July 30, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin, Inspiration, My Surroundings, Out & About, This & That | No Comments
As some of you may be aware, the Artful Quilters Web Ring has moved to a new platform which offers a more friendly user interface and allows for easier surfing from blog to blog. If you are already a member of the Artful Quilters Web Ring, or would like to join, then follow Diane’s instructions for setting up in the new location.
If you are a blog reader, try out the reactivated “Next”, “Previous” and “Random” buttons and see where you end up!
Previous | Next | Random
Join | List
I’d also like to mention a couple of new, non-quilting blogs that I am following.
Bargain Betty is the alter ego of my friend and freelance personal finance journalist
Diana Clement. Diana was the garage sale queen when I met her at university 25 years ago and family life seems to have sharpened her eye for a bargain and her creative ideas for saving a dollar.
Dancing with Shelarose is a new blog set up by my host sister Kerie to share her experiences as primary caregiver for her mother-in-law who is in the later stages of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease. Thanks to the internet, you can get a sense of how it is to dance in her shoes. Kerie dances with Shelarose every day…feel free to join them or just sit and listen to the music for a while
May 22, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin, Twelve by Twelve | 1 Comment
Have you noticed that the Google Images search function now lets you sort the results by single colour? I am finding this very handy as I search for inspiration images for my next Twelve by Twelve Colourplay challenge in complementary colours of yellow and purple.
For copyright reasons, I am always cautious about using other people’s images on my websites. In Blogsphere Trends + Choosing & Using Images, Kimberley Turner sets out some great tips for sourcing royalty-free images that you can use on your blog in accordance with the terms of the licence granted by the copyright holder.
Alternatively, you can always stick to your own images. Yesterday I bought myself a new Canon EOS 450D digital SLR camera so I look forward to sharing my photographic efforts once I get the battery charged and have read the manual!
May 14, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin | 2 Comments
With the advent of the new Pages feature in Blogger, many bloggers seem to be taking the opportunity to review their blog layouts, clean up their sidebars and generally spruce things up. I often receive technical queries and help bloggers behind the scenes. This blog post sets out some tips for blogs on the Blogger platform:
- Avoid Over-size Banners: While many people read blogs through services such as Google Reader and Bloglines, some will actually stop by your blog. When they do, there are few things more off-putting than a banner image that fills half the page or takes an age to download (remember there are still plenty of readers in Blogland on dial-up!). Aim for a low resolution image with a file size less than 50KB and with a pixel width appropriate to the scale of your blog template. (FYI - my banner image is 20KB, 500 pixels wide and 118 pixels high.)
- Stretch Layouts & Screen Resolutions: some of the well-known templates in Blogger (eg Minima Stretch) use a “stretch” layout which means they change width depending upon the screen resolution of the user’s monitor. The upside is that content fills up the screen. The downside is that what looks great on your screen may look completely different on someone else’s screen and browser. This downside is most pronounced when it comes to banner images. You might make your header image wide to fit your generous monitor and it will spill over the edge at a smaller screen resolution and vice versa. Be mindful that your readers use a variety of screen resolutions.* If you use a stretch layout, consider using a centred banner image floating on a coloured background. The size of your image will be fixed but the background will vary.
- New Blogger Designer Templates - rather than fussing with one of the old-style templates, you might like to swap to Blogger in Draft which offers new, highly-customizable templates with one, two and three column layouts for each template and complete control over the size and arrangement of the columns. Interestingly, all of the new designer templates are fixed width rather than stretch layouts. You can vary this width via Design>Blogger Template Designer>Layout>Adjust Width.
If you wish to add a header image in one of the new blogger templates, go to Design>Page Elements>Header>Edit. Generally speaking, this function will automatically shrink over-size images to fit the optimum width for that particular template. See the bottom of the edit screen for pixel width details.
- Navigation Menu Styling - another advantage of the new designer templates is that they incorporate improved styling of navigation menus if you use static pages on your blog. See, for example, the blogs of Erica Spinks and Linda Robertus.
- Gadgets - if you haven’t looked for a while, check out the expanding range of sidebar gadgets offered by Blogger and third parties. Go to Layout/Design>Page Elements>Add a Gadget
To be on the safe side, download a copy of your existing template (Design/Layout>Edit HTML>Back Up Template). Then have fun playing with all the new design options.
*As part of my stats collection with both Performancing Metrics and Google Analytics, I know that approximately 75% of my readers use monitors with one of the following screen resolutions: 1024×768 (25%), 1280×800 (20%), 1280×1024 (12%), 1440×900 (10%) and 1680×1050 (8%). I venture this usage profile is fairly typical.
May 13, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin, Daily Life | 3 Comments
According to an official government website, the average life expectancy for women in Australia is 84 years. I guess that makes me officially middle-aged since I celebrated my 44th birthday yesterday. In any event, I have much I want to fit into the life that I’ve been given and I have a particularly busy program at present.
