Sunday 28 April 2013

a Blogger verification secret; & a dissertation on responding to blog comments

Have you noticed that Blogger’s comment verification (to prove that you are not a robot) has reverted from a jumbled collection of letters and a photographed number to their previous format: a jumbled collection of letters and a recognisable word?

Well, I have stumbled upon a “secret”: no matter whether the jumbled letters occur first or last, type only them – ignore the “real” word (which is, of course, easy to read). In every case where I have tried this, the comment always publishes! I have tried typing only the “real word” and that doesn’t work; but type the non-real word (is that an “unword”?) and it works, every time (just as omitting the numbers always worked!).

When will Blogger make it easy for us and just have a simple maths problem to solve or, better yet, a little box under the comment which one ticks to prove that one is “not a robot”?

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And now a short dissertation about bloggers who don’t respond to the comments left on their blogs (please don’t stop reading now – you may agree with me, or you may not realise I’m talking to you!).

I don’t respond to every comment that’s left on my blog but I reply to the vast majority of them. I think it’s good manners to simply say “thank you” or to show the commenter that the time they have taken to leave a comment is worth my time in response. That’s how friendships are built, online and in the real world!

We all like receiving comments. it makes us feel good, like someone is reading and cares about what we have to say.

I concede that it’s good to keep the conversation going by replying to those comments in the comment section of your blogs but…

If you post with Wordpress, we who post with Blogger don’t get your responses! Did you know that? We don’t know that you have replied to our comments! (I only discovered it by accident when I went back to an old post to check something and found out that the blog owner had responded to my comment! Up until that point, I thought that my comments hadn’t been worth answering!)

From talking to other bloggers, rarely do any of us go back to posts that we have already read to see if a reply has been left on our comment. We just don’t have the time. We could, of course, tick the little box that invites us to receive (by email) the comments that are left on your blog posts after ours – but I, for one, don't want to sort through dozens of comments in my inbox which are largely irrelevant to me!

Those of you who have had me following your blog for a long time, know that I am a faithful commenter. It would be great if I got a response to even half the comments I leave on other people’s blogs!

Since the list of blogs I read is now over 150 and I comment on about 80% of all the blogs I read, I have begun sorting through them and eliminating some. Want to know which ones I’ve eliminated first? That’s right, the bloggers who don’t ever respond to comments I have left! Mostly because I feel like they don’t consider my comments important. There are some “never-reply” blogs still in my reading list; blogs I’ve been reading for a long time, blogs where I know the blogger personally, or blogs I really, really enjoy or whose work I really admire.

So, please, fellow bloggers, if people are kind enough to take the time to leave a comment on your blog and you can contact them, either by email or visiting their blog, please, please, please, do us the courtesy of responding! Don’t just leave your response on your own blog – chances are that we will never see it!

So, what do other bloggers think?

Friday 26 April 2013

perfect autumn weather to celebrate a birthday

A few months ago, I watched an excellent documentary on the ABC (Australia’s national broadcaster) called Making War Horse. I expected it to be about the movie and wondered why it was being broadcast so long after the movie‘s release. But it was the “off-season” (the non-ratings period over Christmas-January: Australia’s summer holidays) so I didn’t think too much about it.

However,  the documentary was about the stage production done by the National Theatre Company (England). I found the documentary fascinating (do watch it if you haven’t seen it – it’s 49 minutes well spent) so when I found out the production was coming to Sydney, I asked WM for tickets for my birthday.

We saw it on Wednesday night – it was breath-taking and deeply-moving. We hardly knew where to look, there was so much going on. At the same time, the puppets are so life-like in their movements that we soon forgot that we were watching puppets. One no longer sees the puppeteers/actors. We have not seen the movie so the story line was new to us; I was so pleased it had a “happy ending” but, even if it hadn’t, the whole production was just brilliant and I’d love to go again before it closes.

We live in the metropolitan area of Sydney but, as part of my birthday treat, we stayed in the hotel in the same complex as the theatre. We had been upgraded to a one-room apartment with views over Darling Harbour (one of the inlets in Sydney Harbour). What a great birthday present.
2013-04-24 Darling Harbour and Harbour Bridge
view seen at 10:30pm
2013-04-25 Darling Harbout and Harbour Bridge
almost the same view in the morning
Yesterday, was a national holiday in Australia. We call it ANZAC Day. It is a day of commemoration of all those who have served our country in war and is held on the date of the landing at Gallipoli (a beach in Turkey) by Australian and New Zealand forces in 1915 as part of the British forces. The Allied forces lost 440,000 lives, of which 8,709 were Australian,  in the ensuing campaign which lasted until 8 January the following year.
Rosemary_white_bg

The flags on the Harbour Bridge were at half mast until early afternoon.
2013-04-25 climbers on the Bridge

Because it was a holiday, WM and I took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent most of the day ferry-hopping around our beautiful harbour.
http://www.131500.com.au/upload/images/sydney-ferry/Network%20Map_17Dec2011_FINAL_lg.jpg

Firstly we took the ferry from Pyrmont Bay to Circular Quay
2013-04-25 ferry comming into Pyrmont Bay wharf
ferry coming in to Pyrmont Bay Wharf, taken from our hotel room
then hopped on a ferry to Mosman (and return), then the ferry to Balmain where we disembarked and went for a walk for a little over an hour.
2013-04-25 Balmain Court House
Balmain Court House
We then hopped back on the ferry to Cockatoo Island and back to Circular Quay.

