Happy blogiversary, ReveDreams

Three years ago to the minute I made my first post on this blog. The post, in its entirety, is one paragraph titled “Welcome!”

With this post I inaugurate the craft blog ReveDreams.com. The posts will largely be about sewing and crochet, with a healthy dose of quilting and embroidery, and smatterings of other fiber and non-fiber crafts. The current schedule has me posting Mondays and Thursdays, and I hope to have a good mix of completed projects, works in progress, tutorials and patterns, links elsewhere, and contemplations of practical matters (from systematic investigation of technique to useful ways to store materials). I welcome comments, suggestions, and questions, even if they come a long time after the original post, and whether or not they are relevant to the post at hand!

Other than the posting schedule, this is still current; it’s just not concrete enough to plan around. Over the last month I’ve thought a lot about my purpose in blogging, prompted partly by the full-tilt schedule I’ve kept recently. This is my 53rd post of 2014 and we’re 90 days in — that’s over four per week! I like having new posts every other day, but that rate does not allow consistent high quality. Since it is also easy to have neither frequency nor quality, my paring back needs to be purposeful.

I’ve also been thinking about what would be best for me in terms of site organization and navigation, Ravelry, and Facebook. One thing at a time, though. Today let’s just talk about posting goals. This doubles as a recap of many of my favorite posts from the past year.

ReveDreams Posting Goals

A new pattern in the store monthly: Not only a new pattern, but a pattern presented with creative photos a la the Sluggos, Snouty Hippos, and Big and Little Pi.
An in-depth technical or educational post or series monthly: This could be as simple as exploring the needle join or identifying a mystery stitch. However, I like to really dig in and produce pieces that compare a variety of methods, such as double crochet turning chain modifications or ways to work single crochet in the round (in particular, ways to join those rounds), or that teach techniques in depth, such as useful knots for crafting or how to embroider crochet pieces.
Something fun monthly: This could be a free pattern or tutorial, quick and easy (magic chain in crochet, back seat cupholders) or more involved (miniature Christmas trees with decorations, bicycle handlebar saddlebags). It might be a free extension to a pattern for sale, like the One-Eyed Sluggos. Or it might be a photo spread, like the recent Ami Folklore pair or the more distant Assyrian Monsters shoot (of which most of the photos are on Stumpy’s Facebook page).
Web curation monthly and behind the scenes: There is a lot of useful, interesting, and inspiring material in the World Wide Web, and especially if I had to spend a lot of time separating the wheat from the chaff on a particular subject, I like to share my findings with you. This is a key component of most of my static pages: Learn Crochet is self-contained as long as you don’t want videos, but I link out not only to videos but to additional instructions given with words, photos, and diagrams, as mine are. I plan to continue to expand and refine that resource as well as Sewing Tidbits, Scrap Users, and Learn Hand Embroidery. Although I include relevant links in many of my posts, on the blog my curation is concentrated in my First Friday posts, of which I most want to emulate two done in the last six months: art journaling with fiber, which featured other crafters’ work, and mythical origin stories of crafts, which involved a lot of needle-in-haystack research (pun intended, but only retroactively). Look for more descriptive titles on those posts henceforth.
Spontaneous, irregular posts of projects and thoughts worth sharing: This will form the remainder of my posts, with no quota. I want to share my creations and experiences, but will apply the Mr. Ed Rule and speak only when I have something to say. I’d expect very occasional posts on productivity, organization, teaching, or other ancillary subjects, and for most of the posts in this category to be projects. A few favorites from the last year: first overlay crochet project (and pattern review), bassist monster, and embroideries from my husband’s drawings.