5 Things - October

In the hope that I might write some more blog posts, I am starting a monthly meme - 5 things.  So here's 5 things that I have photographed this month of October 2019.

First is a 'Tilly and the Buttons' Cleo pinafore dress I made in blue denim.  You can see that I had my little helper/photobomber Barney the springer spaniel with me!   I have included one of the outtakes too.  I topstitched the denim with orange thread and put orange buttons on to secure the straps.  I can see that I will wear this dress a lot, including with long sleeved t-shirt and tights.  In fact, I have just bought a pair of ochre opaques.  I am so looking forward to trying them out!

2 Autumn is really here now!  Some lovely red hawthorn berries spotted one sunny morning on my dog walk, and the grass sparkling with dew.   I like to imagine that the dew drops are tiny diamonds sparkling away!

3 I have been hand sewing little bits of my scrap fabric together in the evenings while watching tv.  Here's what they look  like so far.  I have put them away for now as I want to concentrate on sewing for Christmas (I love making little felt ornaments for the tree).  I am imagining this as a bed size quilt in a sort of rainbow colour pattern.

The other quilt I am making but have put away for now, is this one, called the X-factor quilt.  I am using up lots of autumnal colours for this one.  The pattern was in one of my (very) old quilting magazines.

4 Autumn in my garden.  I put my phone right down in the grass to take photos of these little tiny fairy mushrooms.  Or are they toadstools?  I don't know what the difference is.  But I think it is quite a good year for all types of fungi.

I love the colour that this vine goes in the autumn!  And look at the colourful purple berries on the Callicarpa bush!

5 Finally, our son turned 30 last December, and his sister bought him a supercar drive around Goodwood race track.  He finally did it last weekend.   Here's Maurice, Nicholas and his girlfriend Natalie.  He absolutely loved driving the Ferrari and Aston Martin and then was driven at high speed around the track by a professional driver.  Great fun!

300 blog comments in 30 days

I’ve decided to take up the challenge set by Julie of Notes on Paper to write 300 blog comments in 30 days.  Here’s why:

* I’d like to get back into blogging regularly. My blogging has lapsed this year for several reasons: not having anything interesting to blog about, not having time at the computer because of having a puppy to look after, and having 2 blogs, I often can’t decide which one to write!

*I am everso guilty of reading blogs and not commenting.  I would hate to think that people read my blogs and don’t comment.  I simply don’t know if people read my blogs or what they think about my posts if they don’t comment.  I aim to rectify this and aim to comment on every blog entry I read from now on.

*Like Julie I want to write considered comments, so this will make me think deeper about the blog entry.  I’m hoping to get some new ideas from the blogs I read, both new things to do and ideas on how to improve my blogs

*I’d love some new readers!  I’d love to connect with more people in the blogosphere, and the only way to do that is to leave comments!

*With all the other ways of connecting with others, ie facebook, instagram, twitter, there is often talk that blogging will disappear.  I hope not!  Blogging is more in-depth, and I love it!  I’m going to do my own little tiny bit to keep blogging going.

Like Julie I am going to keep a record of the blogs I visit, and the ideas I would like to come back to.  I’m not sure whether I will read 300 different blogs, or whether I will leave several comments on some blogs.  We’ll see how it goes.

I’ve been thinking about how to find new-to-me blogs.  I recently started dressmaking again, and decided I’d like to read sewing blogs.  I simply googled ‘sewing blogs’, and soon worked out which were the leading sewing blogs.  I did the same for gardening blogs, and found a lovely blog that I regularly visit (but don’t always comment!) When I first started blogging 10 years ago(!!) I had recently started scrapbooking, and had soon linked up with other scrapbookers, writers and photographers.  Over the years the bloggers I have connected with have changed.  I’ve dallied with art appreciation (a painting a day), family history, organisation (Simplify) and health issues such as my recently diagnosed diabetes. 

Other ways I use to find new blogs:

*Other people’s side bars (I used A Stitching Odyssey’s side bar for sewing blog reading for ages before I started SewLindyLou)

*Comment-a-thon.  Start on one blog, choose a comment, then visit that blog and so on.  This way you get to visit blogs on entirely different subjects.

Linky’s.  For example, Rinda’s Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt

Swaps.  I’ve found several new scrapbooking blogs this way.

I like to keep my favourite blogs in a list on my side bar.  I don’t use blog readers.

I’ll keep you up to date with my progress, and what I learn.  Are you going to take up the challenge?  How do you find new blogs?