Grow your blog - intro

Welcome, to anyone who might be reading as a result of the Grow Your Blog project. If you're someone who knows me and has read my blog for a while, I hope you'll either bypass this post, or else read it and discover some things you didn't know about me. I can't promise they will be interesting, though!

I have been blogging for a long time now - over 10 years - though on this blog, not for as long as that. I began blogging in July 2002, on my family blog, more or less when I stopped working. The idea was, I think,   just to have a way to impart information to those far and wide - I had two small kids at the time (rather than the 3 rather larger kids I have now) and a dial-up internet connection.

10 Years later, and I no longer have dial-up - and I no longer have a single blog.  I do still have the family blog - in ten years I've posted 1288 times, apparently.  Not a bad average, although this year I'm trying to post more often. I talk about my family, my house, trips we take, days out, cooking, art and craft the kids do, the weather, books, and so on. It's a family blog - does, as they say, what it says on the tin.  In 2012 I blogged our family meals, with recipes, which was great fun, but also hard work, so this year, I'm not dropping that idea entirely, but I'm only blogging photos of the food and a little chat about them with no recipes - avoids all the copyright issues, too...

I started this blog, my art blog (which used to be called just Kate's Quilting, hence the URL), in August 2006 (you can see my first post here, if you fancy it - and indeed, can view any of the nearly 2000 posts by checking out the archives in the sidebar), and in addition, I have several other blog that I am involved in or run - the one for my mini-quilt swap (Another Little Quilt Swap) - which has just wrapped up its 7th round (aside from a few quilts still lost in the postal ether), and one specifically dedicated to scrapbusting ideas for quilters. I've also been involved in various blogs related to challenges and projects, like the one for a Stay-at-Home Round Robin I ran for a few years, and so on. Blogs come and go - though I think this one is here to stay.  I sometimes think I should just have the one blog, but I don't want to drop either of them, and I think a lot of my quilter friends wouldn't be all that interested in my family blog - and vice versa. People can always hop around if they want to!

I always hate trying to tell people about myself, especially unprompted, so it occurs to me that if you really want to know, I did an interview about 5 years ago on Carina's blog, which probably answers all the questions you could conceivably ask...

Anyway. Welcome! Enjoy, relax, comment.  I'm here blogging anyway, so it's nice to have you along for the ride...

Oh, and I meant to say, there will be a giveaway related to the Grow Your Blog project!  Leave a comment (make sure you are contactable) and you'll be in with a chance to win this lovely(?) set of 6" squares - there are actually 51 in the pile, because I apparently can't count, and at least 44 of them are unique. There are a few repeats, but nothing more than twice. All cotton, from various sources, mostly regular quilting cotton, but a few from my dad's Hawaiian shirts and other such projects.  I'll draw a winner probably on the 1st of Feb.