Grand Reveal - "Lounge Quilt" Edition

Showing you this quilt today is a little out of order, because I actually finished another one which I still haven't shown you before this one, but I couldn't resist showing this first. I'm just too.in.love.with.it!...

Please meet my latest quilt finish: My "lounge quilt"...

I started cutting the fabric for this quilt back in September last year and sent it out to the lovely ladies from Sew Aussie in October for my month in the bee. So it has been a wee while in the making and makes the finish ever so much more sweet!
It is the first time ever sending fabric to a bee and I love the fact that I now have a "matching" bee quilt to add to my growing stash of bee quilts.

These are so far from my usual "go to colours" but I still could not love it more. I chose the colours and block design specifically to coordinate in with the colours of my lounge/sitting room for a lap quilt. Because I knew we were keeping this quilt, I allowed myself to choose a lot of my most "precious" fabrics to use in its scrappy fashion...

Plenty of my favourite designers and also plenty of fabrics collected from swaps with online sewing friends!

I was originally just planning on using blocks only and not having borders for the quilt top, but once I'd sewn the blocks together it wasn't quite big enough for what I wanted. I could have of course made 4 more blocks , but it's no secret that I'm very lazy and I had set my sights on a finish during the school holidays! In that case I decided to add a few rounds of borders which is not something I commonly do. I started making them without any real plan as well, but I'm very happy with how the border frames the quilt and brings the design together!

I started this quilt last year so I obviously didn't start it as part of Kelly's "my precious" quilt along... however the quilt along did inspire me to finish this quilt by continuing to use more of my precious fabrics than I'd originally planned and as a result I decided to embrace using my "precious" fabrics together in a pieced back as well...

Oh my heart I love that back!!
I bravely used entire fat quarters of some out of print fabric which I had only been able to obtain through swaps, but I couldn't be more happy with the use of them! The original flea market fancy fat quarter, the tula pink fat quarter and the Sandi Henderson henna fat quarters were all from swaps.

The Amy Butler love fat quarters were part of the first bundle of fabrics that I ever let myself splash out and buy at my local quilt store. I paid a premium for those when I first started quilting and it feels so good to finally use them in a project that I will be able to "love" so much...
The same applies for the Alexander Henry Farmdale print. I think I purchased that at the same time. Farmdale has to be one of my all time favourite fabric ranges and that print was just calling out to be included.

The Denyse Schmidt fat quarters I used in the back actually were only released and purchased long after I started this quilt. But gosh you would never know because they just go PERFECTLY and are the exact same colour schemes.

The best place to highlight the quilting is also on the back as shown above. I decided to quilt this quilt very lightly, just quilting down the centres of the "X's", then around the outside borders a few times. I used a beige thread which was again sent to me in a swap in both the top & bobbin. Very simple quilting but I think it complements the design perfectly and not having a lot it makes the quilt super snuggly.

It is so simple in fact that using just one bobbin I was able to complete the entire quilting and nearly finish the binding too. That has got to be a first for me!!

The binding is scrappy and made up of left over bits from both the front and back...

Gotta love a good scrappy binding!

And one last photo just because;
Here it is gracing its new home on the couch...

Now just to make some coordinating cushions and it will be complete :)

Love love love!!

Linking up to Fabric Tuesday

Good Etiquette Revisited - Day 7 wrap up - Kat

Welcome to Day 7, the final day, of Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger revisited!

I hope you've enjoyed the week and found something of value in it.

Today I thought I would share some of my thoughts on what I do & don't share on my blog & why... I'm not going to cover really much on Etiquette because I feel it's already been said. Instead I thought I'd more focus sharing some insights with you into my decision making process of personal content and any"security" around my blog.
Because it's no secret if you've been here a few times that I like to keep my blog very "real". For a crafty/creative themed blog I can get deeply personal at times and I do share a lot of info and photos of my family life and children as well as just my creations.
I did originally start this blog purely as a record of my hobby, but overtime I discovered that I wanted it to be more than that. Hence the name change after a while to "Diary of a Flutter.Kat"...
Yet while this is my online "diary," it is still is a censored version. A whole lot of factors affect what I do and don't post information about.
So here are those factors, should you want to explore any of them for yourself also.

Factors affecting my content:

1. Husband's opinion.
A major factor in considering what personal information I share about our family is my husbands opinion. We are a close partnership and his opinion and boundaries are paramount.
For example, if he didn't want me to name the children or show their faces in photos like some of my friends husbands do then I wouldn't.
But he doesn't mind.
Often, if I've written a very personal post then I email him a copy for approval before I make it public.
That's just the way we roll and if you have a partner I would also implore you to factor their opinions into what personal content you share too.
There have been a few instances where he's asked me to change minor details - mostly regarding his work - but for the most part I'm lucky and he's been cool with what I plan to post on here.

2. Professionally it's not that important.
Neither mine nor my husbands work/careers are really very affected by sharing information about our family and private life so openly on the internet.
Yes I run a small business, but I like to think that it can be an asset to show that I'm a real person with real life issues when running that. It won't be for everyone that I share so openly, and perhaps it might do me out of some sponsors in the future(?) but that's ok by me. It might also resulting in me getting other opportunities ?. You can never please everyone and if I've learned one thing this whole time while blogging it's that I'm most successful and happy when I'm just being me and not striving to follow someone else. So I will continue to show the "real" whether that be good or flaws and all.

However - and this is a big one - I accept that not everyone has that luxury! Sometimes it definitely pays to be cautious about what you share because of your occupation.
For example if we turned the clock back 5 years to our lives pre-children - and we were still in the same careers we were back then, then I would definitely be less inclined to share so openly. I worked in businesses where image was everything and I definitely don't think I would have been afforded the same luxury to share so openly as I do now.
Luckily I never plan on going back to that industry or working in corporate again, so I no longer view that as an issue for us.
Other examples of occupations that might not want to share as much information might be public service roles, teachers, nurses, doctors etc.. etc... So take your own position(s) into account when deciding on content.

