Midweek Makers 347

Welcome to Midweek Makers!

School is back in session, and physically too, which means more sewing time for those with small children or grandchildren - woohoo! Hard to believe September 1st is tomorrow, which means the beautiful colors of fall are not far behind - a second woohoo!

My share this week is another quilt quilted for my friend Robyn. She's helping out a friend, who doesn't quilt, turn her cherished fabric finds into quilts. Just a few borders are all that were needed for this panel.

Now let's move on to this week's party!

From Kathy's Quilting Blog, an RSC2021 finish,

a quilt of Churn Dash blocks from Bell Creek Quilts,

and my style of crumb blocks center this in-progress quilt top from a Scrappy Quilter.

Let's see what new this week - come link up what you're working on!

• please link directly to your post
• please link a quilt related item
• visit with the other guests and leave some comment love

Have fun!

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National Dog Day 2022

Hello all dog lovers - it's National Dog Day today! Come link up your posts about those special dogs in your life, real or in fabric!

The linky party and giveaways are open for a week, starting today, August 26 till midnight, Friday, September 2. The winners of the giveaways will be emailed their prizes, and announced at the September 7 Midweek Makers post. Enjoy my puppies in both fabric and real life, visit all the linked-up adorable puppies, and enter to win the dog-themed giveaways!

Last year, I had a litter of my own - in fabric, that is. Meet Good Dog, a block pattern now available in my QuiltFabriction Etsy shop.

Aren't these just too cute? I had fun with the colorings - there's the classic white and black dog, a grey/black dog with a white chest, and a cream/brown dog, also with a white chest, to round out the litter. Ultimately, I put them all together in this very fun dog themed wall hanging, Doggone Good.

Want to win a free Good Dog block pattern? Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway. The winner will be sent a Good Dog pattern via email - good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Last week, I got to visit my grandpuppy, Po and his new pal, Tito, who belongs to my son's girlfriend.

Po is the first mate of Seafarer (that's the code name for my son because of his quilt), and is the sweetest 60lb bundle of fur! My son could not have found a better dog, bringing him here to the US from Paraguay after his stint in the Peace Corps.

Tito, on the other hand, is a bundle of energy! He's a smart dog, and as my son says, a Velcro dog. He likes to be the center of attention, and needs lots of exercise to get to a mellow state. Each morning, I'd get a 'happy to see you' face wash after they'd find me under the blanket!

I enjoyed spending time with these two, and have updated my Puppy Tales applique block with the addition of Tito for four different dogs to applique.

The Puppy Tales applique dog pattern also includes the pups sporting a Santa hat, available in my Etsy shop. The full pattern, now including Tito and his grey snout, is also the feature of the next giveaway - just enter via Rafflecopter! This too will be emailed to the winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We all know that dogs love to chew things. So let's give them a bone!

This easy to piece Dog Bone block pattern comes in two sizes - 12" and 8". It makes a wonderful accompanying block for either of the puppy blocks above. Enter to win a Dog Bone block pattern via Rafflecopter, to be emailed to the winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now, let's get on to the party and see everyone's pups!!

• please link directly to your post
• please link only a post related to dogs
• visit with the other dog lovers and spread the puppy love!

Have fun! And if you're new here, feel free to follow!

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Midweek Makers 346

Welcome to Midweek Makers - let's do some sharing!

Having just visited my son, his Seafarer quilt is worth a summer mention. Hitting the open seas in a sailboat is a favorite pastime, just as the Seafarer quilt pattern is a favorite with quilters. Quoting from David Sedaris, you haven't lived until you've sailed!

And don't forget this Friday, August 26 is National Dog Day. Get your dog themed posts ready to link up at the party! Though I won't have dog treats, I will have giveaways - be sure to enter!

Now let's see some recent Midweek Makers quilts.

From Making a Lather, this awesome quilt called Fair and Square,

this pretty quilt, Strippy Stairways, quilted by Grace and Peace,

and more pretty blocks from Karen's Quilting.

We've now reached today's party - come join the fun!

• please link directly to your post
• please link a quit related item
• visit with the other guests and leave some comment love

Have fun!

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Rainbow Tornado

Here it is! My Rainbow Tornado, the RSC2022 scrap quilt! Yes, I'm a bit ahead of schedule with a finish now, but one shouldn't stop the creative process for the calendar!

So, just what is RSC2022? It's short for Rainbow Scrap Challenge, for this year, 2022. The event is hosted by SoScrappy.com, who posts a new color each month to work with. The design of the blocks and ultimately the quilt, are totally up to the quilter, using the suggested color of the month.

