GoodBye to my Crochet Blog/Web Site

[SusansSoulShines]

Hello to my dear friends in Crochet Talk, and some I don't know as well, and some I've not met yet. I'm long winded so make a good blogger, but it takes a lot of time and there comes time for change. You might want to read this for a while, then stop, then come back to it later, lol, several times later!

I've been leaning towards this direction for some time, and you could probably tell if you've been reading my blog for about the near-year that I've had it. I remember my husband & I moving to this nice rental home under extreme duress. We took the place on a Friday and moved our things in over the weekend out of storage. It was hot, we were beaten down, I'm disabled and should never have done what I did and I'll pay for it forever, so will my husband. His hernia ended up not being an emergency so he's going to do it later this year.

We'd moved a total of 3 times last year counting the last move from removing our belongings from storage, and at our age and with our health, we just about lost it - we knew it would be hard but not THAT hard, both mentally and physically. We sadly became estranged from some once very close family members, but when they drag you down and ruin your life, you have to let them go if you can't make it work. God brings people into your life and He removes them forever or for as long as He sees fit. I accept that but am not 100% happy about it. We chose to stick with life.

We're both a year older, I was 58 a week ago Monday, and my husband was 59 in January. These mental and physical pains hurt a lot more at these ages, and cut a lot deeper, as many of you know! I have somethings to tell my blog site subscribers and a lady posted a question in my blog comment section that was the perfect time to go ahead and start making my new plan really clear, so I answered her and decided to post my reply to her in a few places to keep me from having to re-type this information.

I'm not sure exactly what date but you all may remember when something popped in the back of my right knee right as we were making this home comfortable for us, and within a minute I couldn't walk at all. I crawled to get my walker out of the closet, and altho I'd only used it twice before, I was really glad to have it! We learned everything that wasn't wrong with me but we never could find out what happened. I started having a lot of new problems on top of my other diseases and I was miserable. I remember saying to my husband," I can't believe this happened now, right after I just got my blog site online"! So even tho I was going to get lot of CT scans and ultra sounds, blood work, knee gel injections (OUCH!), and more, I kept working on the blog posts. I felt much worse than usual but the blog gave me something to focus on like my crochet, so I had more enjoyable therapy even tho I was miserable. I really did give the posts my all, and if I can offer what I want to learn to you, I may re-open my blog site, but a lot of thing would have to change in the crochet community as a whole.

There are some truly wonderful sites that are chock full of amazing new techniques, stitches, lessons, inspiration, ideas, and more but there are way too many small sites popping up.. and in my opinion, some of them are too widely spread and lacking in Crochet Guild of America skills and standards, focusing on several subjects besides crochet. Seems to me they need to be broken apart some. I hope that some of these over the next few years will be weeded out and find their specific niche. You can honestly only cover well so many topics on one blog site and offer any valuable knowledge to learn from any on any of the topics on their site. Not to be critical, and I truly do understand that many young mothers want to stay home with their babies and older children, but once you start getting too widely spread out, things start lacking in learning, and a site can become a pretty site of photos of little kids and their homes, and can get away from their original idea that might have started out to be a little knitting or crochet, or cooking, or sewing, or quilting, etc.,etc., before long something will start to lack, because most sites can't support that much variety - especially for free. That's not why I'm stepping out, but if I didn't have my garments and other crochet to learn, and move the desire to move forward in my crochet level, I would probably step out for a while because of this. Some of these sites don't know or follow the standards that are set for us to follow, so people will be teaching incorrect crochet/knitting. some of the questions/comments/disagreements I've heard people make/have have blown my mind - they ought to know better already! Time for a little technical learning before you do improper teaching,
and if not possible, better not to include some crafts/arts in your blog site.

Here is my reply to her after she asked if I knew how to change the neckline on a sleeveless top she's found. I'd had the same problem with a short sleeve top I'd found, but either way, I hope you'll read this. I'll answer any questions you have whenever you want me to. It will explain a lot of things about my crochet future for those interested:
"Hi R___ I appreciate your kind comments about my blog site! Your comment brings up 2 topics I need to talk about, so I’ll start with the sleeveless top. I found a pattern with the same basic problem you had with the neckline, but the one I saw was short sleeved. I knew I wouldn’t wear it if I couldn’t change the neckline, so I plan to contact the designer next since the youtube instructor/designer said she didn’t know of a way to adjust the neckline. I plan to go ahead with it if I can adjust it.

I plan to take at least one, or more if possible, classes on the Craftsy website, one on crocheting garments and fitting them well. I need time to take the class, practice what I learn, try out various yarn and hook sizes with styles of garments, and so on. I hope to take 1 or 2 other classes to improve my crochet skills and to get more into design as well, since I started writing patterns last year. There are other useful crochet skills that I need and want to gain at this time as well. This will allow me to fix problems I come across in designs and to write new patterns too.

There are a great many new crochet or knit/craft/recipe type of websites that have sprung up just lately, and I hope they can all get adjusted, find their places online, and follow proper standard and legal requirements on patterns/photo copyrights while providing really helpful ideas with skill raising lessons and techniques. Not to be disrespecting any one site in particular, just an overall desire for the crochet world in general. I’ve always tried to be careful to do all of the just-mentioned things on my crochet blog/web site, and if not able to provide them, better not to have a site.

While it’s truly wonderful to know that I’ve helped people in their crochet experience, and to get positive feedback after posting posts, I have a lot more advanced crochet that I’d like to learn and then hopefully to provide other crocheters with, and it takes a lot of time. The blog site has been taking up a lot of that time that I feel will be better spent learning and putting new things to work ideas with skill raising lessons and techniques.

I’m glad to know that after all you’ve gone thru that the ergonomic hooks have helped you, that’s very encouraging to know. I’ve always been open about my disabilities and health problems that cause pain and decreased ability to crochet the way I’d like to, and for the length of time that I’d like to. I really feel that since my year-end contract will be up in July, that the best thing for me now is to close the site at that time and work on increasing my crochet abilities as much as I can, with knowledge if not with more physical ability.

I’ve so enjoyed the site and how it’s helped me learn more while making wonderful new friends who also love crochet at the same time! Since I’ll remain active on many other sites like facebook, google+, twitter, Pinterest, Craftsy and Ravelry, plus other fb crochet groups, forum sites, google+ communities, sites like Crochet At Play, Crochet Pattern Bonanza, The Yarn Box, and maybe a few more (which is QUITE a lot in itself!), I’ll still be able to correspond and share ideas and information with anyone who’d like to, so it doesn’t have to be a horrible thing or a big loss, we can continue to learn and improve our crochet skills and maybe at another time I’ll consider re-opening the site.

I’ve been leaning towards this direction of a lot of this year, and some people may have suspected this already. I never wanted to wait until the last minute and not have informed everyone of my intentions. I’ve had too much support and encouragement from too many people to do that! So I won’t say goodbye, I’ll just change my format, and we’ll all continue to gain from this whole experience. Thank you R___ for making a comment that unknowingly helped me to give a reply with a lot of sensitive information all in one place. And to everyone else, I’ll be talking with you more in the next few blog posts! I'll still be all over the internet, maybe just not quite as much.
Susan of
Crochet by Susan's Soul Shines