trips they offer around Europe.  I like independent travel, but these tours have the advantage of being more relaxing, esp. for Sir, who wouldn't have to drive.  He's doing a funded PhD at the University of Sheffield right now and still has 2½ years to go, so it'll be a while before there are funds enough for that and I can investigate a few more regional embroidery styles and buy local embroidery magazines (I already have some in five or six languages!!) on the continent.  I love languages and more or less anything to do with language and I sometimes post to my blog about language learning: Polyglot in Training, which I'm trying to get something on at least once a month now.

You can find out a bit more about this blog on my About page (link above, under the header photos) and you'll have got some ideas from my header photos, the fairly random selection of pictures I've included in this posting and the brief intro I left on the sign up comment, but here's what I do on this blog, generally speaking:

On Mondays I post my weekly update from the Creative Every Day challenge which details (briefly) what creative things I've been doing each day.  It can range from one or two rows of knitting, to about half a dozen different projects, books and ideas and is quite diverse in scope.

Many Wednesdays find me posting to Sharon B's Work in Progress Wednesdays event.  It's not exactly a challenge, more of a Weight-Watchers weigh-in for stitchers where we can show off how far we've got with a long-term project, an unfinished/long neglected piece or something like that.  It's great to have that weekly check in as, wanting to have something to post, I often get on with something in good time for it.  So far I've finished one piece that I found really challenging through this event and hope to add another two to that within the next month, so I can heartily recommend anyone who feels the need for a kind of 'support group' to join in.

Most Sundays I get to post a yarn crafts update called 'The Sunday Yarn'.  I didn't manage it this last week, thanks to a nasty headache that got worse when I put my glasses on (needed for computer work, sadly!), so I had to pass on it.  However, there was a nice one the week before with two cute baby knit finishes=) and I've been knitting away, headache or no headache, and will have something to show this weekend.

Sometimes I post tutorials and things on other pieces I'm working on and I hope, perhaps sometime this year, health permitting, to start putting together some simple stumpwork kits for those wishing to learn this technique and also to try making some little bags - mostly with genuine oriental fabrics, bought in the Far East - and dolls house textiles (bedding, cushions etc) to sell.  Let's see how we get on with that!

My style tends to lean towards the classic, but I have been known to do and enjoy some more contemporary pieces as well and may well even develop that later on - especially if I ever get to move forward with plans to take City & Guilds classes locally.

I also have an art blog, Art Excursion, which I really need to do more posting on - and more art to post, but I suppose that type of art doesn't really hit the spot with me as embroidery and textiles do.  There's something deeply nurturing (to me) about textile arts, a feeling I don't get from the paper based variety, much as I admire and like them.

There's also my general topics blog, Fluffy Little Idiot, where I keep my oft-updated general goals lists.  There was one for 2011/2, I'm working through the 2013 one now and there's also a 'stuff I want to learn and achieve' general list to pick from at any time.  I find goals lists help me enormously in being productive and keeping my activities focused.  I'm a big list maker and get a real kick out of crossing things off them as they're done.=)  As far as textiles go, having a project on the current list to be finished is a great incentive to complete the piece and not to let it slide.  I have a passionate objection to the concept of UFOs - unfinished objects and I, basically, don't allow myself them.  What I start must be either finished or completely dumped (which has only happened once and I took all the stitches out, erased the outline and put the fabric and threads away).  I still remember being horrified at one lady's blog comment to the effect that she'd never finished anything!  What IS the point in starting something you're not going to finish??  I also find it a bit challenging to get my head around having so many projects on the go that you cannot possibly work on them all and so pieces regularly fall into the UFO category.  It's not for me so, despite temptation to get a new project or three under way, I will not do it until two out of my three current WIPs are complete.  I just LOVE the sense of achievement and satisfaction that comes from a completed piece, a goal met and something worthwhile accomplished - to say nothing of having got that off my mind!!!

So, do stay for a couple of minutes more and have a look at some of my gallery pages (links just below the header photo series) and leave me a comment telling me about your work and where to find you.  I'm always on the look-out for more textiles and embroidery blogs, but I also sometimes follow others, so you just never know!

Many thanks for coming around to see me!  Hope you'll call in again soon....

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2013