Your Thoughts on Sewing Blogs

Thank you to everyone who read and commented on my last post. It obviously struck a chord and there were many long and wonderfully thought-through comments. I've replied to everyone who has commented so far, and the comments are still coming.

  Crafters' Ceilidh Meet Up in Edinburgh, 2012

There's no doubt that the online sewing community is a generous and supportive place about which many of us feel passionate - your many eloquent comments are testament to this. It seems that this has made it difficult for any constructive criticism about products and activities (if that's the right phrase) to be voiced. Is there a way that this can change without the nature of the community being altered negatively? Many of us seem to go by the rule "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" - is that the best way?

Caroline's comment that the sewing community is a uniquely positive and non-judgemental place created by and for women, really resonated with me. There seem to be few 'safe' online places for women and we are very lucky to have the online sewing community. Yes it does have its flaws - sometimes it can be/appear cliquey, but part of this reason is that real life friendships have formed from a common passion and these are played out semi-publically. There are many ways in which participating in the community has enriched the lives of participants; learning and improving skills, increasing confidence, making friends.

In the comments that were left, there is a very strong sense of people getting fed up of seeing the same type of posts on numerous bloggers, without begrudging the occasional freebie or blog network post. We are in a period of intense blogging activity and it will be interesting to see what will endure in the long term. Have we reached blog hop saturation point? How many more bloggers-turned-pattern designers will there be? How many more book deals and hobby-to-professional bloggers?

From a purely selfish point of view it was lovely to receive comments about my own blog and I feel really encouraged about posting more charity shop finds and some outfit posts too. The Pattern Monday posts were also mentioned so I promise fans of this series that I will revisit my pattern collection to dig out a few gems as I know I have a few I never got around to blogging. The problem with this series is that I now have a large collection of seriously ugly knitting patterns. When I die, if someone I don't know looks through my collection they will just think I had terrible, terrible taste.

Mmmmmmmmmmm....beige.....

As mentioned, I'm starting a new series of posts about the fabric and yarn shops in Glasgow. I hope this will be of interest to locals and visitors to the city and I will add them to a page on the homepage of the blog. There are some great shops and as their websites have varying amount of information I thought it would be useful to put together something which covers them as equally as possible.

I've chosen 10 shops and considered various ways to space the posts - 2 blocks of 5 days? A couple per week? In the end I decided to go with one post weekly for 10 weeks, so as not to overwhelm or bore those who will never visit Glasgow - though maybe you will after you read about where to buy fabric?

The posts will appear weekly on a Sunday from the 28th September. I was going to give you a list of the shops in advance but instead I'm going to surprise you each week with the shop I've chosen. They range in location from the city centre to the west end and southside.

I should add that all opinions are my own and I have not been paid to write any posts. Depending on the shop I have sometimes spoken with the owner or shop staff and sometimes not. Some shops are small so it's impossible (not to mention rude) to take photos without doing so!

I hope you enjoy the posts, and I will be still posting the usual work in progress/finished items/deeply philosophical musings alongside this series.

K x