Why do I do this? • February 2025 This and That

BlueSky comment: “What a great hobby (and don’t be upset if it’s more than a hobby). These quilts are beautiful. Quilting is fascinating to me.”

Hobby. Hmmm. (This person obviously doesn’t know quilters.) I did hit a goal of mine on BlueSkySocial, but that’s not really what I’m looking for on there. (And if you are trying to learn this new space, the advice I got on Reddit was to skip the on-the-phone-app and go straight to the computer, as it’s easier. They were right.)

I’m looking for more of a retreat from Instagram/Meta/Facebook conglomerate, accelerated by logging into Facebook and checking the following:

Off-Facebook Activity, or in other words, all the info from OTHER businesses, not Meta. They funnel my data to Meta to build my profile; I had about 25 different entities who were sharing my info with Facebook. From following the instructions on Facebook, I learned I could download what Meta knew about me, etc. which was kind of interesting and scary all at once.

Apparently I speak English, Spanish, French, Swiss (I assume that’s zh?), have no idea what “pt” is (Portuguese?), Italian, and Korean. One of my “Locations of Interest” is Melbourne, Australia. (Hi, Susan!)

This is my earliest Instagram profile. My first Instagram comment was in May 2012, to my friend Krista, as it was she who got me started on social media in the first place.

The real treasure was a huge file of all my Instagram posts (images and caption). I’ve been trying to build some Chatbooks, but apparently that company doesn’t talk to the Instagram code like they used to, so it’s been just me, filling the pages of my books slowly. This will help me go much faster to get them produced and printed. I saved that file on my photos drive, and have promised myself I will be checking that Meta setting again sooner, rather than later. Note: This above info is only the data from the Meta bunch. I wonder what I would have found if I’d downloaded everything from everyone (shudder).

A few photos from this week, beginning Monday, ending Saturday:

Final series of blocks, cornerstones and sashing. The center of the quilt is Cat’s Cradle blocks, sashed with cornerstones and pieced rectangles. Quilt design: Lisa Alexander & Susan Ache

I still have to do the borders. In the fourth photo, I am auditioning fabrics as I was running out and was determined not to buy more (can’t, really, because most of our fabric shops have closed down in our town, anyway). I went through everything, and found a few strips in my string-piecing bin, some other contenders deep in the stash stacks. So tonight while I listened to The Thursday Murders Club, Book Two, I finished piecing this section. I hope there are no mistakes.

Just in case you need this info.

Back to the quilt. I’m a person who generally averse to buying pre-cuts of any kind, but then had to ask myself as to why I hadn’t done something with what few bundles of fabrics I had? The collection of grey-green-cream was probably eight years old, with some fading along the folds (but it didn’t seem to affect how it looked, once cut up into all those wee triangles). I wanted to finish the bulk of the piecing in one week. Many reasons for this, mostly because I remembered when I used to crank out these heavily pieced quilt tops. Could I still do it? And then I ran across this quote:

I do not believe there is an artist in history who hasn’t asked themself — at least once — “Why do I do this?” The designation of “creator” may make for a glorious calling card, but as an occupation, it involves a disproportionate amount of spirit-crushing struggle and relatively few rewards.
–Mary Gabriel

Current Events (you know we talk about most everything on here)

A word or two about January’s Current Events: Many of us on Instagram & BlueSkySocial have been writing about our “spirit-crushing struggle” this week. My feeds have been filled with memes:

I knew there would be a transition between President Biden and President Trump, and I expected some chaos, given how things were the last time he was president. But I didn’t expect what we’ve had, and the plane crash after all the firings of the air safety personnel was really hard to take. But many people I know and love voted for him. I will do my best to give grace, because of them.

However, I will continue to monitor the situation where DOGE was given full access to the federal payment system (confession: my hair is on fire over this one). I can see the irony in my fretting about what Meta has on me (above), as compared with what the government has. I don’t think there is anywhere I can petition and download a file to see what personal information is being given to the owner of Twitter, a platform I quit because I didn’t trust their ability to keep my info safe and secure.

In a book I read this week, I found this: “Good work is a stay against despair” (Terry Tempest Williams). I need to work. I need to create. And even though it can make me wonder Why Do I Do This? once in a while, I still want to pull fabric from bins and stacks, cut it all up and put it back into a new order.

I’ll leave you with some pretty blooms from my February garden.

And a wonderful conversation with Peter Brown, the man who wrote The Wild Robot. (illustration from here)