3. Our location:
Were we live now also affects my decisions about what content I put up about us, particularly namely naming our city etc that we live in.
For example we currently live in a big city of heading towards 2 million people. It is not just big in population but more so very big geographically... So I feel (whether justified or not) that I can be a little more relaxed with information I put up than I would be when I lived back in New Zealand in a little town of under 35,000 and where everyone knows everyone. The 4km radius and the 100km radius just do not compare.

For example recently I posted a photo of Hannah in her school uniform. That may have shocked many people until you realise that large amounts of schools in Perth use that same uniform and you can buy them at Target and most of the big chain stores they're that standard. I made sure that there was no emblem or school name visible so it didn't actually tell as much as people might think. However, while I've seen other big bloggers do it, I doubt I would have ever personally done that if I lived back in NZ where there may have only been 10 primary schools in our town for example. It would have then been too easy to pinpoint which school Hannah was at and I don't think I'd feel comfortable with that.

Another example is naming landmarks that I live close by to. For example I've told you before that I live close by the beach and a lake... well that only narrows it down to about 100km stretch plus then the inland few kms. Perth is built along the coast and there are small lakes either manmade or natural in just about every housing estate I've been to. But I might again feel differently saying that I lived right near a big landmark in a small place where it would be obvious with a quick google search in what street I lived in etc..!.

4. We are unlisted:
Another factor that I consider when sharing information (especially about my children) is how accessible we would be for someone to find. And the answer (I think) is not extremely easily.
For example we don't have a land line phone so therefore we are not listed in the phone directory
We aren't on the electoral roll or anything because neither of us are eligible to vote in Australia. I don't even know if that would make your personal information available publically over here like it does back home but anyway whatever the case, we're not on it.
We don't get mail delivered to our home address... We keep a PO Box and get all our mail delivered there. Now by saying this I am in no way advocating everyone rush out and get a PO Box - We originally got it because we rent and moved so regularly that quite frankly I could no longer be bothered changing our address all the time! So it's establishment wasn't related to my blogging at all. But I must admit that we've since decided to keep it going partly because I do keep such a lot of information about us online. It only costs $90 per year and it doesn't break the bank but it does mean that not even my closest online friends actually know where I live.
So if giving out your address online is of concern to you then perhaps that might be an option to also consider?

All that being said about all the security stuff  above - even with the precautions I do take, there are still lots of ways we could still be found if they were really that keen to find us. So yes, it's still possible for someone to hunt us down, but I don't flatter myself that we are that interesting. ;)

5. Content "stealing"...
I am not concerned about people using photos of my work and putting them on their own blogs if they credit them back to me. Some people ask permission of me first, which is nice of them, but in my opinion as long as they're linking back and crediting to me then I don't actually mind if they don't ask permission first. I respect that not everyone else feels like this, just saying I do.

On the other hand if they did not credit the work to me or where claiming it as their own then I would have something to say to them! Also people stealing photos for other purposes is really icky but possible - I've read about people having photos of their family stolen off their blog (some even with watermarks) and having someone write a whole blog using all their information. That totally creeps me out and I don't even understand why anybody would want to do that! But I put all the content out there on the internet in the first place which means I have to prepare myself for the (very remote) possibility that icky things like that might happen.

6. I enjoy to...
Really the biggest one too... If you take all the boring security stuff out of the way and really get to the nuts and bolts of why I blog so openly then it all stems down to one reason - I enjoy to. I get a lot from being honest on here. I wouldn't do it otherwise.
It has allowed me to form deep, real friendships with other bloggers that I wouldn't have been able to form if I'd have kept something back. Those friendships will now go with me wherever we go. And there are potential big moves in our future, so it is such an asset to my life knowing that wherever I go, as long as there is an internet connection then you friends will come with me :)

It also allows me to look back and see how far I've grown. And how far the kids have grown. Because those are easy to forget in day to day life. I find it far easier to write on the computer than I do on paper. And I'm far more efficient at it also due to being able to type and format so fast. So I'm more likely to make it regular.

It is also part of my "giving back/pay it forward philosophy". Because it has helped me reading other peoples "real" in the past. So perhaps I can pay that forward by helping other people when they read my "real". Whether pretty or not it is my truth. I am a real, honest, imperfect person.

7. But what about my children's choice...?!
Some could say (and probably many do) that I'm taking the choice away from my children by posting so much information about them online and what right do I have to choose for them. There are some valid points in that but I personally am still going to brush them off.

I like to think that I'm responsible with what I post about my children. I make sure that I never post anything detrimental, negative or exploitive about them and would never ever do that. I have written about my struggles with parenting on occasion in the past but that is less a reflection of them than it is of me.

I hope instead that my blog is a positive gift and inheritance to my children. A gift of what a joy they are to my life and how rich they make me. I hope it will give them fond memories as they look and read over all the things we did together and the creations that they were part of.
Because my children are a massive part of my creations. Hannah is always my helper in the craft room. She loves the quilting process and I just adore watching her creative talent bloom as we spend time in there together. She has been part of nearly every quilt I've made, so if I did not write that part of the story I would not be telling the whole part!

She also loves playing to the camera and making me show her the photos after. I wouldn't put it past her to be a model or actress of her own choosing because boy that kid likes to show off and entertain.

***

So there you go, there are my thoughts and factors that I weigh in what content I put on my blog and some of the ways (whether naive or not) that I try and keep us safe online.
Hopefully they are of some help or interest (?) because that was actually quite a lot harder to write than I thought it was.

 You can also read my (very long) original spiel from last February here... too if you like. That is the more etiquette focussed one.

