My name is Charlotte, sometimes known as Ms Lottie, occasionally as The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady. This is my blog, where you'll find me writing a lot about my quilting and textile arts and a little about my family's life in a small seaside town in New Zealand. Haere mai!

Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Deadlines and Blogtober

I've been pondering ways to reinvigorate my blog, trying to find ways to make blogging a habit again and it came to mind that we have hit October.  Have you heard of Blogtober?  It was a challenge thingy that ran for at least a couple of years - the rules of the challenge were pretty simple, bloggers would blog every day in October.

I don't know if there is a Blogtober thing happening this year, but I thought I might hold my own personal one.  I know I'll fall over if I try to do it every single day, and it's already the 2nd of October, so I'm making it my goal to post every second day.

So welcome to my first Blogtober post!


I'm working towards a deadline at present.  It's amazing how great a deadline is for motivation, and because this deadline is an exhibition of sorts, it's also been amazing how great it's been for my creative output.

I lead a busy life.  I'm a mum to two growing kids, a midwife, an artist, and a wife to a busy man.  We've moved house twice this year, sold our boat, I've moved out of my studio, we're renovating the house we are in, we're tackling the horrendous garden on our rental property, and now we are in the process of selling my husband's shares in his two businesses.  

So I could easily make excuses.  And sometimes I do.  But excuses do not make good art.  Ever since I read about Jane Sassaman making art on her kitchen table for years and what she achieved using whatever tiny space she had, I've known that if I want it badly enough, I just have to make do with what space and time I have, and just do it.

But a deadline sure helps that 'just do it' attitude!


My deadline is the KOAST art trail.  Kerikeri holds a very successful art trail over Labour weekend every year.  I can't take part because I'm not physically in Kerikeri, but this year they've invited me to be one of their guest artists, exhibiting at a shared location.  I'm really excited and honoured to be chosen and looking forward to the experience as I've never been a part of anything like this yet.

If you want to make a long weekend of it, you can use the contact form here and order a KOAST trail guide.  Kerikeri and The Bay of Islands has great accomodation if you are from out of town and want to make a weekend of it.

So there we have it, my first Blogtober post.  It wasn't so hard.  And now I must get back to making art.


5 comments:

  1. Good luck with Blogtober, a great idea and congratulations on being a chosen artist for KOAST. You certainly seem to be producing beautiful art in the midst of a very busy life!

    ReplyDelete
  2. "So I could easily make excuses. And sometimes I do. But excuses do not make good art." this is a GREAT quote and I am keeping it handy.

    I am trying to get back to posting every day as well. The key is to do something so I have something to post about.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Looking forward to ready your October posts, I can only manage one post a week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Woohoo! Well done on the Koast opportunity. You guys have been busy with an ever changing life... blogs seem to be the first casualty and the nature of blogging has definitely changed. I used to read posts four or five times a day, now I check for new posts once a week... if that 😕

    ReplyDelete
  5. [Per your comment to me] I think it is important to blog on the small things, but the most important thing is to decide what is important to YOU about blogging. I absolutely love my readers, but ultimately, I blog for myself. That means that if I blog about the small things, I can remember, years later, what I was thinking or what part of my process didn't make it into the final.

    ReplyDelete

Hi, I love reading comments, so thanks for visiting my blog and leaving me a message :)
Due to a huge increase in spam, I've disabled anonymous comments. Apologies if this effects any real life readers!