Due to a tendency toward fabric hoarding, I tend to keep larger, usable scraps with the yardage it came from, finding that those bigger scrap pieces come in handy with the yardage. That means my scraps tend to be on the small or odd shaped size, requiring a bit more effort to use.

But not to fear - I've become quite proficient at sewing those scraps into useable blocks using the Making Blocks from Crumbs technique. 

Gosh, I've made several quilts using this style of scrap block. There's Pinwheel Parade (free pattern BTW), Rainbow Celilo, and RSC2021 to name a few. I'd guess you'd say these scrap blocks from crumbs are part of my quilting style. And I'm ok with that!

For my Rainbow Tornado quilt, most of the blocks in it are leftovers from previous years. In July, realizing I was behind stitching up my scraps for the chosen colors, I decided to put them up on the design wall to determine how many more blocks I needed. With a vague layout idea, I got started, then couldn't stop, heading down the road with a more modern design than what I had originally planned.

In designing this, I tried to maintain the following block order: one large block with two of the same color small blocks placed on the top and bottom of the large block. See the ovals below.

If you look closely at the quilt layout, you'll see that there are some areas where I've broken the block order, either by 1) leaving out a small square, 2) leaving out two small squares, or 3) leaving out a small square plus a large one. Doing that kept a tighter tornado design, along with adding visual interest.

Now I could have gone full tornado, with blocks flying out to the edge, but I felt they didn't relate to the tornado and ended up a bit distracting. I prefer the tighter look, channeling a childhood favorite, the Tasmanian Devil. I guess you could say he was my inspiration! 

To keep with the scrappiness of this quilt, missing blocks were replaced with a variety of white-on-white prints. Since the small blocks were stitched together as a unit with sashing, I kept that same format substituting white where needed.

And how about that quilting? It's a pantograph called 'Twister", quilted in variegated thread. I love the motion it provides, along with the added variety of color. Both just work so well together!

To complete the tornado theme is the multi-colored confetti backing. I view it as what remains after a tornado has come through - pieces of wood everywhere. I'm fortunate enough not to live in tornado country to experience the horrific destruction, and my heart goes out to those that do.

With the Rainbow Tornado quilt, I've wrapped up my RSC project for 2022. I still have a ton of scraps left to stitch up, especially in purple, blue, aqua, and green. Maybe I'll do something with those for the remainder of 2022 as it seems to be my year for scrap quilts. Time to get stitching!

Happy Quilting!

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Midweek Makers 345

Welcome to Midweek Makers! Time for some summertime sharing!

For me, I'm ahead of schedule for the RSC2022 quilt. The quilting is finished, now it's just binding and photos. Here's a sneak peek, with more to come on Friday.

I also want to share an update about my image problem with Bloglovin. I put a message out to the Blogger Community regarding RSS and images, receiving a solution to try, which would start with this post. 

For those of you who receive a daily digest from Bloglovin, did the pretty Midweek Makers sunflower image or any image from today's post show up in your daily digest? And for those who get my posts via email from Follow.it, did the post come through, including images? I am determined to get this resolved and thank everyone so much for helping me out!!

Now onto those who are sharing lots of color too! First up is New2Quilting, with these two colorful baby quilts,

while Karen's Quilting has these colorful blocks that absolutely sparkle. I think I need to up my game!

And lastly, just a reminder - the National Dog Day Linky Party is coming next week, Friday, August 26. Get those dogs ready to share!

Now for what we're waiting for - the party! Come share what you're working on!

• please link directly to your post
• please link a quilt related item
• visit with the other guests and leave some comment love

Have fun!

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Unsolved Image Problem with Bloglovin

I have been a member of Bloglovin for years, looking forward to the daily digest of blog posts in my inbox each day. What a great way to quickly see what my favorite quilters were up too!

Because I'm a Bloglovin member, my blog also appeared in the daily digest. But a year or so ago, I noticed that occasionally the photos from my blog would not show up. Either the image area was blank (all white), or it was a grey box. How unexciting is that? I go to great lengths to have a terrific first photo, only to find out no one can see it.

Now, it would make me truly happy to know that this is just happening to the daily digest that I receive, and that the image really is showing up for everyone else. But something tells me that is not the case.

I will admit that my attention to my blog has declined over the last six months due to all the yardwork at our new house. With the ivy almost gone, I have more time to spend at home nurturing what I love to do - quilting! It also means I've paid more attention to my emails, including the Bloglovin daily digest.

So what have I discovered? My blog pictures are still NOT showing up in the daily digest, now for every post not just randomly anymore. And it's not just happening to me. Here's a screen shot of a daily digest, with my blog blurb first accompanied by a grey square image, and another blogger's blurb with no picture whatsoever. (Text blurred out for privacy).

