News from the Quilting Blog-o-sphere!

Wanted to share some fun things I found while reading through blogs:  

• SewCalGirl is hosting the 2011 Golden Quilters Awards with the opportunity to nominate and then vote for categories such as Best Designer or Best Quilt Store.   Nominations open on March 1.   There are prize possibilities for blog PR and for nominating!
• Fat Quarterly is hosting a fabric based March Madness.  Download your brackets and enjoy the fun!

and a couple of important blogging tips:

I follow or subscribe to every blog I am interested in.  (I used to bookmark things but then spent far too much time navigating to blogs without updates - or missing a blog announcement of a giveaway.)  Google Reader is a great way to see what is new but you don't get to see the blog posts actually on the blog page (and catch the fun buttons, headers etc.)  There is a way you can easily navigate to all those blog updates:

1. While in Google Reader, in the upper right corner, choose SETTINGS and from the dropdown, choose READER SETTINGS.
2. Choose GOODIES
3. Find the section titled PUT READER IN A BOOKMARK and then drag that NEXT button up to your bookmark bar
4. Click on NEXT in your bookmark bar and navigate to each new blog post!

Turn off comment validation so people don't have to enter that code.  I've chosen to have my comments moderated so they come to my email for approval but there is many a blog out there that is recommended you only need to do that for older comments.  Google spam filters have apparently improved quite a bit.  (I made this change recently and hope that it makes it easier for people leaving comments.)

I use POST OPTIONS in Google blogger to set (some of) my posts up to be automatically posted at a date in the future.  This particular one was set for March 1.  Since I have quite the busy work week, it helps me actually make time for blogging by sitting down on the weekend and doing a live weekend post and a scheduled mid-week post.

Some quilting eye candy (just because)

Some yardage for Central Park, Sunkissed, and Lollipop to go with my sweet stash and, oh yes, a Pure layer cake. 

Happy Stitching!