Project Revival?

This project has happily sat dormant for a couple of years. I remember doing some of the main structural work during my off hours at Craft Napa, maybe 3 years ago. I'm honestly not sure what purpose it serves except to organize my own brain, but perhaps that is purpose enough.

I have learned more about craft techniques and would probably organize some of my Pinterest pins differently had I known at the time. So the structure is imperfect and artificial, but I don't think I will go back and change everything. A couple of years ago I read that if you change a Pinterest board title you lose those who are specifically following that board, but recently I read that this isn't true. So it might be worth changing some board titles to coordinate better with my hub-subcategories. And I believe Pinterest now allows its own subcategories, but I'm worried about shoving boards around, for fear that things get lost and for fear that not everyone has the technology to cope with sub-boards.

Regarding this craft hub: Recently I found a big fat stack of index cards where I had tried to list all of the boards within Caterogies.  It was probably what lead to the creation of the hub. So I went back over those cards, added a lot of new cards for new boards and made sure there was a card for every board on Pinterest, even those that have nothing to do with crafts. Since Pinterest now lets us sort by alphabetical order, I no longer have that awkward group of new boards at the end that were not mentioned on the hub. And if I can safely re-name boards I can put them in a much better order. And the hub categories will better match my Pinterest categories. Not that anyone but me is looking....

Then I plan on taking screenshots of the boards and adding them to the hub. But the real work, the filling in of the details and links and descriptions.....well, I have always become overwhelmed by that part and wandered off to other amusements. I don't want to sit at the computer too much, and that represents a massive amount of computer sitting. We shall see if I can organize it this time. Even 6 dedicated hours a week would start to make a difference. Also, let's hope Blogger never goes out of business or I am sunk!

Onward and upward. If I can keep up this momentum there may be more such blog posts.

Pinterest Sections

I've noticed that Pinterest has now created sections, so that you can take an existing board and split it into related sub-boards. This sounds great, BUT....

1. can everyone access these sub-boards, no matter how outdated their browsers?
2. can we move existing boards into sub-boards of a newly created section, or do we have to start at the existing board level (Recipes....divide it into Dinners, Desserts, Beverages, etc. and then transfer each pin as needed?). One person said their pins got lost while switching over....heaven forbid!
3. will it change the reference URLs for existing boards, assuming I am able to move them into a new section?

So, I might try this with something like my recipes board, which really does need subdivisions similar to those mentioned above. But meanwhile, I think I'll stick with my current subdivision system of  naming boards things like "Embroidery - Counted Thread" and "Embroidery - Stumpwork". One thing I've noticed is I haven't been able to move the newest boards and have them stick where I put them. I'm wondering if this has been fixed and if it has more to do with my browser than the Pinterest site. The newest boards have not been added to this (currently dormant) crafts dictionary site, and those are the ones that are not movable, so there is one advantage to having them off by themselves until I can get around to moving them.

Ah, I see I dropped this dictionary project back in the spring of 2017. In truth, I have too many things that keep me from moving about as much as I should, and we have such poor internet service at home that I would have to go to a library to do this work with a better connection. Maybe I need some sort of tablet computer for this kind of work, smaller, more portable, less precious than my laptop.

Hopefully I will revisit this site in spring 2018.....perhaps I will do some editing during Craft Napa, as I did last year.

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And So it Begins

The day before yesterday I activated my blogs for public searches, yesterday I added a link to my hub page to all of my craft boards on Pinterest. As of today, the only visits have been from one page to another, even after I have disabled all of my own page views. So it's just me visiting me right now. Since I have no desire to earn money off of this little project, this complete lack of public scrutiny feels rather liberating. Think of all the hate mail I won't be receiving. :-)  Ahhhh, what a relief that there is rarely hate mail in the world of crafts!

I have completed most of my infrastructure arrangements. I'm sure there will be links to correct, and I have several new boards that I will need to clean up and add, and I have information off of my old crafts dictionary attempt that I will be incorporating. Because everything is on blogger, I will no longer be dependent upon specific code writing software and special programs to upload my coded pages to a central website. If blogger ever folds.....well, we'll be bloggered, eh?

So, now I have reached the fun part: it's time to actually add content!  I'm really big on setting up systems, I work at it compulsively. I've been less big on the part that involves thinking and judgement. But this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing (among many other things), researching crafts and arts and encouraging myself, as well as anyone who stops by, to learn more techniques and to borrow designs and patterns from other crafts.  I am all about cultural and historical "appropriation"....without borrowing and outside influences, all ideas go stale. Our customs and traditions should not be hidden from "outsiders." Which is not saying I am advocating that one start making molas while claiming to be a resident of the San Blas Islands....unless, of course, you are. But the techniques are there for us all to learn, otherwise they may die out. And when we have been inspired by a technique, or a set of colors, or even subject matter, or a particular artist, we should use that as an excuse to share our enthusiasm with others.

I am also mostly not a fan of kits, though the more I poke around the internet, the more exceptions I find. Kits are certainly appropriate for learning new techniques. We need encouragement that we are "doing it right" when we start out. But for me, cross stitch kits that someone else has designed, where no new techniques are to be learned but a predictable result churned out, these are boring. So my links on Pinterest will rarely include these things. And I don't do "cute" well. No little country bears or sun bonnet girls (even though I still have two sunbonnet pin cushions that my mom must have made close to a century ago).

I will make a "page" for this particular blog where I will list which topics I hope to cover first. I will start with some of the more obscure crafts with the hope that resources will be limited enough that I won't become overwhelmed. I will use them to get into my stride in researching. If any real person does visit this site and I have said something inaccurate, please do leave me a message about it and point me towards better information than I have used. Also, I would love, really love, for anyone with a particular expertise to come and be a guest blogger. Especially once I have solidified the format that I want to use in my investigations. I am not at all an expert in most of these things, that is why I am setting up this site, so I can consolidate my knowledge. I have a librarian's soul, even though I dropped out of library science school years ago.

Enough "meta", I hope to make my first topic posting early this week. See my "Future Projects" page for some likely topics. On with the show.....