In fact, I found a beautiful charcoal stretch crepe—what I call a unicorn fabric because it's so rare!
Blogiversary!
It's my EIGHTH Blogiversary today! WOOT!
I thought that I hadn't blogged that much in the last year, but I checked and I published 24 posts, many of them quite long. That's more blogging than I'd realized!
Where is my focus these days? It's in multiple places:
- I am posting more to Instagram. It's much easier to throw up a quick photo with a sentence or two than to spend hours: taking pics, uploading pics from the camera to the laptop, editing pics, uploading pics to the cloud, writing a blog post with tons 'o pics and links, and cross posting to social media.
- My work requires focus (and occasional overtime), and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I'm often too tired in the evenings to do more than stare, glassy-eyed, at a monitor. I was happy to achieve a promotion in this year, so it paid off!
- I am trying to get out more. Enjoy the activities that the bay area has to offer.
- I'm reading more! I was an avid reader when young, but had gotten away from it. Most recently I've been enjoying the Louise Penny Inspector Gamache series.
- I've been traveling! Travel is so important to me, and I had to virtually give it up while raising kids as a single mom—I couldn't afford it. Returning to travel has been an enormous joy. This year I traveled to Munich, Paris, Florence, Milan, and NYC. I have several trips already planned for the coming year, including Japan and London.
- I've started tracking my OOTD (Outfit of the Day). I'm tweaking my style, and keeping track of my OOTD (not EVERY day, but many days), is helpful while I sort things out. This is a personal journey and I'm not sharing it publicly.
- One thing that hasn't changed: I am so happy when I have uninterrupted time to sew! Along those lines, I have an almost-done top that I will be sharing soon. (The buttons for said top are in the Britex bag in the above pic, which also contains 30 yards of the waistband elastic I like, and 15 spools of white/cream thread. I NEVER used to sew so much white/cream.) If I hadn't been reading last Sunday afternoon, the top would be finished!
I used to post blog statistics on my blogiversary posts. I'm not bothering with that, though I achieved over 3 million page views this year! WOAH! That first million took awhile, but going from 2 to 3 million took less than 2 years.
Giveaway!
Susan of Smuggler's Daughter has generously offered a giveaway in honor of my 8th Blogiversary! Leave a comment on this post and I will draw 3 names: one person will receive the 1st prize of a $50 gift certificate, and two runners up will each receive a $25 gift certificate.
I will perform the drawing next Friday (9/1), and will announce the winner here, so check back!
Susan posts new fabric every Friday, so check it out!
Thanks for your kind and generous offer, Susan!
Misc
Just a few more pics.
Have a great weekend! I hope to be back soon with a new garment to show. (If I can keep my nose out of a book.)