A New Start

I believe in new starts! Always have.  And I love starting them myself.

It has been a crazy year.

My oldest daughter got married in an SCA / time-traveler wedding, and I sewed most of our side of the wedding party’s outfits. Found out that one of my best friends had been conning myself and a few other of my best friends for years (pretending to be dying of cancer among other, even worse, cons).  Wound up in the hospital in a delusional, painful state with a severe fever and kidney infection.   Discovered that I am not leadership material when I made a mess as president of my homeschool group, and then swallowed my ego and stepped down.  Drove across 1,600 across the country to work at a children’s camp to discover that some bad things were going on that involved the children. Drove back to have one of my main local social groups implode in a nasty ugly way.

So . . . it has bee a crazy, ugly year, but it has been a cluster of crazy years. That may simply be life.

I’m back to my projects and art and things I enjoy. Being back means having to decide whether or not to blog about my projects.

Over a year ago the wind left my blogging sails when a fellow blogger confronted me about using one of her pictures without asking permission or properly documenting where I had found it. I didn’t get defensive or angry. She was right.

In my enthusiasm and joy of sharing what I learn, I didn’t cite my references. It’s a newbie mistake, and one I should have known better than to make. At one point in my life, I was meticulous at referencing my sources. A decade and a half later, I have forgotten the lessons of always giving credit where credit is due.

I do not want to do that again. Honestly, I do not have the time to be such a meticulous note-taker on every picture and piece of information that gives me an idea or inspiration. On what I use in the documentation for my projects, in the hand-outs for my classes and in research papers, I note everything. For fun projects, however, if I take the time, between homeschooling 4 children, being an active part of our local homeschool group (though not as president!), wanting to be active in the SCA again, helping organize and run a Hogwarts’ themed children’s summer camp, and having an active social life and friends outside of all of that, I would have no time left for the projects.

I still will not again fail to give credit where it is deserved. After a great deal of thought, I came to two realistic options. I could stop blogging altogether and stop sharing my projects to anyone other than my close friends. Or I could share only what is mine to share: my own pictures of my work, my own sketches, my own thoughts and ideas. I can refer back to the original works, such as “this tunic was inspired by the guy on the right in folio 37r in the Manesse Codex,” but I won’t include photos that I did not take.

It is what it is. Maybe I will be less of a useful resource, but I’m hoping that by sharing my work, my mistakes and what I learn that someone out there will benefit and go on to make their own works.

Here’s to a new start!