Thanks for reading along with us this week!
I have enjoyed opening up this discussion, but I must admit I'm really looking forward to taking a break from the serious next week and sharing all my recent (and exciting!) creations with you again.
Lots of big reveals coming this week so watch this space!

Good Etiquette Revisited - Day 6 - Jennie

Welcome to Day 6 of Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger revisited!

Today we welcome Jennie from Clover & Violet. Jennie and I have known each other for nearly a couple of years now which seems hard to believe. So I've been a long time admirer of her beautiful blog and creations. She also writes beautiful patchwork and embroidery bag patterns and her work is one of my main inspirations to learn embroidery.

***

I'm Jennie and I blog {mostly about quilting, sewing, and my cute kids!} at Clover & Violet.  Since I've already posted before on Blogging Etiquette, I'm not going to revisit my whole post, but there are some things I've been thinking about over the last year.

 1. Be Intentional. 
Everyone has a different opinion of what should and shouldn't be shared.  My advice is choose what you will share and what you won't, then be consistent.  For example, you won't ever see a full picture of the front of my house or know what kind of car I drive.  Do I think these details are crucial to my safety, not necessarily.  However, in making sure I don't over-share, I pick a few things that I don't ever want to appear on my blog, and I keep those things private.  By making these decisions beforehand, I make sure that I never display everything about my life {and my children's lives} inadvertently.

 2. Kid's Pictures through Flickr. 
Because of Pinterest, I don't directly upload my kids' photos to my blog anymore.  I have my Flickr Pinterest disabled, and put my kid's pictures there.  I am not highly concerned that someone will pin a picture of my child...but sometimes people do things like that without thinking about it.  Also, since many of my photos of my children are of them with quilty/sewing items, I'd rather just the item be pinned, so the photo of my child is through Flickr and cannot be  pinned.

 3.  Have a Blog Life.
When you're writing your blog {or any other social media}, ask yourself "would I tell this to the cashier at the grocery store?", "is this information I'd give to my spouse's boss?", etc., because you never know who is reading your blog or other website.  This goes for personal details as well as just self-censorship.

 4. Private Sites aren't Private. 
You probably know the saying "you're only as strong as your weakest link", well, the same goes for privacy.  You may have a carefully thought out, random, strong password and a private Facebook page...but if someone on your friends list isn't as careful, everything you've put on Facebook is now visible to who-knows-who...  We've all heard of {or maybe even had} individuals' credit card numbers getting stolen from big companies while their cards and documents are secured or shredded at home...well, the same thing can happen to your pictures and info, even if you've carefully password protected them.

 5. Delete, delete, delete. 
Perhaps it is true that if you put it on the internet, it will be there forever, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to have unmonitored accounts in your name.  So, if you're no longer going to use Facebook, delete your account.  If you're no longer going to check that e-mail, delete it {if you want to keep it around, consider forwarding the e-mails to your current account, that way you'll know if something is going on}. Really, this whole post can be summed up in two words: be conscientious. Enjoy blogging and social media, make friends, but always keep both eyes open!

*** 

Thank you again for sharing with us today Jennie! Some great nuggets of advice. It's lovely to have you visit :)

We have no day 6 of the original series today as I reran Sarah's post on Thursday. So I'll just be back with my wrap up and my thoughts tomorrow :)

Good Etiquette Revisited - Day 5 - Hadley

Welcome to Day 5 of Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger revisited!

Today we welcome Hadley from Flying Blind on a Rocket Cycle. I can't even remember how I got to know Hadley now to be honest. I think it was probably also during the Modern Christmas Swap also. But she's unforgettable, I love her cheekiness and I'm looking forward to meeting her in June to see how accurate her blog persona is haha - no pressure Hadley ;)
Enjoy...

***

When Kat posted about her doubts and worries about continuing to blog a couple of weeks back, I was eager to jump in and try to dispel her fears, and poo-poo the paranoia that has been circulating blogland of late.

Oh don't get me wrong, I am no expert and mostly it was a selfish gesture, because I didn't want her disappearing back to the other side of the world!

But it got us talking, and me thinking, which is often a dangerous thing, as I tend to engage mouth before brain quite frequently.

I love my blogging 'alter-ego', the outspoken persona I can be online and the friendships I have made because of it. I thrive off the way I am encouraged to create beautiful things to share with others, and how others inspire me everyday, I cannot imagine not continuing.

When all the Pinterest hoo-hah blew up about liable and copy write, you know what, to be honest I just ignored it; made a few sarcastic comments here and there and carried on pinning regardless.

If you saw the state of my Bookmarks list, or tried to wade through all the blogs I follow on a regular basis, you would quickly realise that this super online filing cabinet stops me, and my computer from being completely overwhelmed.

The pictures that I pin, or their related tutorials or products are all from the web, they are there for all to see.  If you don't want your 'things' pinned, as far as I am concerned, don't put them online, or stick a great big watermark over them!

I hope I use Pinterest in the way it was intended, as a collection of reminders of where I saw that brilliant/beautiful thing. I rarely re-pin, as I like to find the original; sometimes the source has disappeared, or the other person has pinned a picture that just links to a blog, rather than a specific blog post, (that is so annoying people, please don’t do it), but 99% of the time I trace it back myself.

I admit I have used pictures I've pinned a couple of times on my blog, but again they link back to the original, so I am not sure how that could be construed as anything other than flattery. Naive? Maybe, but I can sleep at night.

The same goes with Flickr. I have absolutely no problem with people adding my makes to their favourites or using an image in a mosaic; do unto others as you would have others do onto you eh?!

If I were a designer, or a photographer or depended on my skillz for money, then I might feel quite differently, however I wouldn't blog about things I didn't want people to see, and definitely wouldn't put pictures on a website built upon the ability to download/copy the pictures for free!

