Blogging Presentation Made to Quilt Guild - Part I

Last Wednesday, on May 16, I made a presentation to the members of my quilt guild on blogs and blogging.

The Program Committee thanked me for my presentation and awarded me with a gift certificate to my favorite quilt shop, Hamels.

Many of you have written and asked me to update you with how the presentation went. From my perspective, it went very well. The ladies were a perfect audience, listening intently and engaging themselves in the presentation by asking some very good questions. I can say that I did enjoy myself.

Ideally we would have had an Internet connection, computer, and projector so that I could surf with the ladies and show them all of your blog sites. However, the venue that we meet in for our guild meetings is not that technologically advanced, so we had to move to plan, B. I took along a basket of quilts, patterns, and ideas that linked to my presentation. Many of the items I showed were inspired by my blogging friends. I felt that even if the members of the audience were not interested in blogging itself, they would have something to enjoy in the items I brought along to show.

I decided to use the 5-Ws to help me cover my topic: the who, what, where, when, and why. I tell my kids to make sure and cover the 5-Ws when they ask me about going somewhere to make sure they don't leave anything out so I thought the logic would help guide me in putting together my presentation.

The following was put together from my speaking notes so that you get a flavour of what I covered in my presentation.

WHAT

What is blogging all about, and what is a blog anyway?

In order to answer these questions, I am going to tell you about how I started quilting and eventually started blogging.

I was introduced to quilting by a co-worker in 1997.

A co-worker was talking about getting together with some friends to discuss their next quilting project. They were getting together for tea on a Sunday afternoon and they were all bringing along their patterns to decide what project they would be working on during their planned weekend quilting retreat before Christmas. I was invited to come along.

I had started a Jacob's ladder quilt prior to this meeting and had purchased a rotary cuter, ruler, and mat. I was watching quilting shows on the PBS stations regularly and had some idea of how to start quilting but that was all. I was truly a beginner.

In November 1997, the 5 of us got together to quilt for the weekend--Colette (my co-worker), Teresa (the most experienced of us all and the unofficial teacher and leader), Veryan, Cindi, and I (the most inexperienced of everyone). We had decided to work on log cabin quilts. I was going to do a simple two colour version in a small manageable size--a wall hanging--while the more experienced of the group were working on a more difficult bed size tulip version.

This is the finished quilt that was completed to the flimsy stage that weekend and quilted many years later.

Colette and I worked together until the fall of 1999. At that time the office we were working in closed and every one's employment was terminated. We kept in touch as we moved through our careers and as Colette moved from Alert Bay to Seattle, and eventually Arizona.

In December 2005, I received a Christmas card from Collete. As you can see the card was fabulous--a cactus in the desert with a dusting of snow.

Inside the card was a note. The note read, "I'm not doing a letter this year--but I'm going to post on the blog--so after December 22nd--go have a look at: www.lapagedecolette.blogspot.com and then post your comments if you want."

I had no idea what a blogspot was. I was disappointed that Colette had not written a letter, but instead was directing me to a web page somewhere on the Internet. That would mean turning on the computer and correctly typing this address. I was busy and not sitting in front of the computer so I set the card aside. Between Christmas and New Year's that year, after things had settled down again, I remembered the note in the card and I got curious. I turned on the computer and after trying several times to get the correct web page I got Colette's blog. (Colette's penmanship has not improved over the years and it took me a bit to realize the French connection! *LOL*) This was cool! There was information all about what Colette had been doing, pictures of where she had been and the things she had seen. I left a comment and waited for a reply.

I was curious who else was out there blogging and so I googled the words, blog and quilt. I got some hits and realized that there were quilters out there doing this blogging as well. After some encouragement from Colette, I started my own blog on January 2, 2006.

I originally intended for my blog page to be a way for friends and family to read about what I had been doing. I soon found out that my friends and family were not motivated to leave me comments and weren't as interested in this blogging thing as I was so I reached out to other quilters by applying for membership in a blog ring. After connecting with other quilting bloggers, I was hooked!

So, what is a blog?

A blog is a cross between a journal and a web page.

A blog is less formal than a web page.

A blog is a very user friendly method of sharing specific subject material with the world.

A blog can be private or very public.

A blog is interactive and feedback can be immediate.

A blog is a means of communication that is not dependent on the time of day or day of the week for a response. Because blogs are on the Internet and the Internet is always open - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week--you can connect with someone somewhere in the world at any time of day or night.

WHO

You can see that there is one person responsible for both my addictions--quilting and blogging and that is Colette!

Who blogs? Everyone!

If you can think of a subject there is probably a person who is blogging about it somewhere in the world.

Art Quilters blog.

Authors blog.

Well known quilters like Pat Sloan and Debbie Mumm have their own blogs.

Long Arm Quilters blog.

Everyday quilters blog.

................ to be continued.