After a late lunch/early dinner at City Extra restaurant at Circular Quay, we hopped on the ferry back to Pyrmont Bay, collected our luggage from the hotel concierge, and caught the light rail back to Central and a train back to our home town! We had to wait quite a while for a taxi, a lot of people were returning home from a day of celebrations but we finally arrived home a little after 7:30pm, happy but extremely tired.

Here are some more of the myriad of photos WM took during our day away from home!

2013-04-25 Sydney city from balcony
the city skyline from our hotel room
2013-04-25 fomer wharvers now apartments
old wharves/warehouses transformed into very expensive apartments
2013-04-25 Bridge approach northside
the northern approach (road and rail) to the Harbour Bridge
2013-04-25 Luna Park
Luna Park occupies some prime real estate on the north side of the harbour
2013-04-25 Sydney skyline
Sydney skyline from the harbour
2013-04-25 two famous icons
two icons that probably don't need a caption!
2013-04-25 postcard Opera House
looks like a postcard, doesn't it?
2013-04-25 water police 2
some Sydney Water Police in their new boat
I’m sure it’s true that it’s one of the most beautiful harbours in the world! And we saw just a fraction of it!

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Family news

My niece, my sister's eldest child, gave birth to a daughter, Emily Jane, at 3:17am on Tuesday April 23. She weighed a healthy 7lb 3oz. Emily is my sister's first grandchild (which might explain the excited pre-dawn phone call I got!) and my mother's first great-grand-daughter.

Coincidentally, Australia's population is set to hit 23 million today too, so my niece, her partner and my little great-niece were on the local news tonight. I don't know how long the hyperlink will remain active -- news isn't current for very long!

In a further coincidence, today is also the second anniversary of my father-in-law's death.

Max and Ben 2
Pa with Older Grandson (then aged six months)



We miss you, dad!

Modern Quilting Blocks QAL

Grab button for ASWC QAL

I have just read a post on Anorina’s blog, Samelia’s Mum, about a quilt-along using blocks from this book:

modern blocks

I have the book, I have the fabric, I have the time – so why not?

I’ve not participated in a quilt-along before (I’ve done a knit-along and a no-stash-along) so I’m really excited!

You can find all the information linked to this post at And Sew We Craft and the sign up page (after you’ve written your blog post) is over here.

Care to join me?

Sunday 21 April 2013

finished flimsy

I had hoped to have my Earth and Sky quilt completely finished for the “Airing” last weekend but it was not to be.

On Monday I added the inner border to the flimsy. It’s in “sand” coloured homespun so there’s nothing really to show.

I had just half a metre of the fabric I chose for the outer border. I thought it would be enough. I measured, checked, measured again. I calculated. I measured again – half a metre didn’t seem like much but I thought I’d get away with it.
2013 outer border fabric
I cut 4.25” strips – I didn’t have enough for 4.5 which would have been my original choice but 4.25 was enough. I attached the top and bottom border. I pinned the side border…
…and it was two inches short!

How could this be? I has measured and calculated and measured again before I cut.

But, of course, I had measure the width and length of the flimsy as it was (that is, including inner border). I didn’t calculate the extra 4” of length that the top and bottom outer borders added!

You know, I think cornerstone blocks were invented for just such a reason! Winking smile

So it was time to go back to the group’s stash to find the right fabric for the job.
2013 corner stone block
I cut the cornerstones and added one to each end of the border.

Then I realised that I needed to take off the excess border fabric so the cornerstone would fall in exactly the right place!

Things are often not as easy as they first appear but at last ….

…the Earth and Sky flimsy is done!
2013 finished flimsy
Of course, every flimsy needs a backing before it can become a quilt.

The fabric I have chosen is striped and, naturally, isn’t wide enough. I don’t want to match stripes so I had lunch and thought about how to widen that fabric with a panel.

This is what I came up with.
2013 backing not out of focus
I know the photo looks out of focus but it isn’t; it’s just the way the camera captures those stripes.

They really look like this:
2013 backing close up
The thin blue stripe going up both sides of the centre panel is a blue on blue random line check.
2013 thin blue stripe is a blue on blue check
On Monday, before class, I will take advantage of the big table in the classroom to get this quilt basted!

My Saturday was swallowed up in cleaning as well as getting a quote from a painter and showing a property manager through DD’s former home. Sunday will involve church, a fellowship lunch and probably more cleaning in the afternoon.

How’s your weekend shaping up?

Thursday 18 April 2013

Update

At 7:30 this morning, this pulled up in a quiet street in western Sydney where I was waiting to meet it.