The other side to Kat's worries I probably feel stronger about; however it is the area I am less able to explain.

My blog posts and the pictures I upload to Flickr are mostly 'craft- related', however I do intersperse these with some of my family, and I always scrutinise them to make sure I am happy for them to be seen by 'friends' and strangers alike.

I have never named our children online; I think until they are old enough to decide whether or not they want to be named, then I don’t think it’s up to me.

Also, as many know, my close family do not know that I blog, and I think having your grandchildren named online would be unfair. 

I definitely don’t worry that some dodgy geezer will approach them and whisk them away because he knows their names!

I am happier keeping them all a little protected from googling eyes. If anyone wanted to find out my whole family tree, I’m sure it’s all out there, but we are not that interesting!

I resisted my name being known for a long time, well there aren’t many Hadleys about! I suppose because of my job I have to self-censor a little, so I don’t talk about work in any detail and my apathy to it helps me focus on the things I do love doing when I am not there.

 Maybe familiarity breeds content, and I seem to hand my address out at regular intervals to ‘strangers’ and I really can’t explain that, other than there is usually something ‘in it’ for me!

As for the family not knowing, firstly I can only compare it with singing alone in the car – I can write and be open and embarrass myself online because you can’t see me or make me feel self conscious; secondly anyone who has befriended me on Facebook may have noticed that my family, cousins mainly, are quite ‘tight’, and you guys would never get a comment in edgewise if they knew!

But as has been mentioned before, no matter how careful I am, others see things in a completely different way, uploading friends and family pictures without any regard for my or my husband's opinions.  Way back we would ask for photos of the children to be taken off if they made us uneasy, but we cannot police everyone we know, or maybe don't know, and at the end of the day, my kids are more at risk crossing the quiet road outside our house than from anyone online right now.

So I guess all I can say is use common sense and just be realistic. I love knowing about my online friends activities away from the sewing machine, and it would be a sadder place if we spent as much time and energy second guessing and worrying ourselves silly as we did creating and sharing.

***

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us Hadley! It was lovely having you "visit" today :)

I totally agree about the Facebook mention as well - people do treat Facebook etiquette about asking permission before uploading photos of other people very loosely.

If you would like to now read Day 4 of the original blog etiquette week, by Jill from Life & Times of Jill, you will find it here...

Good Etiquette Revisited - Day 4 - Sarah

Welcome to Day 4 of Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger revisited!

Today we welcome Sarah from Pings & Needles. This post originally ran on Day 6 of the first Blogger series, last February 2011. So some of the information in Sarah's intro about how long she's been keeping her blog etc... is a little bit out of date now. But apart from that I'm sure you'll agree that Sarah's post is tremendously informative and useful, full of practical information.
Thank you again for sharing this with us Sarah!!
Enjoy...

***

WHO WHAT WHEN WHERE WHY AND HOW

 

Hi, I’m Sarah and I live on the South Coast of England, in Brighton - a diverse city of sea frets, pebbles, beautiful Regency architecture and, for me, international students! I’m so excited to be guesting on Kat’s blog!

In my spare time I paint and sew and blog.  Or blog and sew and paint.  Or blog.  Or sew.  Or paint.  Depends on my inspiration levels!  Online I mainly live here at my blog: Pings and Needles.   I’ve only been blogging there for about six months, but I’ve been blogging in general for about three and a half years.  My other blogs are nerdy techy sites that live alongside my training and teaching. I blog at Pings because I wanted to join this amazing community of crafting people and because I want to be able to say thank you sometimes for the inspiration that it brings.

My day job is teaching ICT to pre-uni students at an international  Higher Ed college. I also train teachers in the use of technology in their teaching.  This takes many forms - from online courses to classroom activities, to blogs.

One of the most important things we teach our students is netiquette - guidelines for good online behaviour.  One of the areas that teachers find most confusing, given the phenomenal role of the internet in our everyday teaching lives, is the big grey fuzzy area of copyright.

This is why I volunteered when Kat put out the call for guest bloggers!

I have to warn you now - this post is l-o-o-o-n-g!! I’ve edited as much as I can, but I’ve indulged myself and just written what I'd would have liked to have known when I started blogging (which you’ll see was quite a lot!! LOL)

I’ll come to copyright and creative commons at the end of this post, but first -

MY TOP 6 BLOGGING BASICS

Whether you’re a shiny new blogger or an old seasoned hack, I think we should all bear some things in mind when blogging. These are just my thoughts, based on experience and my own twisted common sense. If you don’t agree, feel free to comment below ;)

1. BE YOURSELF

Starting a blog can be really exciting, but it can be difficult to find your ‘voice’.  You can waste a lot of time and energy worrying about how you are portraying yourself.
My big tip here is to write as if you are talking to yourself - we all do that, right?  Hopefully, you won’t just be talking to yourself for long, but it makes things a whole lot easier if you start how you mean to go on.

There’s no doubt that your blogging style changes over time.  I know it has for me.  Confidence helps us to write what we want to write in such a way that other people will respond to it and (with any luck) come back for more.  If you want to test this, go to a blog that you love and go through the archives right to the very start.  Different huh?  I posted about this as a giveaway task, because I found it so interesting.  I know, I know, no-one likes jumping through hoops for giveaways, but sometimes we bloggers want a bit of active involvement for our efforts!

 NETIQUETTE ALERT! Positivity in blog posts is a good thing, but don’t let this be an excuse to try and portray a false image of ‘the perfect life’. 


Showing off our creativity? Yes!  

A willingness to share our knowledge/experience? Yes!  

A perfect Martha Stewart household with freshly whitewashed picket fence,a perfect sex life, baking that always works and children who never cry? No!  

Well, that’s not what I look for in a blog, anyway.  I think most of the feelings of jealousy, competition and worthlessness that some bloggers write of come from believing, for a moment, that all these perfect lives really exist.  If it were that perfect they wouldn’t be twigging about on the internet so much! LOL.
We blog because we want to communicate.

