Something New

Friends, I am so excited to share a little something new with you. A new blog! I've been plugging away at it for the past couple of weeks and, though there's still not much there, I am thoroughly excited about it. I hope you will be too! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me explain a little.

First of all, I love The Red Kitchen. It feels like my own little online home. But, much like my real-life home, it's not only an expression of my style and all the things I love, but it's also kind of a perpetual mess. I've known it for a long time and, though I've tried my best to clean it up now and again, I finally came to the realization that all of the mess has been holding me back from what I really want to do. This, of course, is not to say that I won't be writing here anymore. I will! I will! But this blog is going to transition into more of a personal blog, if that makes sense.

Looking back now, I wish I had done this a lot sooner. My style and skills have grown so much since I first started blogging and, while, as a person, I'm just fine with change, as a blogger it makes things so much easier to just start fresh.

For so long I've been watching new bloggers start up and over and over again I've found myself craving their easy start. They already know how to take nice, clean photographs! And edit them! And navigate Blogger! When I started blogging I had no idea how to take a picture, let alone upload it to my blog. But then, when I started blogging I was just writing nonsense. I didn't create this space as a dedicated craft and sewing blog, which, I think, is why I've struggled so much to smoosh it into that form. This blog was never really made for that.


Some bloggers (in fact, so many bloggers) have created wonderful, beautiful blogs where their creativity and everyday lives walk hand in hand. I love reading these blogs. They are some of my favorites. But they are also written by people who are far handier with a fancy camera than I am. I've always enjoyed photography, but I won't deny that I still always wish I had a professional around to photograph all of my tutorials. Anyway, this is all my long-winded way of saying that I'm overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes (for me, anyway) to take nice, clean photographs, edit them a bajillion ways, and then write up blog posts... about every little thing.

So, instead of trying to be someone and something that I'm not, I've decided to focus my energy on things I can do. And that I enjoy doing! Instead of making a goal to write on this blog everyday (a goal which I have considered many times), I decided to make a goal to publish at least one tutorial each week on my new blog. One tutorial each week that is my very best work in every way--my creativity, my photography, my editing, my writing. Not only is this good practice for me as I'm working on writing my book, I feel it's a much better (and more up-to-date) portfolio of my work for publishers and agents and other cool people that want to pay me money for my work to browse through.

And, with that professional attitude in mind, I also wanted to create an online space for myself that was a clear representation of me. Not a red kitchen (which I honestly don't even have anymore). Not a bunch of other stuff. Just Katie Lewis. And so, I give you:

katielewis-portfolio.blogspot.com

I hope you'll come over and browse through the little bit that's there already. (Pssst! My favorite so far is Little Red.)

And, while you're there, I hope you'll also take a moment to read why I've turned off the comments over there. It's certainly not because I don't love you guys, because I definitely do love you guys. And you have to know that I cherish every single comment. So please feel free to leave your feedback in other ways! At least for now I'm planning to post here with a link whenever I put up a new tutorial there. So if you're feeling comment-deprived you can always leave a note when I post here. I certainly wouldn't mind. :)

I'm so excited for a new space to fill up with crafty goodness this year. See you there!