By 9:00am, what was once a family home for DD, SIL and our two grandsons, looked like this.

Living room

Family Room

Garage

It's so final!

Saturday 13 April 2013

a last minute finish

After all the trauma of remodelling my quilt (and getting it wrong), it is finally finished.

I wanted to have it finished when I hosted “Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday” two weeks ago, but family circumstances and ill health (an upper respiratory tract infection)  got in the way.

I attached the binding and sewed it down on Wednesday. It didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would – I allowed six hours for the hand-stitching, it took four and a half!

So, may I present Scrappy Strings, which measures 57” x 68” (the size our group aims for is around 56” x 64” so I’m not too far out!)-- a last minute finish because it was done on Wednesday for submission to the Airing of the Quilts this weekend, the quilts were needed at the museum by Thursday.
finished
Taking photos in direct sunlight is not really good; the breeze shifts the quilt and creates shadows as well as washing out the colour. But no one was home so I had to peg it to my washing line and, although I’ve made some adjustments in the editing process, it’s still not a great photo!

Here’s a close up of my choice of binding – I was going to use some more of the backing fabric but I thought the quilt needed something bright to lift it. If you look closely, you’ll see that this fabric is also in two of the quilt blocks.
binding detail
In these two photos you can see my quilting: in the ditch around the sashing and then a simple horizontal and vertical line through each block. Not quilting through the sashing meant dozens of ends to sew in! (Hey look, there’s the binding fabric in that block! LOL)
quilting detail backquilting detail front
And now my favourite view – I just love the back!
finished back
Inserting a panel to make the backing fabric wider has been a signature on quite a few of my quilts!
Linking up with Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday over at Quilt Matters.

Friday 12 April 2013

twenty seven years ago today

This little ray of sunshine came into our lives making our family complete – just the three of us.
SCAN0011
taken when she was thirteen days old
Tomorrow she joins her family (husband and two sons, aged three and twenty-one months) in their new home town after spending ten days here without them packing, sorting and fixing.
2012-06-26 Susan
a candid shot taken with my iPad hence the grainy photo
I love you, DD, and I’m sure gonna miss you! xx

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Airing of the Quilts

If you are in, or able to get to, western Sydney this weekend, Caring Hearts Community Quilters’ annual “Airing of the Quilts” is on this Saturday and Sunday, from 10am till 4pm. Entry is $4.00, at the Arms of Australia Inn (Penrith Historical Society’s Museum*), Great Western Highway, Emu Plains.

*There is an entry fee to the museum, over and above the entry to the quilt show.

I’ll be there on Saturday from 12:30 till closing so if you’re in the neighbourhood, do drop by and say hello!

I believe there will be 80-100 quilts on show; I have five quilts ready to enter:

Hunter’s Cabin (which I forgot to enter last year)

Hunters Cabin finished

Dotty Bright

2013 Dotty Bright finished

Black Stump Creek

2013 Black Stump Creek finished

Blanket of Love #1

2013 #1 finished

and Scrappy Strings II (before the bottom row was removed and turned into a column)

quilt top finished

All very different aren’t they?
Well, maybe not – anyone would think I like strips and squares!

Thursday 4 April 2013

2013: The Year of the Finished Project – April

Never Too Hot to Stitch!

I'm also linking this post with Carrie's Nothing But UFOs in 2013 (although I will be working on things other than UFOs) and Thearica’s April To-Do List.

Nothing But UFOs in 2013             Photobucket

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March was less than successful for me in terms of reaching my stitching goals.

Perhaps it was all that extra time I spent over at DD's house helping get it ready for the rental market.

Perhaps it was all the extra time I spent with my grandsons who are the loves of my life (apart from WM and DD, of course). 

Perhaps it was my sadness that sent me into the fictional world of romantic novels (by Christian authors -- the worldly stuff is just too erotic for me) for hour upon hour.

Nonetheless, I did have one finish -- albeit a very small one.

2013 #1 finished

And I came close with another one --  three days before the end of the month I had only to cut the binding, attach it and sew it down. But it was Easter and I chose not to sew but to spend my long weekend with family -- a day for us (WM and I), two days working at DD's house, and a fun Easter Sunday filled with family.

Scrappy Strings close up

So my April list looks almost identical to my March list.

  1. Earth and Sky quilt – WIP – at this stage, an unfinished flimsy
  2. Scrappy Log Cabin quilt – UFO –  at this stage, an unfinished flimsy
  3. Scrappy Strings II quilt – WIP – needs binding
  4. at least one quilt for Blankets With Love – my new project for April
  5. Westall cardigan – WIP – finish ribbing, knit sleeves
  6. hexagon project bag – WIP – my “slow stitching” project

What about you?
How did you go with your March goals?
What plans do you have for April?

Link up here so we can all see your progress.

Tuesday 2 April 2013

claiming my blog

As we all know by now, Google Reader will soon be no more. If it helps, you can Follow my blog with Bloglovin