a follow up to my post about replying to comments

Happy May Day!

No, the photo’s not relevant to anything but it was taken in May last year when Older Grandson was a a little over two – he doesn’t look like that anymore; he’s lost that chubby baby look and is a proper boy (albeit a pre-schooler) now!

For we Australians it's the beginning of the last month of winter but the weather here in Sydney is still gorgeous -- a great day to be outside!

So why am I still inside?

I have been catching up with (86) blogs, leaving comments and answering emails (including comments).

Didn't my last post about responding to comments left on blogs open a great conversation?

So, I have found a time consuming way of keep this particular conversation going. I may not do it for all blog posts but for this one it seemed like a good idea!

Firstly, I have written fairly lengthy replies to some of the poeple who left comments on my blog regarding the last post. Why only some of them? Because I can only type about 45 words per minute and I've been in front of this computer on-and-off for almost six hours (lucky I'm retired) so I haven't replied to everyone yet -- but I will!

Then I cut and pasted the relevant part of my reply to my own blog as a direct reply to the comments! So now the conversation can be followed by those who so desire -- you're welcome to add further comments if you have time to go back and read all the comments and replies there.  Just give me another twenty-four hours or so to go back and finish my replies!

Personally, if I was one of my followers, I don't have time to read all the comments and replies and I rarely of back anyway so this may be a total waste of my time. But let's see how it goes (as a social experiment)!

Tomorrow's post will be on a whole other topic -- the linky party for 2013: The Year of The Finished Project. Are you getting your UFOs done?

a Blogger verification secret; & a dissertation on responding to blog comments

Have you noticed that Blogger’s comment verification (to prove that you are not a robot) has reverted from a jumbled collection of letters and a photographed number to their previous format: a jumbled collection of letters and a recognisable word?

Well, I have stumbled upon a “secret”: no matter whether the jumbled letters occur first or last, type only them – ignore the “real” word (which is, of course, easy to read). In every case where I have tried this, the comment always publishes! I have tried typing only the “real word” and that doesn’t work; but type the non-real word (is that an “unword”?) and it works, every time (just as omitting the numbers always worked!).

