Why Should Our Best Only Be on Instagram?

Rojas Quilt Pattern, photo by Cate Dingley

 

One of the reasons I wanted to start blogging again was a simple, but also complex. I was observing something online. Scrolling through Instagram, I was finding people whose work I liked a lot. I’d click on their profile to go to their website, only to find that it often said “coming soon” or that it was very outdated. Old blog posts, online shops that didn’t resemble what they were showing on Instagram in the least, nowhere to sign up for an email list.

Are we saving out best content for Instagram? Are we putting out prettiest photographs in some sort of social media post? Is the preferred place we are “getting real” in an Instagram story that disappears in 24 hours? I don’t want to pick only on Instagram, but it’s where I tend to do my fair share of mindless scrolling.

I don’t mind feeding Instagram and Facebook with content. After all, they allow me to market myself for free, and I appreciate the audience I have on both on those platforms. (Please don’t make me do Tik-Tok, or whatever the next thing is…) There was a time in my way back when I would put my best content on the blog first, and maybe a version of that best content on Flickr. The internet was a lot less crowded at that time, and it was just easier to have a home online.

  • Now that my own business has grown into an actual business (thank you internet and that 2005 blog!), I rely on being seen online. But at the same time, I realize my blog is a bit neglected.
  • Here is a little about me today, 17 years later than-
  • My family and I moved from Seattle, Washington to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2020, during the pandemic. We have family here, and even though the move seemed sudden in some ways, it was one we’d thought about for a few years.
  • I absolutely love my business. I think its so fantastic that I can design quilts, talk quilts, and build a community online around quilts. I have to make myself take a break in the evening because I could happily keep on working. (The photo above is one of my newer favorite quilts, Rojas.)
  • My daughter is now 23 and moving to Portland at the end of the month.
  • My son is now 20 and going to college in Chicago.
  • Our sweet cat Gracie, who was so prominently featured on my blog during the early days, died about 4 years ago.
  • We now have an all black cat named Toby who started out as a very high energy cat, but is now an absolutely joy. I just adore him.
  • Many of you told me that you’d been following me since those early blog days when I mentioned I would be blogging again this year and I am very grateful for each of you!

So, for now, I want to include my best content here on the blog, and not save it all for the other platforms. They change, they sometimes “break”, they may even go away one day. At least this is my own home, and if something happens, I know I’ll get it fixed.

So tell me, what should we talk about here on the blog? What would you like to see here? Want to know more behind the scenes of my business? Want to know how about Santa Fe? Quilting questions? Leave a comment and let me know!

Til next time!

Blair

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