Dilettante...

First off, and as always, apologies for my long absence. I've come down with a bad case of business, but I'll refrain from going into detail, as it seems to be going around. You'll probably catch it sooner or later, if you haven't got it yet.

I've been wracking my brain over a better title for this blog. I don't know about you, but when I look at a list of blogs I'm much more likely to check out something called "whispering pine" or "brooklyntweed" or "moonstitches" than simply a name. But I haven't come up with anything to suit me. Until this evening, perhaps.

Some of the blogs I admire (ok, idolize, study) are written by women who do this sort of thing professionally. I'm really only dabbling, no matter how delightful (and expensive and time consuming) a hobby it may be. So I was browsing one of these professional blogs for reasons we'll get to shortly, and the author had a post on the word "dilettante." A quick trip to Answers.com tells us that a dilettante could be either a dabbler or a lover of the fine arts. How perfect! That's it precisely! And now, for a moment, on to the juicy stuff.

This evening I found some of the blog sphere in a hullabaloo. Here's the long of the short of it, and pardon my gossipy tone. Jane Brocket a professional "domestic artist," wrote a book. I haven't seen the book, but her blog (from which I have happily borrowed "dilettante") is fantastic. She received a scathing and catty review, in which she was called a "domestic evangelist" and the homemaking genre was likened to "domestic porn." There have been some fantastic responses, and I'll refrain from adding my own, except to say that I hope to be counted among the ilk of bloggers and domestics that the article refers to. The abundance of supportive and creative energy that floats around online and in our homes is a beautiful thing.

Alas, it seems someone else has already sprung on "Domestic Dilettante." So I'll mull on it some more, but I like where this is going. And now, I'm going to get back to my domestic porn. I mean embroidery.