2. COMMUNICATION IS A TWO WAY THING

When I talk to myself I’m often asking a question.  Try to involve your readers in your posts: ask questions; ask for advice; invite guest writers (!); invite comments; use something like linkytools to bring your readers and their posts into your blog.  Just look at kootoyoo’s weekly My Creative Space post, it’s a great example.

NETIQUETTE ALERT! - Reply to comments! I’m not suggesting it’s practical to reply to 100% of your comments 100% of the time but it really really makes a difference if you do reply to people who have taken the time to write something (a) complimentary (b) constructive or (c) so funny you snorted tea through your nose.  It took me a while to learn this. I wish I’d learned sooner.  Instead of just having “traffic” I feel that I have made friends.

3. GO VISITING AND DE-LURK

I confess - I love walking down my street in the early evenings and looking in through my neighbours’ windows.  Most of the time I wouldn’t dream of knocking on their doors, but occasionally they catch me eyeballing them (!) and we exchange a little wave or a nod of recognition.  That often leads to a conversation when me meet in the street some time later.

Blogs are the same really.  Yes, you can just lurk and go through your favourite blogs without ever contributing a comment.  It’s fine.  But, if you want to open up communication, the best way is to leave a comment on a post that you particularly like.  It’s also a nice way to say thank you to someone who has commented over at yours.

I’ve found some of my favourite blogs from reading a great comment and clicking over to see more. I know that I’ve had visitors from comments I’ve left. This is why it’s important to be consistently ‘yourself’ on your blog and in your comments.  If you leave great comments but your blog writing is stilted you will confuse your readers!

NETIQUETTE ALERT! - Do not use your comments on other blogs to publicise your blog!  It’s just bad manners! It’s like going to a party and then asking all the guests to come over the road to your house because your wine is nicer and you’ve got better nibbles!  You wouldn’t do it in real life, so don’t do it online! 

Most comment systems won’t allow links anyway, to cut down on spam. I do, however, think it’s OK to put your blog in your username.  My username for comments is Sarah@PingsAndNeedles -  partly because there are so many bloomin Sarahs out there, and partly because my blog is part of my online ‘me’ and I do want people to know who I am and where to find me.

NETIQUETTE ALERT! - Do not leave negative comments.  If you don’t like something just move on. Why waste your energy leaving a negative comment?  Everyone has different opinions.  Don’t expect to love everyone, or indeed for them to love you!

A lot has been written about how to deal with negative comments.  My trick is to ignore them.  Simple but it works for me.  I don’t moderate my comments anymore. I did for the first couple of weeks, but for my blog the “your comment will be visible after approval” thing is just a little too bossy and I think it kills the spontaneity of blog-hopping. If I really don’t like something, or it is offensive, I can always delete it.  I’ve never had to. In fact, I’ve never had a really negative comment.

4. KEEP THINGS IN PERSPECTIVE!

Whilst I know that others have had really bad experiences with this, and I in no way want to minimise the impact that it has had on their lives, before you get too hysterical about the possibility of it happening to you, relax!  It is NOT the norm.  Just as in real life, every person you meet is NOT a murderer, rapist, animal torturer or embezzler. (Unless you work in a prison, LOL).

I think it’s also important to remember that unless you’ve been really dumb about your personal details these naysayers are not going to come knocking at your door either.  This is the internet. People are sitting in their own homes on computers, typing.  They’re not putting poo through your letterbox.

5. PICTURES

Yes, pictures are important.  Very important.  But I’d rather see no photos and some good copy than bad photos any day.  If it’s fuzzy, badly lit and out of focus don’t post it.  Use the “if I saw that on another blog would I snort with derision?” rule.


6. HAVE FUN!
 
If you feel like blogging, blog.  If you’re not in the mood, don’t! Everyone has their off days.  Sometimes those off days can inspire us to share, sometimes they leave us blocked and unable to find our mojos.  Don’t despair.  Get out into the real world.  Take photos.  Eat cake.  See friends.  Then come back.  We’ll be right where you left us!

I’m into the home straight now, are you still here?  …  First up is a little glossary of terms I created for a workshop for teachers last year:

CREATIVE COMMONS? OPEN SOURCE? PUBLIC DOMAIN? COPYRIGHT? COPYLEFT?


Creative Commons: Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organisation which facilitates more flexible copyright usage for the internet. Anyone can release their work under Creative Commons, with differing levels of restriction.

Open Source: Put simply, programming code that can be read, viewed, modified, and distributed, by anyone who desires. OpenOffice & Gimp are examples of open source software programs.

Public Domain: Non-copyrighted material which may be used without violating copyright restrictions.  Also refers to things like Books and Film which become public domain after their copyright expires.Each country has their own rules about this.

Copyleft: Not a joke, it's the opposite of Copyright and therefore applies to open source/public domain music.

This chart, explaining the different icons used in creative commons licensing, comes from squidoo.com

 

THE PERILS OF COPYRIGHT IN ONE SENTENCE:

If you don’t want people to copy your work don’t put it on the internet!

I’m not happy that people can steal my ideas.  But I also accept that to some extent all creativity is derivative, and none more so than in the burgeoning online quilting, crafting community.

Now, don’t get me wrong,  I’m not saying that you don’t have the right to protect your stuff.  Everyone has the right to protect their creativity.  I’d just ask you to put your hand on heart and say you weren’t inspired by all the brilliant work out there, before you try to sue my ass for making a quilt with a wonky block!

Even haute couture designers know their work is going straight from the catwalk into the high street!  Very few will sue.  It’s just not worth it.  The clever ones create a diffusion range that beats the mass producers to it.  There’s plenty of room out there for everyone.

