Blogging U. Day 9: The Buddy System

August 2, 2015August 1, 201510 Comments

I FOUND some amazing, awesome, better-than-ice cream buddies through the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop. We’ve become good friends.

We were divided into groups and performed critiques of each other’s blogs, and I feel a kinship to those bloggers: Erin at Twin Mom Quilts, Helen at Midget Gem Quilts and Sarah at Sarah Goer Quilts.

I also became buddies with some other amazing bloggers through the Chicken Run which is hosted by Oh Sew Tempting. I agreed to make a Chicken Pincushion and give it away on my blog after receiving a pincushion, which I named Lucky Stripper, from Textile Dreamer. And Sarah at Cedar Fork Stitches received LOVE DOVE from me.

One of the winners of the Chicken Run pincushion was Annett of KnettyCraft, and I interact with her more than any other blogger.

I’ve also been interacting with the most generous people through the Savor Each Stitch Book Bee. We are using Carolyn Friedlander’s book as inspiration for designing and making quilts. We take each chapter and design a quilt. So far we’ve done Lines, Contrast and Scale. They have encouraged my risk taking and have given me inspiration to design what I like and not worry if fits into a certain category of quilting. In particular, Susan blogs at We all have to Start Somewhere, and Anna blogs at Mod Quilt Mom.

Most recently I’ve been sharing comments and blogging tips with Mary at Zippy Quilts.

Now, back to Blogging University’s assignment for today: find a blogging buddy. Since I have found so many blogging buddies, it is hard to ask one of them to be exclusive. I’m going to continue with my current blogging circle. And if, at some point, I want to find a guest blogger or cooperate on a single project, I can do that then.

I’m happy to hang out with all my new friends. I hope to meet them in person some day.

Sew sew grateful,

Wanda

Blogging U. Day 8: Make your Blog a Hub

July 30, 2015July 29, 20158 Comments

IF YOU SEE me running across the lawn with my hair on fire, it’s because my brain has exploded and fire is shooting out my ears.

WHY you ask?

Today’s topic is about exploring opportunities beyond my blog. Blogging University calls my blog just a “hub” for my online presence. They suggest creating a page or section to display links to all my online presence elsewhere. Didn’t I just do this with those sidebar buttons?

Well, yes and no.

Krista of Blogging U. advices:

The short answer is: you don’t have to do anything. If you’re happy simply blogging, then hooray! We’re glad. But since you’re here because you care about traffic and growth, we want to take time to discuss how expanding your presence on a few more platforms might benefit you, whether you’re a professional freelancer or aspiring writer (or poet, or photographer, or…). This isn’t about tweeting or status updates, but about spreading your substantive work across the web — and pointing it back to your blog.

[insert eyes rolling in the back on my head]

Then I started to read the links and it started to make more sense. I could consider Tumblr, for example, as a complimentary space for my writing.

It is worth having a page on my blog with these links, not just the sidebar buttons. But, those links would need to have different content than can be found on my blog or at least I think that’s what this all means. It’s just a bit much, and my head is reeling from all this knowledge.

Cooling down now,

Wanda

Blogging University Day 7: Make the Most of Big Events

July 28, 20156 Comments

CREATE recurring blogging event or MAKE plans to attend a blogging conference. That’s today’s assignment.

A blog event attracts visitors, and participating in a blog conference raises your profile.

A BLOG EVENT

I participated in the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop and I’m going to participate in the Fabri-Quilt New Quilt Block Blog Hop.

Blogging University invites its students to start an event of our own.

Through the New Quilt Bloggers I was in the “Sewcial Swarm” hive, and one of the hive mates, Deanna at Stitches Quilting, posted about wanting to make a Cathedral Window quilt some day. The pattern was from a subscription service, Best-Loved Quilt Patterns, which I have. It belonged to my mother.

Deanna suggested we have a Quilt-A-Long together. Each week we’d make a Cathedral Window and within about three years we’d have enough for a twin-sized quilt — if we used 6″ blocks. Of course we could make it modern and oversize it — maybe double it for 12″ blocks. We could call it “Cathedral Windnesday.” I’d create directions for the “bigger” windows then post a block each week. My concern is it wouldn’t be very exciting and limited to one quilt block. I like the idea of oversizing traditional quilt blocks so maybe a combination of a Block of the Month sampler where I upsize a traditional block. That would be a BIG EVENT.

WordPress has a complete guide to help me host the perfect event. I can submit my event to their listings. I’ll study on this some more.

A BLOG CONFERENCE

Who knew there was Bloggy Boot Camp or blogging conferences? WordPress has WordCamp.

Not sure this is for me, but perhaps this is something the Modern Quilt Guild should consider hosting.

Please let me know what you think about CATHEDRAL WINDESDAY.

Wanda