How sad is that, not to have an eye-catching photo in the daily list. And when I look at my blog on the Bloglovin site itself, pictures have not shown up consistently since Nov 2021. Truly upsetting!

I've spent several hours researching this issue, with some possible insights as to what the problem could be, though I'm not sure how to fix them. The Bloglovin site itself says 'contact the person in charge of your site' - gee, thanks. They also recommend a rough picture size, though I'm well within the limits on that. I've trying contacting them over the year with no response, as the company was sold several times and it appears no one looks after it. Sadder still.

My first thought is maybe the demise of Feedburner in July 2021. Everything worked fine before that. Both Feedburner and Blogger are through Google, and both appear as examples of a services not getting little support and becoming outdated. Guess I should have switched to WordPress years ago, though I don't really know if that would have helped. I've seen both Blogger and WordPress blogs with this issue on the daily digest.

My other suspicion, after some more online digging, is that Google started hosting photos through blogger.googleusercontent.com instead of https://1.bp/blogspot.com/. Maybe Bloglovin is having trouble with the RSS feed having this new image hosting site. 

Or maybe it my load speed, as images or other coding can slow things down. Could be if that image takes too long, Bloglovin can't grab it. Who knows???

So, I need some help:

• if you've had this Bloglovin image issue, how did you solve it?                        
• what RSS feed service did you switch to after Feedburner shut down?            
• any other ideas on what to try to fix this problem?                                                
• lastly, do you follow blogs through Bloglovin or use some other reader service for a daily blog digest?

And for those of you who are also in the same boat as I am (no images), does it bother you too? Or is Bloglovin just so outdated, with people moving to other platforms for their daily dose of quilting that Bloglovin doesn't matter?

I'd appreciate any feedback you have!

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Coming Soon - National Dog Day!

Heads up everyone - in just two weeks, we'll be celebrating our favorite fur baby - DOGS! August 26 is National Dog Day, and celebrating everyone's favorite pup!

This themed linky party was very popular last year, with an overwhelming response to make it a yearly event. And I'm happy to host everyone's adorable puppy, real or in fabric, again this year! Grab the button code on the sidebar or below to help spread the word - who can resist an adorable puppy???

    

<div class="nat-dog-day-button" style="width: 150px; margin: 0 auto;"> <a href="https://www.quiltfabrication.com/" rel="nofollow"> <img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5gW2GyKns-3NRQJygfPImdFV0Oc2nhjIKhEqH72nMeUyOXHtER5pGU_Bc4fq5mnp9AHJCO5SJA9Iu4vQ3GfS5SjJXm3aYtATM44pyN1WMB4CMOaoaixjmX6pbiwTYsZszBiRWI4po9_A/s0/Natl-Dog-Day-Linky-Party150.jpg" alt="Quiltfabrication" width="150" height="150" /> </a> </div>

Now, since all dogs need to be trained, the 'commands' for this dog-themed linky party are simple:

• create a NEW dog-themed post about any or all of the following: 

           - your beloved tail-wagging, fur-baby pup 

           - a new dog-themed project your working on 

           - a past dog-themed project

           - anything with a dog theme you would like to share

Just make sure it's a new post and about dogs - it is their day after all! And just like last year, there will be giveaways!

If you're a cat lover, you'll just have to sit this one out. Though I held a National Cat Day, October 29, linky party last year, I'm not sure about hosting another one this year. Sadly, participation was low, and the response to doing it as a yearly party was tepid. If you are interested in a party for National Cat Day, let me know, as I'd be happy to host, as I have two of my own to share.

Happy Quilting!

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Midweek Makers 344

Welcome to Midweek Makers for another week of sharing!

I don't know about you, but August always makes me think of sunflowers. The deep, buttery yellows and burnished browns bring a bit of color into the yard as the greens of spring and summer fade, helping the transition to the beautiful yellows, oranges and reds of fall. 

I've even started that transition in my home decor, placing my Sunflower runner in full view in the living room. Ah, the perfect spot!

Speaking of fall colors, check out this simple orange beauty I quilted for Robyn last week. I even managed to get the fantastic African themed fabric centered on the back.

Ok, enough of my stuff. Let's see a few from last week's party.

From Kathy's Quilting Blog, a pretty Pumpkins and the Beanstalks quilt finish,

from Julie's Quilts and Costumes, some pretty Lemoyne Stars,

and from Sew Preeti Quilts, this wonderful mini challenge.

Now it's time for the party - come share what you're working on!

• please link directly to your post
• please link a quilt related item
• visit with the other guests and leave some comment love

Have fun!

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