Showing posts with label the 411. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the 411. Show all posts

10k photos!

>> Wednesday, December 8, 2010

We hit a big milestone yesterday in the Quilting Bee Blocks Flickr group! Yesterday morning when I was checking the group I noticed we were getting close to 10,000 pictures in the group. In the afternoon when I was back again I managed to get a screen grab of when we were at 9,999! I sat there and refreshed for what seemed like hours - but no one was uploading. Then *boom* next refresh there were about 10 new pictures added and we were already past the 10k mark, so I wasn't able to get a screen grab of that. But how exciting!

To think of that many blocks floating around out there and in handmade quilts all over the world - just how amazing is that? This community is awesome and I'm so glad to be able to share it all with all of you!


a milestone

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Updated Block Tutorials Page

>> Wednesday, November 17, 2010

I've been trying to think for awhile how to better organize and showcase all the different quilt block tutorials I have listed on the Block Tutorials page.  Previously they were just in a big long alphabetized list, which got the job done, but it wasn't very pretty!


Sun Rays Quilt Block and Tutorial
(credit: twinfibers | find the tutorial for the sun rays quilt block here)


A few weeks ago my friend Amy used a thumbnail linky to showcase all the quilts being entered in her Bloggers Quilt Festival - and it worked out so well!  I loved being able to see little pictures of all the different quilts as I surfed through the different blog posts.

So I switched over the block tutorials page to be the same idea - a big list of block tutorial links with a little thumbnail picture you can view to get a better idea of what the finished block will look like!  What can I say - we creatives are visual people, right?  ;]


Chubby star for Antique Roses
(credit: traceyjay | find the tutorial for the chubby star quilt block here)


I've linked up all the block tutorials that I had previously listed, but I know there are hundreds more great ones out there.  If you have a quilt block tutorial that you've made and posted on your blog - please link up!  And if you're looking for a great new quilt block to try, go and visit the new and improved Block Tutorials page!

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New Quilting Bee Blocks blog buttons!

>> Sunday, November 14, 2010

Over the past few weeks I've been tidying up around the Quilting Bee Blocks blog -- nothing major, just a few visual things to make Quilting Bee Blocks nicer to look at and easier to use.  One of the things I did was make us new blog buttons in a more standard square size.  And people had been asking for the html code to copy and paste to their blogs, so that's now available too (over in our sidebar, just copy the code that's in the text box below the button you want to grab and paste it in your own sidebar).



        


Feel free to grab a button for your sidebar, and make sure to take the "I've Been Featured" one if you've been featured on the blog (even having your block chosen for a Pick Five Monday post counts as featured! :] )  If you still have the older button there's no need to change it (unless you want to).

Keep checking back to Quilting Bee Blocks - we've got some great changes coming (I'm working on revamping the whole way the quilt block tutorials are listed) and informative topics that are going to be discussed.  Remember you can subscribe to Quilting Bee Blocks by RSS or follow us on Twitter or like us on Facebook, too!

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The Sewing Summit - a modern sewing & blogging conference

>> Tuesday, October 26, 2010

At the end of the post yesterday I said I had been working on something that I hadn't been able to talk about yet - but that we were close to announcing it. Some of you with eagle eyes might have spotted a new button over on the sidebar ... see it?



I'm planning a modern sewing and blogging conference called The Sewing Summit! My friend Amy from Amy's Creative Side and I recognized a need and a desire for this type of event in our community and decided to take on planning it ourselves. There's lots of other quilt retreats, blogging conferences, sewing classes -- but nothing that is exactly quite right for "us".

We're planning lots of stuff to do with sewing: classes on machine quilting, bag making, garment construction, improv piecing; make and take projects, question and answer panels with some of the best sewists in our industry ... but we're also having an online side to it: using social media, participating in online quilting bees and swaps, blogging. We haven't been able to say much online about it yet, but we have been planning it since July and are absolutely bursting with all the great stuff we've got going so far ... it seriously is going to be the best event, and you are not going to want to miss it!

Who's invited? You are! We've wanted from the start for this event to be for the people that sew as well are somehow are involved with the online community (if you're even reading this blog -- that's you!) but might not have lots of friends in their real lives that they can talk to about or sew with. Won't it be awesome to be surrounded by hundreds of other people that you know will squeal in delight with you over the newest fabric line?! Or sit up all night and chat and sew with in our all-night sewing room packed with 50 machines? Or go out to dinner and explore the city with a bunch of your friends that you've been in quilting bees with and have known online for years - but have never met face to face?! Like I said - not going to want to miss it!

