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Balancing ThreadAbell

 Hi. This is my first "professional" blog post. I spent several years documenting my life (and my family's) as a Mommy blogger at Balancing on One Foot. Good times were had, funny stories were shared... and then my nightly writing time was replaced with nightly sewing time. That nightly sewing time morphed into several hours a day of sewing time, into an Etsy shop and into my certified home office/craft room. With three children and you know, the necessity to feed and care for them - I was certainly earning more money sewing custom quilts and Etsy orders than blabbing about my life as a "work from home" mother.

 But I miss the blog. So often I sit at my sewing room, wanting to discuss the evolution of my business and how it fits (or doesn't on some days) into the rest of my life.

The theme of my personal blog was all about "balance" - making sure that all of the different components of our lives get just the right amount of attention. How that's nearly impossible, but how we aren't healthy unless we try anyways. I have found that sewing/crafting/entrepreneurship is just like that. If the "tension" or balance of the thread in your sewing machine is off... you will literally be able to create nothing. You will instead become buried in a tangle of bobbin thread, mystified and confused and in many a case, very very VERY frustrated with your machine.

 The beauty of any serious craft or hobby is that if you apply a little patience, effort, online tutorials AND some cocktails... you move forward quickly. I was once afraid of zippers, free motion quilting and pintucks - and am happy to report that I can DO THAT! Sounds simple and mundane to some - but it's also very empowering.

 I want this blog to be a place where you can find solace and humor in the online crafting community. Too often I have encountered a know-it-all quilter who goes on and on about a machine that cost as much as a car (they really do exist!) and uses annoying amounts of insider terms. Like, "I had to adjust the feed dog. Everyone knows that. Ewww, you use a Singer? My Babylok is top of the line."

 Let's all be real - sewing is hard. We all make mistakes and continue to make mistakes. But I believe that anyone can do it. Or at least we can all pursue something that we love. So please join me as I now blab about my life in AND out of the sewing room.

 And for all you Facebook junkies, I post pictures daily at my ThreadAbell page!

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