Busy Weeks

On the quilty side, I'll show you the last eight of my scrappy stars.  Aren't they just the craziest blocks? 

If you want to compare them to the originals, click here to see Taryn's post and scroll down to blocks 13-20.  Mine are not very close to the originals but at this point, I don't think that matters much.

I think these are the scrappiest blocks I've ever made, sometimes with 12 or more different fabrics in each block.  It was both freeing and encouraging.  All those little pieces of fabric I've saved, if they're at least 1½" by ~3", could become star points for Ohio Star blocks.  I need to decide on fabric for the alternate blocks for these stars and this quilt.

I have been cleaning, sorting, editing, and organizing the room where I have fabric, my sewing machine, all other creative supplies, my computer, paper supplies, and family history papers, files, and photographs.  Either I have too much stuff or the room is too small.  It is so easy for things to pile up and I've been trying to unearth.

We had a time-consuming interruption last week.  Nona and I were outside playing when I heard what I thought was a strange, new-to-me bird, except there were no birds around.  I listened for the sound and followed it to the unfenced side of  our back yard where I found a tiny kitten.  Oh, no.  You can probably imagine how that went.  (Let me lead your thoughts away from our keeping it.)  I still haven't gotten back to sorting and cleaning.

When we couldn't find anyone who wanted it, my daughter decided she would keep it, at least on a trial basis.  The kitten will go home with her next Wednesday. 

I probably don't need more fabric but a Bernina store on the north side of the city had a fabric swap this weekend.  People who want to sell fabric bundle and price it and people who want to buy fabric shop.  I'd not been before and didn't know what to expect. 

I found mostly high quality fabrics of all kinds, clean and neatly bundled, at great prices.  I bought a stack of 24 Civil War reproduction pieces that were at least a fat quarter or a third yard each, equaling 6 yards for $5.00.  Someone sold a Primitive Gatherings red and white charm pack for 50 cents.  And someone had neatly stuffed small- to medium-sized zipper sandwich bags full with pieces of Civil War prints and sold them for one, two, or three dollars.  There are no local shops that sell the variety of fabrics in those bags and I was thrilled to see them in person.  Of course, I bought six bags or so.  If I do make more scrappy stars, I can add some of these pieces to scraps I already have.

On the tech/blogging problems. I still don't know why comments appear on my blog posts but are not being sent to my email box.  Very frustrating.  I've checked blog settings but can't find the problem.  I did resolve the problem with not being able leave comments on others' blogs.  I use Mozilla's Firefox browser and it's very protective of my computer.  I learned that I have to turn off the protection and then I can comment.  If you're using Firefox and have the same problem, click on the shield icon to the left of the url box at the top of the page.  Then click on "Enhanced Tracking Protection" to turn it off.  It automatically goes back on at the next website you visit, or you can turn it back on after you publish your comment.

Another recent blogger problem is that I can't add photos to blog posts unless I'm in a private window and sign in to blogger.  Again, frustrating.  It probably has something to do with security protection, in which case I guess I should be grateful....

We are finally getting some bright autumn colors, but we've had plenty of rain lately, too, and more predicted for the next few days.  Where did October go?!  It's usually the most colorful month but this year it was mostly green and felt more like summer than fall, at least until the past few days.
I've babbled enough.  I hope all is well in your home and part of the world.

--Nancy.

P.S. If you leave a comment I'll respond here on this post and also send you an email if I have your email address.  So sorry for the inconvenience.

A Bibbie, Blogger Changes (Again), and Out and About

Making a Bibbie

For Christmas my granddaughter received an adorable little apron which her mom calls a bibbie.  It covers her front, meets at center back, and ties at the neck.   It is made of two layers of fabric quilted with thin batting between.  Before we visited a few weeks ago my daughter ask if I might be able to make another one, so I took along some large paper and traced a pattern.  It's a simple pattern but I'd never machine quilted and wasn't sure how it would go on my mom's old black 201 Singer. 

This week I spent several days making another, just as a trial to see if I could.  The fabric for both sides came from thrift clothing:  a woman's blouse, a skirt, and the back of a shirt for the binding.  Before layering and sewing I marked diagonal quilting lines at 1½" with a grey Crayola washable marker.  After layering I pinned the heck out of the layers, just to be sure there was no shifting.  And it worked just fine.  There were no puckers in the fabric.  Surprise!

It took hours and hours and I can see why the company who made her first bibbie went out of business.  There couldn't have been much profit when they sold them for $35.00!

The back is a plaid with similar colors to the fabric on the front.  I would have used a darker fabric had I had enough of one that worked with the colors on the front.

This is the finished bibbie.  My daughter liked it and Sophia was happy to wear it.  Somehow, it's not nearly as sweet as the little blue one which, I think, makes her look like she walked about of the 1940s.  If I make another, I'll buy fabric for it instead of using what I have on hand.

We drove down to my daughter's on Thursday, stayed overnight, then came home yesterday.  It was great to spend time with both our daughters, our grandchildren, and our son-in-law.  I don't have much energy today but I'm working on the bow tie quilt (which I'll post when it's done).

More Blogger Challenges
I do wish Blogger would leave well enough alone.  I've been getting emails from Google Analytics for several months telling me that Universal Analytics will be going away in July and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) will become the default data collection tool.  I'd been putting off checking into it because, well, who wants more changes, but finally decided to check into it a week or so ago.  They suggest it's an easy change to set up but then they are tech savvy and I'm not.  They'd included the beginning of changes for this blog but not for my others.  And even their set-up wizard was not especially helpful.  What it seems to come down to is making a coding change.behind the scenes where all the coding for your whole blog is.  To a non-tech person like me it's scary stuff and just thinking about it makes me nervous.  What are you doing about this change to GA4?  (It's not that I love numbers per se, but I do like to see how many people have visited my blog, whether it's 12, 180, or however many.)

