I just finished reading an article by Emmy on her blog The Student/Teacher, in which she reflects on the online sewing community. Her post is inspired by Tilly's article titled "Creativity in every Home: What Can the Cultural Sector Learn from Dressmaking blogs?" Both women comment on how the sewist network is self-led and there is no division between amateur and expert. This confirmed my recent realization that a great many of the quilt and sewing blogs that I've begun to follow in the last few months are written by women who began crafting and blogging simultaneuously. Their blogs weren't created to showcase handiwork that they'd been creating quietly at home, but to engage in a community and learn to craft together. One of the ways they do this is by carefully documenting their creative process, often in tutorial form. In fact there is even a process pledge that 707 bloggers have taken! Check it out.
This led me to reflect on what I want to achieve with my own blog. Frankly, when I started the blog, I just wanted someplace to indulge the "show-off" in me, "Look at what I made, isn't it (and aren't I) amazing!". But as I become more engrossed in the various blogs I follow, I find myself wanting to contribute and become part of this community. But how? I'm not a strong photographer and this isn't a skill I'm interested in improving (I'd rather be crafting!). I'm not doing anything innovative or worthy of a tutorial. And I don't want to become a professional blogger or spend any money or time making my blog design more attractive. I need to think more about this, but my initial thought is that I should just comment more frequently on blog posts that I appreciate, post more photos in flickr groups and maybe join some swaps or sew-a-longs. The last idea isn't something to take lightly though because I'm not big on commitment and I don't want to make promises I can't keep!
What do you think? Are you involved in the craft blog community? How do/did you engage?
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