I know that things get a little more tricky when, for example fabric designs are copied.  I’m not going to go there.  I’ve seen dreadful examples of mass production of people’s work.  If it’s going to affect your livelihood then you might want to call a copyright lawyer.  But this post is mainly for bloggers and people who might make small amounts of goods to sell online in stores like etsy or folksy.

There are very easy ways to protect your designs - in the UK you just have to mail yourself the design and NOT open it.  That way you have a dated sealed example of your work.  Establishing copyright is easy.  Defending can be expensive and ultimately unsuccessful.  Sorry, there is no magic wand for this.


NETIQUETTE ALERT! creative commons (cc) or copyright free still needs correct attribution.

This is very important.  Yes, copyright is a minefield, but basically if you didn’t take the photo, make the thing, or write the copy, it’s not yours to use unless you have permission.  End of.  

If it’s creative commons or copyright free you can use if for free, but in the case of CC you still have to attribute the ownership according to the specific  license.  Most copyright free images don’t require full attribution.

Some bloggers are really specific about their intellectual property and request no blogging of their photos whatsoever.  The easiest way to check is to read the “About” tab on a blog, if there is one, or to email them directly.

LET GO!

The internet has evolved away from the age of broadcast and into an age of collaboration and connection. Because I teach (and believe in) the importance of collaboration and sharing online, I’ve released all my pictures with a non-commercial creative commons license.  That means that anyone can use my pictures for non-commercial use.

If you use flickr to upload your pictures you can read more about this here.  It’s a great page because it explains HOW to attribute correctly.  This is something I’m not going to touch on, because different people require different text.

Personally, I feel that unless you’re a soopah doopah top notch paid blogger, who earns a living from photography, to watermark your photos, and litter your blog with copyright warnings, is overkill and just a little bit precious.  If someone wants that picture they’re just going to right click and save it.  Anyone with a bit of tech knowledge can get rid of a watermark if they really really want to!

So that’s it from me.

I leave you with some really useful  links to copyright free/creative commons images & sounds, and I hope you come and visit me at PingsAndNeedles soon (it’s much more about sewing there!)

IMAGES

FIREFOX
If you use Firefox then you can download a gadget which adds Creative Commons to your search options

FLICKR CREATIVE COMMONS
A gazillion photos - well, about 17,000,000

CREATIVE COMMONS SEARCH ENGINE
Fantastic multi-search engine for images, sounds, videos etc.

FLICKR COMMONS PROJECT
Search a whole heap of galleries, libraries, museums

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Search for images, sounds, videos - topics: science, society, nature, general

SOUNDSBRITISH LIBRARY SOUND ARCHIVE
Amazing collection of regional accents, soundscapes, nature, oral history. Licensed for educators to link to, but great fun to have a browse through.

GOOGLE OPEN MUSIC SEARCH
'Copyleft', Creative Commons and Public Domain music and sound

SOUNDCITIES
Incredible database of world sounds and soundscapes with interactive map

(all images on this post are either mine or from wikimedia commons)

 Sarah

***

Thanks again Sarah!

If you would now like to go and read Day 3 of the original series by Jennie of Clover & Violet (who will also be sharing a new post with us on Saturday) you will find it here.

Good Etiquette Revisited - Day 3 Lynne

Welcome to Day 3 of Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger revisited!

Today we welcome Lynne from Lily's Quilts. I'm certain you will have come across Lynne before and know all about her creative genius and quick wit combination, but just in case you haven't "met" her yet then may I encourage you to go visit her blog and admire her gorgeous work for yourself.
Thanks for visiting today Lynne, we appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us!

***

Hi I'm Lynne from Lily's Quilts and Kat has asked me to talk a little bit about quiltblogland etiquette and about quiltblogland safety.  I wasn't sure what I was going to say until a funny thing happened this week.  I was looking for an old email from Adrianne Little Bluebell and a few came up including one which I swear I had not seen before.  It was dated last November and she had sent me the politest email asking me to credit a photo I had used on my blog (her beautiful Kona charm pack photo shown below) without permission.  She hadn't asked me to remove the photo from the post in spite of the fact that I had used it without asking her permission or crediting it to her.  Since I didn't notice the email, it went ignored until April (last week) when I noticed it and felt mortified.  I emailed her, credited her in the photo and apologised profusely.  She was kind, generous, forgiving and let me right off the hook.

So here's the lesson I learned.  I might be pretty diligent about crediting photos of other people's quilts on my blog and about asking permission but, when it came to photos of products, I lost all my manners.  Here is what happened.  I had a giveaway of Kona charm packs.  I wanted an image but didn't have the charm packs in my possession and so went to google images to find an image.  Since I was giving away Kaufman Kona packs, I assumed I would have permission to use any of Kaufman's photos but the best photos were those taken by other bloggers.  So I grabbed one of those, dropped it into the post, didn't ask permission and didn't credit Adrianne.  Bad bad bad Lynne.  So that's not going to happen again.  I will either ask permission and give credit or restrict my photos to those I have taken myself or photos from the sponsor's site.

As to safety on the blog, the one thing I have done though is to create a whole new identity for everything I do as a quilter online - so I have a lilys quilts email, a lilys quilts flickr account, a lilys quilts facebook account, a lilys quilts wordpress identity, a lilys quilts twitter identity etc.  So, my life as a quilter is kept quite separate from my private life.  Just like Beyonce going on stage as Sasha Fierce, I enter the sewing room as Lily Q, quilter and blogger extraordinaire.  OK I added extraordinaire for special effect and it's not really true but you get the picture.  And if I was good at photoshop, I would now superimpose my head onto Beyonce's body so you'd get the picture but sadly I'm not and it wouldn't be a pretty sight anyway.