Out and About
We drove up to Malabar Farm a few weeks ago and toured the Big House. We had an excellent tour guide who casually added of anecdotes and behind-the-scenes information about Louis Bromfield and his family.  Below is about half the house and below that, the barn and other farm buildings.

The property is owned by Ohio's Department of Natural Resources which keeps the buildings and grounds in beautiful condition.  I loved the columbines!

There should be more to this post but my memory fails me just now....

I hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend, remembering those who gave their lives to help the United States of America keep the freedoms we have.

--Nancy.

FYI - About Not Being Able to Leave Comments on Blogs

I learned about the dilemma I mentioned a week or so ago about not being able to leave comments without agreeing to third-party cookies.  I thought Blogger was the creating the problem (and in a way it is, by insisting on cookies) but I finally figured out that Firefox, the browser I use, is responsible.  It's very protective of its users by preventing unnecessary and unwanted cookies.  (Which explains why not everyone has this problem.)  I finally agreed to cookies and decided I could just delete them every few days if I had problems.

I'm glad I got that worked out.  Now I don't have to remember to leave my name, email address, and blog url whenever I leave a comment.

If you've had this problem and use Firefox, I hope this helps.

--Nancy.

When Feedburner's "FollowByEmail" Widget Goes Away

I've never followed a blog by email.  I think receiving an email for every post from every blog I follow would be overwhelming.  But Feedburner tells me that 1312 readers have subscribed to emails for this blog so some people must like subscribing to blogs that way.  I think most of them must delete the emails without reading just as I might if I followed blogs via email.

This is the notice we Blogspot bloggers received a week or two ago.  Click to enlarge it if you'd like to read all of it.

Basically, it says that the Feedburner email subscription service will be discontinued in July, which means that if you follow this blog via email you'll no longer receive those email updates for each post.  I don't know how (and am not interested in learning how) to send emails to everyone.  But I can recommend a few other ways to follow this and other blogs.

Google Friend Connect (known to some as Followers) and Blogger Reading List might work for you if you have a Blogspot blog.  Many of us have a widget somewhere on our blogs inviting  you to follow.  Mine is to the right and up a little if you're reading this on a desk- or laptop computer.  (I don't know how it looks on a phone.  Sorry.)  Clicking to become a follower/friend will place our blogs in your Blogger Reading List.  You can find that reading list on your Blogger dashboard, left column at the bottom.  You can add any blog to your reading list.

Feedly is my preferred method of following blogs.  It's a free service but you'll need to create an account, then you can add blogs to your list.  I love Feedly because I can click through to a blog and it also lets me read blog posts without going directly to each individual blog.  There are positives and negatives to this.  One negative is that I may not visit a blog unless I want to leave a comment.  One positive, for me, is that I can read many blog posts quickly.  Another positive is that the photos are usually larger in Feedly than on a blog.  And a third positive is that when I click through to the blog post, I can open the comment box, then write my comment without having to scroll up and down the post to look at the photos and read because I can change tabs and look at the post on Feedly.  That may not work for some readers but I like doing it that way.   There are a few bloggers who set their blogs to show only a few lines or the first paragraph of a blog post on Feedly.

Bloglovin' is another way to follow blogs.  It's free, too.  You'll need to create an account and then add blogs to your list.  Bloglovin' shows one photo from a post and if you click on the photo to go to the blog, you usually won't go directly to the blog but to Bloglovin's version of the blog within Bloglovin'.

I know there are other ways to read blogs (RSS feeds, as they're called) but I don't have information about them.  But these two posts, here and here, review several other options for following blogs.  If I learn more I'll edit this post.

What ways do you read blogs?  Do you follow via email, or do you use a reader or something else?

--Nancy.

That Sinking Feeling

Do you ever have that sinking feeling?  It's almost like my insides are deflating and I'm left sitting in a little heap.  For me it's brought on by a sudden, huge disappointment and/or a realization that a permanent and unhappy change is imminent or has happened.  And nothing I can do will stop the change.

That sinking feeling came upon me this morning when I opened Blogger to find myself in the new version AND read that the Legacy version would be removed on August 24.

I knew it was coming:  we've had advance warning for at least a month.  I knew it would be permanent (for at least a few years).  And I knew, from the previews and from a trial or two, that the change would not be easy.  I remember when Blogger made the last change, I made a little comment about not liking it on my other blog and a commenter reminded me that Blogger IS free and I didn't really have any right to complain.  True as that may be, I still have that sinking feeling. 

For the younger crowd, I think blogging is a dead art, not a dying one.  They've moved on to Instagram and other more immediate, easier ways to share images and brief thoughts.  It's those of us who want to write and share more detail who keep blogging.  I believe Blogger believes that making it easier to blog by phone (with larger icons spread further apart) will draw the younger crowd back to blogging.  But I don't know a single person among my blogging friends who blogs from her/his phone.  And I don't know a single young person who would choose or has chosen blogging over Instagram or Facebook or some quicker method of sharing.

How I wish Blogger/Google would do a survey among active bloggers to ask what would improve the blogging experience for them.

I don't know if my response to this change tells me how little my life is, how much I don't like change, or how satisfied I was with this version of Blogger.

I (hope I) will get over this sinking feeling in a day or two, then gather up my pluck and determination and wrestle with this new Blogger mess.

How are you doing with this Blogger change?  Do you or does anyone you know love it?

--Nancy.

P.S.  I've tried Preview four or five times over a period of a few hours and have seen no preview.  Only by going to Legacy blogger have I been able to see a preview.  I want to tell Blogger:  "No preview, no published post.  No published post, no blogging." 

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