I have been posting on youTube weekly (sometimes twice a week!) for the past ten and a half years! There are countless hours upon hours of time and energy I pour into my tutorials each week. I love being able to reach people all over the world and inspire them to create amazing things.
But I have come to a point where I feel like I am no longer creating amazing things for myself. I spend every spare moment of time (when I’m not homeschooling my kids, cooking, sleeping, etc) working on youTube videos. Planning projects, filming, editing, etc. That leaves ZERO time to work on things for me. Projects I don’t want to film and just get to enjoy making. Earlier this year I made my “big cosplay” for the year and it took me 4 months to make when it really should have only taken 2 or 3 weeks. I have several dream cosplays (and other types of projects) I really want to make. I get very excited about them and start planning what all needs to be done…then begin to talk myself out of them before I ever even start. I realize if my other cosplay took 4 months and didn’t involve any mockups and things went smoothly I know I will never have time to make other projects that WILL need mockups and require all sorts of techniques I’ve never done before.
I’m tired of telling myself no when it comes to things I really want to do. I don’t want to grow old and think back on my life and wish I would have dressed up with my kids more, made the costumes I was excited about, and done more fun things when I could have. This all came to head a couple of months ago when my website crashed and was down for about a week. I didn’t post a video that week because I couldn’t get the accompanying PDF up on my site. During that week I realized how stressed I was on a regular basis to the point that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to continue with any of it.
But I know there is no way I could walk about from youTube! I have so many amazing viewers I love interacting with. I love seeing what you all are creating, I love being able to teach people all around the world! So I’m not quitting; but I am slowing down. I just can’t keep up with posting every single week any longer. I’m going to work on the projects that make me happy and post videos when I can. I have a feeling I’ll fall into a rhythm of a video every other week after a while. The videos themselves won’t all be tutorials. Some will be tutorials, others will be pattern reviews, or just sewing related chit chats. I might eventually get back to weekly videos, but no guarantees.
Since making my decision to cut back I already completed one project I had planned on making a year ago. For an entire year I never had a chance to make one pair of 1940s style dungarees. A week and a half ago I decided it was now or never. I didn’t want to go through another winter without them. So I spent 8 or 9 hours working on them (over the course of two days) and I LOVE them! They are my current favorite clothing item and I’ve worn them at least 5 times already. I will have a video all about the dungarees (pattern review, things I love, things I didn’t quite love, etc) and it will be up…when I get a chance.
But for now I do have this week’s video where I pour my heart out even more than I have in this post already. You can watch it HERE!
So, long story short. I need to take some time for me to do some happy sewing. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram in the meantime where I will post more day to day and current project updates. I will see you when I see you and in the meantime I hope you are doing what makes you happy! Happy Sewing!
-Whitney-