Kat has also asked me to talk a little bit about why my blog tends to stick mostly to my quilting life and not talk much about my personal life.  I have to say that it is just something that has happened almost accidentally.  I think of my blog as a quilting blog and not as a blog about my personal life so it tends not to occur to me to include that on the blog.  Occasionally things happen where the two collide, such as where I'm making a quilt for someone in my family or where my twin girls have been doing some sewing but, other than that, it just doesn't really occur to me to write on my blog about my family and personal life!
Lynne

***

Thanks Lynne! We appreciate you keeping it real and sharing your faux pas with us. We are all human and all make mistakes, so it's a good reminder for all of us to be careful about crediting photos correctly.
I also found that last bit fascinating to read that your blog not talking much about your personal life almost happened by accident. 


If you would now like to read Day 2 from last years etiquette series by Kerry of VeryKerryBerry you can find it here...

Good Etiquette Revisited - Day 2 - Laura

Welcome to Day 2 of Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger revisited!

Today we welcome Laura Jane from Needles, Pins & Baking Tins. I grew to know Laura-Jane last year when we were in the modern Christmas swap together. She was a fan of my work and I was a fan of hers. Since then I've grown to even more appreciate her awesome creativity & taste in fabric.
On several occasions recently Laura has helped me out with technical questions. Usually I just smile and nod and pretend I understand when people talk to me about technical stuff (just ask Mr Flutter) but Laura explains it well.
So thank you for sharing some of your knowledge with us today Laura! It's lovely to have you to visit :)

***

Hi, I’m Laura Jane. I blog at Needles, Pins and Baking Tins, and have done so for about a year and a half. Kat asked me to write something for this series however, because of my day job. I am a “techie”… I’m a programmer, who writes database software. While my job doesn’t actually involve a lot of work programming on the web, I’d like to think I can make a fairly well informed opinion, and thought I would share that with you today. Please note the following is just that. My opinion. I’ve thrown a few facts in for good measure, but I’m just saying… I don’t profess to be an expert….

1.       Passwords

People talk about password strength and password safety, but what does it really mean?

Password strength determines how well your password can prevent a dictionary, or brute force, attack. There are online password strength checkers, were you can test your chosen password, and I advise that you do so. Fact: any password can be guessed by a dictionary attack. It is just a matter of time. In an idea world people would have 32-bit passwords, comprised of the full range of ASCII characters (i.e. upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters), which would offer the most security. This, however, is not possible because you’d never remember it! So, pick something as secure as possible, hopefully making use of the full range of characters available and please please please don’t use the same one for all your accounts! If you must do this, have a high strength password “stub” which you can remember, and then add something to, to make it unique for each site.

If you need a scare tactic example, I accidentally locked out my own laptop last week (keys were sticky and I didn’t know… I changed the password then it wasn’t what I thought it was next time I logged in, doh!). I downloaded a completely free piece of software from a completely legitimate and public source, burnt it to a disk, and within 3 minutes of running it had guessed my password o_0!!

2.       Sharing Personal Information

There is a lot of hoo-har these days about sharing too much, too little, and what medium it is shared by. I think as bloggers, we inevitably share quite a lot of information about ourselves, on a daily basis. We send our home addresses to people for the purpose of Bee’s and swaps. They sit there in a Google doc on a server somewhere, or downloaded to the Bee Mama’s pc, and who knows what could happen to it. My personal view is to just chillax about most of that. The quilty people are a trustworthy type. And if a bunch of you turn up at my door unannounced to raid my stash and steal my sewing machine, well I might just give it to you for the effort! But still, it does make you ponder how much of yourself is out there for the world to see. The stuff that matters to me is the stuff that I might share unknowingly.

Facebook is a bad one for assuming you want to share everything, in the absence of a decision either way. I like to keep my Facebook as a personal thing. I vet who I am friends with, and mostly just use it for old school friends and people I actually know/like/hangout with in person. Nothing on my Facebook profile can be seen by people who I am not friends with, and that’s the way I like it.

I decided, the other day, to have a little look at what information Google had on me. Evidently since I blog using blogger, it would have all that information, but I was actually shocked when I saw all the other stuff they kept. A great way of looking at all the information they have on you is through the dashboard. https://www.google.com/dashboard/

It lists all their “applications” and all the data they hold for your user account, for each application. I implore you to go have a look. I ended up removing a whole bunch of personal information from there that I just didn’t want anyone and everyone to be able to see.

3.       Your photographs.

Ever since the big pinterest debacle, I have noticed a few bloggers putting up little blurbs on their do’s and don’ts for their images. I wholeheartedly support them, and agree that if the photo is yours, you should be able to dictate what it is and isn’t used for. However, this all relies on trust. Fact: there is absolutely no way to stop people taking and using your photos for whatever they want.

Sure you can take steps to prevent it, if you are that way inclined.  If you use flickr, you can stop people downloading or sharing your photos (go to the privacy and permissions page in account settings http://www.flickr.com/account/privacy/). You can even stick some javascript code into your blog which will disable right clicking on images, meaning people won’t be able to use the “save target as..” or “save image as…” function on their browser (if anyone want this, I can write it for you, just send me an email). But…. And this is a big ol’ but….. people can still take a screenshot of your page, OR view the raw html and find the image link in it, OR find it in their cached temporary internet files. So, really, you are fighting a losing battle. It isn’t all doom and gloom though, I mean, would you steal a photo from someone’s site without asking? Didn’t think so. Most people are trustworthy folk. Most people would ask first. Or link to your site. Or at least credit the image. Which leads me nicely into…

4.       Ettiquette

I don’t plan to go into a whole lot of detail on web etiquette, or netiquette, as there will be others who do; I just wanted to weigh in on a couple of subjects.

