10-Year Blogiversary + 5 Reasons I Still Blog

Friends, last week marked my 10-year blogiversary.

When I started writing this blog in January 2010, I had been sewing for six months.  I was posting my projects on the Pattern Review website but they were hard to find.  I thought it would be nice to have a little place of my own where I could share what I was up to.

A little grayer but basically intact.

With the exception of a few skipped months over the last couple of years, I've continued to blog regularly, though nowhere near as frequently as I did at the beginning when I blogged seven days a week.  Ten years later, blogging once a week on a regular basis sounds balanced and attainable.

A lot of my fellow bloggers and blogettes from back then are no longer writing today.  If you check my Sewin' Sisters blogroll, you'll notice that a good eighty percent of those blogs haven't been updated in the last six months.  Many bloggers have migrated to other platforms, especially to Instagram.  I'm active on Instagram too, but it doesn't foster community in the same way that blogs do.  It does facilitate quick back-and-forth, one-on-one communication and I appreciate it for that.  And it's just all-around faster.

I understand why people stop blogging.  I continue for a handful of reasons.

1) I still enjoy writing about my sewing projects; in fact, I've come to recognize that writing about my sewing projects is what I enjoy most.  And doing it here, where I don't have to run my content by anybody first, allows me to express myself authentically, which is invaluable for me.

One of my favorite vintage sewing machines is this gorgeous Singer 66 with lotus decals.  It's currently in my treadle table.

2) I enjoy the sense of community blogging fosters.  It's true that blogs aren't as popular as they were when I first started.  But nothing better has come along that serves the same purpose, that allows for the depth and the detail that a long-form platform does.  I love to hear from you and, while I don't always respond directly, I always appreciate reading what you write.  And you've taught me a lot!

Whatever happened to The Selfish Seamstress, one of my all-time favorite sewing blogs of yore?

3) Blogs suit me better than other forms of social media.  I don't use Facebook other than to promote a new MPB blog post and I've never understood Twitter.  I don't do Tumblr or LinkedIn, let alone Tinder, Grindr, or SlowCookr.  I have a YouTube channel but haven't posted a video in years.  Sue me, I like blogs!

4) Perhaps blogs still feel relevant to me because I still enjoy reading them.  In a way, having fewer blogs makes me appreciate the ones that are still around.

5) One of the best parts of a blog for me is that it provides an archive of almost every sewing project I've undertaken, not to mention family events, flea market jaunts, vintage sewing machine acquisitions, and MPB Day adventures.  Sometimes I go back and see what I was up to in, say, November, 2011.  It's like reading your old journals.

I have tried to make it easy to search through the archives of Male Pattern Boldness.  I've been very consistent about labeling posts and I've taken nothing down since the beginning, though sadly some of the early links don't work or photos cannot be supersized (this is the result of Google Photos taking over Picasa, where my images were originally hosted).  Most things still function.  I hope to create a post linking to the (25+) Cathy photo shoots someday soon.

Cathy in her shimmering two-piece evening set and faux fur coat.  She's still the personification of chic!

Readership may be down but MPB Day attendance is up!

I feel more motivated to blog lately than I have the last couple of years.  When world events seem scary, this blog feels like a safe harbor.

I'm thrilled to see that you're still reading and contributing.  I don't know if I'll be blogging ten years from now--who knows what life has in store for any of us--but I wouldn't be surprised!

Have a great day, everybody, and thanks again for reading and being part of this community!

Coming soon--mark your calendars!