The Godfather's Lament...or mine?

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in"... Of course Michael was talking about getting out of organized crime and finally operating only legitimate businesses, so though my 2018 lament is hardly comparable to killing and mayhem, I am regrettably and forever tied to social media.

Last year in a heroic effort to cut myself off from all the political mudslinging, the never-ending barrage of memes and the bazillion Tasty food posts, I drastically cut back my Facebook involvement, opting to only follow family members.  I rarely posted myself and I was marginally successful in curtailing my two dozen or so daily peaks into the app, limiting myself to one or two peaks a day.

But social media is an insidious parasite, feeding upon your starved ego and regularly clamoring for your attention.  So as much as I would love to say I'm "over it", I'd be lying. It seems that all I really did was substitute one habit (Facebook) for another (Instagram).  And it really doesn't matter how you try to rationalize that Instagram is "so much better" than FB, it still hooks you.

As I began evaluating my life (as one always pretends to do on January 1 of any year) I realized the things that I wanted to change and or continue doing are tied to social media.  Perhaps I am being to hard on myself (as is my custom) as we are in the tech age and it's not going away. I'll never be tweeting like the Donald, but Facebook and Instagram are powerful tools that I can use to further my personal goals.  It's not like my brain will atrophy if I'm on my "devices" a few hours a day...or that I won't pay attention to my hubby or forget to cook dinner or even bathe. Besides, there are some very positive things happening in my little corner of the cyberspace.

For instance, I am halfway through my fourth year of collaborating with Suzan Steinberg, owner of Stonemountain- this week I will be making our 200th garment.  Our hard work that we have invested in the Fabric Lady blog is really paying off - women are coming back to sewing their own clothes, all because we have made sewing a wardrobe popular. I'm always amazed that people recognize me in the store and talk about how we have inspired them to sew again. We rely on our social media connections to inspire, communicate and teach.

Fabriclady:  http:fabriclady3.blogspot.com

In January I joined an Instagram challenge sponsored by Sarah Gunn to refrain from buying any ready to wear clothing in 2018. Sounds like a tall order, since I love me some Nordstrom's.  But I am an impulse buyer anyway and granted, I do make most of my clothes, so I thought I'd give it a go. One whole year! There are over 1,000 women participating in this challenge and we can track each others successes within a private Facebook group. (I should mention that there are regular prizes and giveaways during the year and if I hadn't been on FB I would never have WON the first giveaway of the year!!! A $100 gift certificate to Mood Fabrics in New York City!!

I feel like I'm cheating on Stonemountain, but I have always wanted to go to Mood, ever since I started watching Project Runway.  So for my gift card I will have to settle for online shopping.

I also track some five or six hundred women on Instagram.  It's sound excessive, but most of them are sewists and designers.  IG is a wonderful way to see what other people are working on and to see their completed projects.  Another plus is that they have a "live" element that you can just scroll through and not not have to "click" on anything. No hands peeping.

I also joined a group of sewists on Instagram who sponsored a "secret Santa" kind of thing in December, where we would make a particular pattern and send it to another sewist as a Christmas gift.  It was an international group, so I made this Linden Sweatshirt (that was the pattern we were all to use) by Grainline Studios and sent it off to the UK to Charlotte (aka the English Girl at Home)
 

 

And finally, I am reminded of how much I love to write, just by seeing my old blog posts pop up in my FB memories.  I should be writing more. Maybe even journaling...it keeps my head straight, so to speak. I hope to revive this blog in 2018 (do I say that every January?) and try to capture some of that wit and humor that I used to have on my blog and not take myself so seriously. I'm 70 afterall, and we're supposed to do and say what we want. This isn't one of those witty posts, but at least it's a start.

I look forward to seeing more creativity, seeing more beauty in the world and hearing about your me-made garments, and of course sharing my own stuff.  So here's to a great Social media year - 2018!!!

Laurel. I'm back.