Bloglovin or Feedly

With the demise of Google Reader at the end of next month, I started to look for a different reader in which to view blog posts.

The reader found in the Dashboard of Blogger only shows posts from the newest post -- this is not helpful to me so I looked elsewhere.

It seems that most Google Reader users have chosen to go with Bloglovin or Feedly. 

Bloglovin asks new users to "claim" their blog, Feedly does not.

Both Bloglovin and Feedly are free to access.

Both Bloglovin and Feedly ask for permission to access the user's Google Reader in order to copy their reading list -- too easy, especially when I have a list of over 150 blogs (which means about thirty new posts a day).

Both Bloglovin and Feedly have apps for use on iPads and can also be read in a browser on a standard computer, whether desktop or laptop.

Both Bloglovin and Feedly present new posts with a picture from the post and the first fifty or so words of the post.

Both Bloglovin and Feedly offer the option of reading the post on the reader or going to the original post in the browser of choice.

Both Bloglovin and Feedly present the information in one of two formats: by blog, or by date.

By default, both Bloglovin and Feedly present the newest post first if the user chooses to read by date.

Both Bloglovin and Feedly allow posts to be marked as read so the user only sees a list of unread posts -- well, in Bloglovin one can still see the read posts but they are faded and obviously marked as read.

And in my experience, that is all the choices that Bloglovin offers.

But Feedly has so many more options. They recognise that they have gained a large number of Google Reader users and therefore have redesigned their software (or so I understand) so that features are similar to GR.

The most important of these, for me, is the ability to read from the oldest post first. If I fall behind, as I did over the Mothers' Day weekend when I was away for three days, I want to read the older posts before the newer ones, particularly on the blogs that have new posts every day.

And so, for me, Feedly has become my Reader of choice.

Are you a Google Reader user? Which reader will you move to and why?

works in progress

It’s nearly the middle of the month and I’m way behind with some of my projects but right on target with others.

No progress has been made in turning a flimsy into a finished quilt for Gift of Hope quilt #2 or in completing the flimsy of my Scrappy Log Cabin quilt.

There has also been no further progress on my Earth and Sky quilt – I plan to rectify that today! As my friend Debbie at Stitchin’ Therapy said in a recent post: “boredom leads to UFOs” and I am so over this project! (Some self discipline is what is needed here! )

I had some time over the weekend for some knitting and some further time yesterday afternoon so Emily’s Blanket is moving along – slower than I had hoped but still progressing. The colours in the photo below are not accurate but they’re the best I could do – the yellow is much more lemon and doesn’t look so obvious!

Until Emily’s Blanket is finished, I can’t work on the sleeves for my Westall cardigan so it may be a travelling project (ten more sleeps until ).

My hexagon project bag is coming along well and, I hope, right on target. I finished the hand-piecing in class on Monday. I would have finished it over the weekend but I didn’t take the pattern away with me and I had six hexagons I didn’t know what to do with. Turns out they were surplus to need! Ah well, there’s always another project, right?

Anyway, here is the project as it was when I finished class on Monday after the piecing was completed and some of the papers removed. The other photo shows the fabric I have chosen for the lining; the lining has been cut and the two pieces (not shown here) are ready to be gathered and joined. The base of the bag has lots of green in it so the lining makes more sense if you could see it!

I hope to get it completed in class next week. I’d like it done before we go away on 24th May!

I do have plans for another hand-piecing project but that will be the subject of another post.

The biggest project of all, the renovation of DD’s former home, is almost complete. The painter is there but there are still a few odd jobs (mostly that WM had to attend to) to be completed before we call it done – such as ordering a skip (and filling it of course), painting the garage (I’d forgotten about that and have lost enthusiasm now – we decided not to pay the painter to do this “simple” task), washing of floors and hanging of curtains.

Here are some photos of some of the work that has been done:

1. A new stove top and oven were professionally installed. WM replaced the doors and handles on either side of the oven. I scrubbed the tiles at the back and cleaned the glass of the range hood. MIL washed the filters before I re-installed them.
2. WM installed a new vent where there hade been a hole covered by a sheet of MDF held up with duct tape.
3. When DD and SIL moved in, the laundry tub was covered in paint. It had always been their intention to buy a new tub but they never got around to it. MIL turned up one day and decided it could be cleaned – between her efforts and those of WM the tub looks pretty good!
4. Some of the vinyl tiles on the laundry floor were damaged – WM lifted them and replaced them (hurrah for being able to match the tiles; thanks Bunnings! – a large hardware chain in Australia)
5. There once were shelves and unused brackets on the laundry wall. All the shelves have been removed (for painting) and the holes filled and sanded. Not too much can be done here, the walls are made of a fibro that contains asbestos and would need professional removal.
6. 79yo MIL washed all the windows and venetian blinds in the family room. This photo shows slightly more than half of them! WM has installed a new light fitting on that bare wire!

There will be more before and after photos in a later post!

Right now, I’m off to have lunch then trim my quilt sandwich, press fabric, cut and join binding strips, attach binding and stitch it down – it doesn't sound like much if I type really fast!

Happy Mothers’ Day weekend

WM and I arrived home at 8:45pm yesterday, exhausted but happy.