It's on the books for October 2011 in downtown Salt Lake City. One of our main goals has always been to keep it accessible for lots of people to attend and so we're trying to give you plenty of time to plan for it both monetarily and time-wise. We hope you'll want to make a girls vacation out of it and come along with a big group of your friends! We promise we've got more awesome details coming soon - but here's a few hints: our venue is a 4* hotel in downtown Salt Lake City with a room rate under $100 per night! swag bags that are going to be filled to the brim with awesome stuff, probably worth more than the ticket price alone (did you see that Moda is a sponsor?!!) Famous sewing and quilting bloggers? Yup, we've got them - some already committed to coming in and we're still on the look out for more!

What can you do? Start saving your fun-money to be able to attend. :] Help us spread the word -- tweet, blog, Facebook about it, and we've got buttons on our blog that you can snag to use in your sidebar. Fill out our survey so we can make sure we know exactly what it is you'd want to get out of an event like this -- because after all, we're planning it for you!

Can't wait to hear what you think!

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Do you do Social Media?

>> Saturday, July 24, 2010

Quilting Bee Blocks does!




Join us now on Facebook ... where currently a sad big fat ZERO people "like" us ... you guys will change that for me, right? :]
And follow us on Twitter (@beeblocks) where I've been linking to our newest blog posts and also retweeting some other tweets I come across talking about bee block, block tutorials or Virtual Quilting Bees. It's such a fun way to communicate and get to know people better in our community!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

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So what is this all about?

>> Tuesday, April 6, 2010

So you're visiting this new website, you've entered to win some great prizes, you've checked out some pretty quilt blocks in our Flickr pool ... and now you're thinking "yeah, what's next?!"

To expand a little bit on what I said in this "Welcome to Quilting Bee Blocks .com" post ... here are some things to get you started in all things Virtual Quilting Bees (I'm going to start referring to them as VQBs) and what you can expect from this blog.

Start here:  I started the Quilting Bee 101 Series of articles to help answer the many questions people have about VQBs.  I see this section as ever evolving, changing, lots more information being added.  There are many other people much more qualified in VQBs and I hope to glean some of their awesome expertise and add it to these articles.

So far, the articles listed in this series are:

Bee Basics
Fabric
Mailing
Bee Mama and Papa Tips
Helpful Hints

Then check out:  One of the main things that people loved about our Flickr group is what I like to call The Master List of Virtual Quilting Bees.  This is an attempt to have links to all the many online bees listed in one place.  I love surfing through all the different bees, seeing what discussions are posted in their threads, seeing the blocks that people have been making, etc.  I am going to keep The Master List updated both here and at the Flickr group, so you can check both places.  If you see a bee that isn't listed, please leave me a comment or send me an email.

Next you can mosey on over to:  The block tutorials.  This is a much harder section to keep up on.  I in no way want to try to make this a master list of all the block tutorials available online -- there's just way too many, probably thousands.  I think of this more as an edited list, the cream of the crop, or block tutorials that are often used in VQBs.  I definitely want to feature tutorials written by people that are members in any VQBs, or tutorials written specifically for a VQB.  I think that the list leans a little towards the "modern" quilt block, since that is a huge trend right now, especially in VQBs.  Whether you are in a VQB or not this list should be a good resource for you!  If you know of an awesome tutorial that should be listed, leave a comment or send me an email.

You say you want to join in?  The best place for you to check out is the thread in our Flickr group titled "I Want In! List of Upcoming Virtual Quilting Bees".  As much as I'd like to keep a running list here of open groups and groups starting up, it's just too hard.  Bees start and usually fill up very quickly, and I can't keep up with that pace! ;)  If you're not a Flickr member - it's free and easy to sign up.  Since 99% of VQBs are run as a Flickr group - it makes sense to keep this part of Quilting Bee Blocks over in our Flickr group.  Another great place to check for new bees popping up is in the discussion threads at the Block Party Quilt Along Flickr group.  These girls wrote the book on VQB's and have a great group and quilt along.  (No!  Seriously!  They are writing a book about their bee, Block Party, and about Virtual Quilting Bees in general!)


As you can see, I'm asking for your help and input a lot.   I don't want this to be a one-woman show, mostly because VQB's are such a group thing - that's the way this blog should be as well.  Already people have emailed me with awesome ideas, things they're doing in their bees, some features they'd like to see on this site --- I'm just the one putting it together.  I would really appreciate your feedback and comments and ideas and thoughts and dinner plans ... oh, dinner!  That's why the 3 year old is scavenging in the pantry for crackers.  I'd better attend to that ...

- Erin

p.s. Make sure to enter to win some great prizes in our Grand Opening Giveaway!  The next prize will be posted tomorrow morning!

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