Firstly, it’s 100% okay not to like something. Not everyone can like everything all the time. But it’s important to remember the pneumonic, DBAD i.e. Don’t be a dick. The best thing to say, if you don’t like something, is nothing. Not one word. Because one word can really ruin someone’s day. If someone poops on your party (lol), the best thing to do is to just delete the comment, and forget it ever happened. If it incites a reaction from you, negative or otherwise, you have played right into their hands. Occasionally, I have been known to break out my sword of wit and take them for all they are worth, but I always feel guilty afterwards, so it’s best just to let sleeping trolls lie.

Lastly, we are all, by nature, creative people. I think its 100% possible that 2 people can have the exact same idea at the exact same time. (And really, what constitutes a new idea anyway? Most things have been done in one way or another at some point throughout history) That being said, if it’s not an original idea and you know it, you really should credit the person it came from.  Imitation is sincerest of flattery, and I’m sure the original idea’s creator would love to know you have inspired them. Likewise, I’m sure your followers will think nothing less of you for crediting your inspiration.

Thank you Kat, for letting me share here today, and thank you all for reading! I wish you many a happy bloggy year :o)

***

Thanks again Laura!!
And I hope you found that useful guys. And I hope you'll go and take a visit to Laura's beautiful blog!


You might like to now go back and read Post 1 from the first etiquette series now by Angela from Cut to Pieces.

If you'd like to link to the series from your blog that would be fantastic and much appreciated. In that case there is a blog button down the left of my blog which you can pick up the code to. Thanks.

Blog Etiquette Revisit {read me}...

Just in case you missed the memo, recently I had a little blog wobble. 
It caused me to question {again} why I was blogging, what has changed since I started blogging and primarily did I want to continue to blog...

I decided I did want to continue blogging...
Happy days!...

But being me, I wasn't happy just to let it sit like that.
Because I feel like the issues I was/am wrestling with are valid issues that we all face. It would seem many of us also have them on our minds at the moment with more questions than answers.... Especially other mothers.
Last year I hosted a week of guest posters all talking on the topic of "Blog Etiquette" which became far more popular than I ever imagined. And today, even over a year later, those are still widely read posts.
So, I thought maybe it would be a really good time to reopen that discussion, only this time expanding it to include some issues of "keeping ourselves safe online" and Good Etiquette for Social Media as a whole as well...

Therefore, may I present to you...

Good Etiquette for the Modern Blogger Revisited 2012....

Not exactly the catchiest of titles going I know, but I couldn't think of anything better and decided to leave it at that...

So what's the plan?

Well...

Over the course of this week I have arranged for a selection of my bloggy friends to very kindly share their thoughts with us on the topic(s).
Each day we will hear from a different Blogger and at the end I will recap and put my 2 cents in (again).

I just want to stress that these are not "tutorials" or how-tos. It will simply be a few people sharing our thoughts and starting a discussion!!

What people are and aren't prepared to share online is so deeply personal that I completely respect there is by no means "one solution" out there. Or two, or even three. There are just SO many factors to consider when making those decisions.
The aim of this week is really just to address what some of those factors are, get us thinking about how we can most respectfully interact with each other on here, and how we can best keep ourselves and our families protected...
Simply a discussion...

I have given my friends completely free reign over what they will be sharing and I love that because they each bring a completely different flavour and thoughts to the discussion.
They've each naturally talked about a different topic too which is great.

So who will be contributing?
I have posts lined up from Laura-Jane of Needles, Pins & Baking Tins, Hadley of Flying Blind on a Rocket Cycle, Lynne of Lily's Quilts, Jennie of Clover & Violet
I'm also going to rerun one of the original etiquette posts by Sarah of Pings and Needles because I think Sarah so clearly explains about photo types & copyright stuff. Very good stuff.
Each day I will also share a link back to one of the original posts so that you can revisit those as we go along if you like too.

There you have it, a week of big (but hopefully enlightening, positive and fun) discussion :)

I can't stress enough that I want this to be a constructive and positive week.
Your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section will be highly valued as part of the discussion, so I encourage to you weigh in as well :)
I'm sure I don't need to say this at all, but negative comments on the other hand will not be tolerated and will be deleted

I will put the blog button down the side of my blog shortly so that you can share it on your blog also, or feel free to link to the bigger image I've included in my post using the flickr code.
It would be fantastic if you could spread the word so we can get as many people included in the discussion as possible :)

Happy Monday!

More zippy zip zippers....

I am on a roll with ticking things off my to-do list this week.
If feels good I have to tell you!
But I have found some time to do some more fun sewing too. These fun zipper pouches have been some of the fruits of my labour...

Another fun scrappy pouch. Just because.

Ok just because I may have accidentally sent one of the ones I made for the sample swap on to someone else and had to replace it with something else... oops...
And judging by emails received last night this will not be the last either...

Secondly I finally worked up the courage to try out my lace zippers...

Aren't they super cute? I am in love with them!
I have been sitting on these for what feels like f.o.r.e.v.e.r. and trying to muster up the brain space to try something new. But I finally kicked myself into gear and tried a couple yesterday and I'm in love with the results...

Cup of tea anyone?

Hmmm wonder where this is going with it's matching card?!

They are actually SUPER easy! Like, seriously seriously easy.
Kicking myself for putting them off for so long much?!
The only thing wrong with the method that I used is that I didn't use zipper tabs like I normally do. The finish was still reasonably neat even without those, but moreso than anything it just limits the size of the pouch more because the zippers are not that long.

I got mine from here ages and ages ago and I notice that they have a bunch of other cute pulls available now. I'm already plotting how I can justify buying the ballerina ones. How much would Miss H love those for a ballet bag!!

I've also finished my name tag for another FQ Retreat swap. I'll show you that next week because I haven't edited the photos yet and I can't have you knowing who it's for ;)

This is my outgoing mail pile today...

That's just the personal stuff not even the business stuff!
Shows I've been busy huh...
Could any of it be for you I wonder?
I'm not telling! heheheh