Last week I decided to go back to keeping timesheets to monitor how much time that I devote to various activities including blog writing, blog surfing/FB/e-mail, teaching, designing, creating, Guild volunteer work, promotional stuff, Twelve by Twelve exhibitions and so on. I am using Harvest Time Tracking - a web-based timesheet software application. Harvest Time Tracking offers a free plan for one user (that would be me) and two “clients” (I distinguish between my personal work and my volunteer work). You can add as many sub-activities for each client as you like and generate various reports that give a breakdown of the time spent on each activity in the relevant period. Because it is a web-based application, you can use this program anywhere so as long as you have an Internet connection and a modern web browser. In addition, I have loaded a special widget on my main PC so that I can simply click on the timer on my desk-top when I stop and start activities.
Other web-based time keeping and project management applications that may be useful include:
- 14 Dayz - online time tracking for teams;
- Base Camp - online project management tool including managing files, to-do lists, milestones and messages; and
- Shotgun - tracking and scheduling
Let me know if you have experience with any similar programs that you have found effective.
Incidentally, this short blog post has taken over 30 minutes to write so that gives you an idea of how even an easy task can eat into a day.
April 24, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin | Comments Off
The Blog Herald has alerted me to a new Facebook “Like” Plugin developed by Allan Joseph Batac.
It’s pretty basic but I’m giving it a whirl - see below. Do you like it?
March 8, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin | Comments Off
At last I have had a moment to update my blog button to match my new logo. Here is the code that you are welcome to cut and paste into your blog or website if you wish:
<a href="http://serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog"><img src="http://serendipitypatchwork.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/spqbloglogo2010_175.jpg" alt="Serendipity & the Art of the Quilt"/></a>
The button itself looks like this:
February 9, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin | 1 Comment
Further to yesterday’s post about new Blogger features, I was considering writing a tutorial about the new Blogger pages content management feature but Katherine Tyrell of Making a Mark has already published an expanded post How to make Blogger pages work for you. It’s written from an artist’s blog perspective but has wider application.
If you can considering using this feature to expand and enhance your online presence, you might like to consider buying a domain name to use with your blog. Learn how to map a domain name to your blogspot blog.
February 8, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin | 2 Comments
I use a self-hosted WordPress platform for my blog but I contribute to several blogs that use the Blogger/Blogspot platform and a couple of new-ish features have recently come to my attention:
- Blogger pages let you publish static information on stand-alone pages linked from your blog. For example, you can use pages to create an About This Blog page that discusses the evolution of your blog, or a Contact Me page that provides directions, a phone number, and a map to your location. A new Pages widget lets you add links to your pages as tabs at the top of your blog, or as links in your blog’s sidebar. You can create up to ten stand alone pages which means you can create a basic multi-page website without ever leaving the Blogger platform. For example, if you have a group challenge blog, you can create a separate page for each of the participants or a gallery page for your challenge results - very handy! See the Pages Tutorial for more information about this useful feature; and
- the New Post Editor offers improved image handling and resizing capabilities. To enable the new editor, first navigate to your blog’s Settings | Basic tab. Near the bottom of the page you will see a field called Select Post Editor, and from there you simply need to select Updated Editor and save your settings. See the overview for more information.
Happy blogging!
February 4, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin, Profile | 7 Comments
It is my pleasure to launch the fresh new logo for my Serendipity Patchwork & Quilting website and blog.
I designed the basic logo/layout and selected the title font but I am indebted to Terry Grant for her expertise in tweaking the spacing; taming the tails of WorstveldSlingExtra; preparing graphics in all sorts of useful formats and generally helping me refine my ideas to present a new online image. It’s been a most instructive process (even if I didn’t always follow Terry’s professional advice!).
The rainbow colours have been integral to Serendipity Patchwork & Quilting branding from the outset. Now the rainbow is incorporated into an hourglass motif inspired by my Seaside Treasures quilt design. To celebrate the launch of the new logo, I am offering the pattern for this quilt at the special price of $10 until 28 February 2010.
Seaside Treasures
Capture bright and breezy days at the beach in this vibrant quilt
Quilt Size: 113cm x 133cm (44 1/2 " x 52 1/2")
Pattern: $10.00
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January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Blog Admin | 1 Comment
One thing I noticed while I was travelling without continuous access to the internet is that even merely reading blogs is a time consuming process. I’d check into a wifi hotspot and before I knew it, my allocated time was up and I’d only quickly scanned my e-mails and scrolled through the latest posts showing in my Bloglines reader. I’ll be updating my blog roll soon. In the meantime, here are some new (to me) blogs that I am enjoying and that I don’t begrudge the time it takes to peruse:
- India Flint - Not All that Wander are Lost, need I say more!;
- Leni Wiener - photo inspired art quilts and thread painting;
- The Textile Blog - John Hopper is a trained textile designer who has now become a writer on the subject of interior and general design history. The Textile Blog is a daily blog concerning the history of interiors and interior furnishings of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 21st century quiltmakers are also featured;
- Elizabeth Barton - Art and Quilts, cogitations thereon;and
- Kathy Loomis - Art with a Needle.
Let me know if there’s a blog that you recommend that I add to my reading list. It doesn’t have to be textile-related (but it helps!)
PS: My new logo and newsletter are coming. Sign up to the next issue of the Serendipity Studio Newsletter and go into a draw to win a copy of 500 Art Quilts.
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