We had a great trip north; we left home at around 3pm and arrived at our motel in Quirindi at 8pm after stopping for a meal at a truck stop in Murrurundi.

We had FaceTime with our DD and grandsons on Friday morning (hurrah for accommodation establishments that have free wi-fi) and arrived at my niece’s place just after 9am. Baby Emily (then seventeen days old) was happy to cuddle with us and WM took quite a few photos. Here’s one of them.

After staying longer than we intended, we met my sister for lunch in Tamworth before travelling to Bingara where my mum lives, a total distance from home to mum’s of 560km (according to Google Maps). Here’s the map of our route.

Saturday was the most exciting day. We travelled east towards the coast to a town called Glen Innes where there is a monument of Standing Stones to the Celtic people who helped establish this country. At the monument there is a fully fenced playground and picnic table – and it is here that we met up with DD and the Grandsons for a picnic and some much needed cuddle time! Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks, DD, it was a great idea and a fabulous Mothers' Day present!

The map below shows the route we took to drive 142km (88 miles). The circle on the right is the town where DD, SIL and the Grandsons now live. As you can see, DD had a slightly further drive than we did – but she had to do it alone (SIL was working) with two toddlers.

Here are some photos of our day (including a very rare one of me with Older Grandson)!

On Sunday we had FaceTime again with DD and the Grandboys then took mum out to lunch before making the long trip home.

Seeing DD and the Grandsons made the trip extra-worthwhile and has lifted a sadness that I was growing tired of carrying! I hope it will keep me smiling till we see them again in July!

I hope you had a happy Mothers’ Day weekend too!

away from home

WM and I will be away for a few days.

This afternoon we will drive to Quirindi where we stay in a motel tonight and meet baby Emily (my great-niece) tomorrow morning -- and wish my niece a happy day for her first Mothers' Day.

my niece, my great-niece and my former brother-in-law, Emily's grandfather (taken from niece's Facebook page)

 Then we will travel to Tamworth to take my sister (the new grandmother) to brunch before she starts work at 2pm. I'm sure Mother's Day is extra exciting for her too as Emily is her first grand-child!

After that we will travel to the small town of Bingara to stay with my mum. We will take her to lunch on Sunday then make the long trek home again -- all in all over 1,100 kilometres (688 miles)!

I have knitting and a hand-stitching project so I'll be okay. Most of the journey (both ways) will be in the dark anyway!

I'm also taking my iPad with me but mum doesn't have a wireless router and I can't very well spend hours on a desktop computer in another room while I'm visiting my mum, can I?

So, I'll be way behind in reading blogs... again. But I'll catch up with you next week.

In the meantime, Happy Mothers' Day to all you mums and grand-mums out there.

And, if you're a grandmother and you see your grandchildren this weekend, give them an extra big hug from me -- I miss mine so much!

taken in January before I knew I'd be "losing" them!

a blanket for Emily

If you’re looking for the May post for 2013: The Year of the Finished Project, it’s over here.

As you may know from this post, my eldest niece (my sister’s eldest daughter) had her first baby on 23 April. Being just two days before my own birthday, you could say she was an early birthday present.

This is the same baby I made the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt for (because it is her mama’s favourite childhood story).

But I’ve gone a little less bright and a little more “pretty” for her baby blanket.

I didn’t start the blanket until the day after she was born, and then I ripped it out (too wide and wrong colour combination) and started again two days later. It’s not that I didn’t know she was coming, of course. It’s just that I didn’t know she would be a girl (although I had a feeling she might be!)

I was also being true to my own rules – no new knitting projects until others were finished – but a new baby is exceptional! They don’t come along in my family every day!

I have not been in the mood for knitting between saying goodbye to DD and the Grandsons, being sick, and working over at the “renovator’s delight” (henceforth known as “RD” -- there will be a post soon, I promise)!

But there’s nothing like a new baby to bring out all those craft-y tendencies!

I looked through my stash and decided to use up my Fiddle De Dee cotton (by Cleckheaton, sadly discontinued) because it’s a heavier weight (10ply/Aran/worsted) than the other cotton in my stash (we’re coming in to winter) and, more importantly, it’s machine washable and dryable! I don’t know that my niece knows such a thing as hand-washing exists! It knits up very softly although, being cotton, is quite hard on the hands when knitting for extended periods. I only had small amounts of each of four colour-ways, three skeins (150g) of lemon, and six skeins (300g) each of mint, a lemon/blue/white variegated yarn and an lemon/mint/pink/white variegated yarn.

The right combination and the right pattern were going to be important so an entrelac blanket it must be (hi Cindy! LOL). My first choice was to use the two variegated yarns but I didn’t like the combination so I settled on the mint and pink variation (of course! LOL)

Anyway, I hope to see Emily next weekend and wish her mama “happy mother’s day” for the first time. But I doubt I’ll have the blanket finished. This is where I was up to on Saturday afternoon; I’ve done part of the next tier since then!.

(Thanks Diane for the photo taken by iPhone during our workshop on Saturday)

If I had time to knit all day I might have got it done …

But there’s no way that was going to happen!

It will be sweet when it is, don't you think?

Linking up with Barbara at Cat Patches for the New FO challenge (on the last possible day!).