When will Blogger make it easy for us and just have a simple maths problem to solve or, better yet, a little box under the comment which one ticks to prove that one is “not a robot”?

~~~~~~

And now a short dissertation about bloggers who don’t respond to the comments left on their blogs (please don’t stop reading now – you may agree with me, or you may not realise I’m talking to you!).

I don’t respond to every comment that’s left on my blog but I reply to the vast majority of them. I think it’s good manners to simply say “thank you” or to show the commenter that the time they have taken to leave a comment is worth my time in response. That’s how friendships are built, online and in the real world!

We all like receiving comments. it makes us feel good, like someone is reading and cares about what we have to say.

I concede that it’s good to keep the conversation going by replying to those comments in the comment section of your blogs but…

If you post with Wordpress, we who post with Blogger don’t get your responses! Did you know that? We don’t know that you have replied to our comments! (I only discovered it by accident when I went back to an old post to check something and found out that the blog owner had responded to my comment! Up until that point, I thought that my comments hadn’t been worth answering!)

From talking to other bloggers, rarely do any of us go back to posts that we have already read to see if a reply has been left on our comment. We just don’t have the time. We could, of course, tick the little box that invites us to receive (by email) the comments that are left on your blog posts after ours – but I, for one, don't want to sort through dozens of comments in my inbox which are largely irrelevant to me!

Those of you who have had me following your blog for a long time, know that I am a faithful commenter. It would be great if I got a response to even half the comments I leave on other people’s blogs!

Since the list of blogs I read is now over 150 and I comment on about 80% of all the blogs I read, I have begun sorting through them and eliminating some. Want to know which ones I’ve eliminated first? That’s right, the bloggers who don’t ever respond to comments I have left! Mostly because I feel like they don’t consider my comments important. There are some “never-reply” blogs still in my reading list; blogs I’ve been reading for a long time, blogs where I know the blogger personally, or blogs I really, really enjoy or whose work I really admire.

So, please, fellow bloggers, if people are kind enough to take the time to leave a comment on your blog and you can contact them, either by email or visiting their blog, please, please, please, do us the courtesy of responding! Don’t just leave your response on your own blog – chances are that we will never see it!

So, what do other bloggers think?

happy mail day

Yesterday an unexpected parcel arrived in the post. I was very curious when I recognised the name of the sender; why was I receiving a parcel from her? I hadn't entered any "soft and smooshy" give-away that I could remember.

Had she decided to contribute to the donations for Australian Inland Mission (one of the April Charities of the Month over at Knit4Charities)? That didn’t seem likely so I hurriedly opened the packet and read the enclosed letter.

Here’s what I received:

Thanks, Anorina, I love it – all the more because it was totally unexpected!

It’s almost too pretty to stick pins in!

comments and word verification

On Wednesday, Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts posted this discussion starter about how to make commenting easier.

 

Basically, she posed a question about the number of blogs that have word verification and how life would be easier for readers if they didn't have to go through that process.

 

As many of you know, I read and comment on lots of blogs every day (there are 165 on my reading list) and, as I commented to Jennifer, I am so used to word verification I hardly give it a thought. It is easier on some blogs than others; some are so difficult to read it takes me two or three attempts to get it right! And sometimes it's Blogger that makes things difficult! My on-again-off-again internet connection doesn't help either!

 

It would, of course, be faster for me to leave comments if I didn't have to go through the word verification process then wait to see that my comment has gone through.

 

Jennifer's post gave me cause to think. I use word verification on my blog. In what I now think may be overkill, I also use comment moderation. I think I have always used word verification to keep out spamming and when that didn't work (I had spam a few days in a row), I added the moderation.

 

So, how do I choose to respond to Jennifer's thought provoking post?

 

It seems I have four choices:

~ Do nothing.
~ Remove word verification.
~ Remove moderation.
~ Remove word verification and moderation.

I have chosen to take up the challenge and remove verification from my posts! I can always put it back if spam becomes an issue. I am still thinking about the moderating; one step at a time please!

If you are using Blogger, and want to remove word verification from your comments, Jennifer has the technical know-how on her post so there is no point in me repeating it here.

So, do you use word verification? What do you think about not using it?

this, that and a winner!

Just some bullet points today -- a little bit of this and that!

• Today DD and I are going to attempt to do some practice on the quilting frame. Thanks to all the readers who wrote tips and advice for us - we have taken it all into consideration and will let you know how we go this time.

• The last of the twenty five blocks that DD and I sent to Jan Mac at Oz Comfort Quilts last month have been used in the quilt shown below. The block on the bottom right and the the block two above it were made by either DD or I.

photo borrowed from http://ozcomfortquilts.blogspot.com/2011/11/time-for-three.html

• The winner of the three novels by Claire Donohue is

... Sana Saroti!

Congratulations Sana -- please let me have your postal address and I'll get them into the post as soon as possible next week.

• And I'll finish with another fabulous quote I've taken from Bonnie Hunter's website.

Small New Blogs Meet-up

This is far from being a new blog since I have just written my 500th post.

But I do qualify for the "meet up" - I have less than twenty followers.

I would like to meet some new blogging friends so have decided to join the fun.

The creator of this meet-up, Lynne (what a great name! LOL), from Lily's Quilts, has asked that I start by introducing myself and my quilting.

Warning: it's a long introduction and current followers have probably heard it all before!

My name is Lynne. I have been married thirty four years this year. WM ("Wonderful Man") and I live in the metropolitan area of Sydney, NSW, Australia. We have one child, a daughter (DD), who was married in January 2009. She has two sons, one nearly eighteen months old, the other just five weeks old. In this blog I refer to them as Older Grandson (OG) and Younger Grandson (YG).

I have been knitting (on and off) since I was about five years old. I completed my first garment when I was sixteen - a sleeveless sweater with cables on the body and stripes around the lower band and arm holes. I became a serious, every day knitter, some time about 2006 and started this blog in relation to my hobby (hence the title).

My grandmother, who had her own business as an upholsterer/decorator, bought my first sewing machine when I was seventeen. She also taught me to sew because the high school I attended, despite being girls only, did not teach Home Economics! My first garment was a four-gore skirt in floral patterned voile which Nanna made me line for reasons of modesty! I loved that skirt and wore it for many years.

After I was married and working full time, I took "garment assembly" classes one evening a week for four years at the local technical college; so I have been sewing, on and off, for over thirty years.

In March 2010, when OG was just three weeks old, DD and I attended a craft fair. One of the sewing machine companies was running a hands-on workshop, making blocks that were to be turned into quilts for Haiti. DD and I both made one block each and, after a hiatus from sewing for many years, I remembered how much I enjoy the process.

So, DD and I went to our local Big Box Craft Store and bought fabric to make a quilt for OG to lie on the floor - it would keep him warm and protect our beige carpet from baby "spills". We didn't know what we were doing so we followed what we had done at the Craft Fair and chose seven coordinating fabrics. We didn't know how much to buy (I was overwhelmed by too much choice and was therefore not thinking clearly) - one fat quarter didn't seem like enough, so we bought four fat quarters of each!

We made one very wonky quilt. At that time, DD christened us the "Hacky Packy Quilters" (she loves alpacas).

finished size - 30" x 30"

As you can imagine, we had a lot of fabric left. Then we found the Modern Sampler quiltalong on Elizabeth Hartman's blog, Oh Fransson! We needed twelve fabrics so we supplemented the seven with another five. We made thirty of the thirty-six blocks, and ended up leaving five of those blocks out of the quilt because we just couldn't make them work.

finished quilt was 50" x 50"

We ended up using them in a laundry bag instead.

the fifth block is on the other side of the bag

We still have a small amount of those fabrics left but they will get used in scrappy quilts (eventually). This year in March we attended another Craft Fair and met a wonderful lady called Elizabeth, owner of Aussie Patches. Her warehouse,where she holds monthly "Sit and Sew" classes, is an hour and a half's drive from here. We attended three "Sit and Sew" sessions (April - June) but because DD's second baby was due in July we had to stop attending.

While there, I designed and began my Country Houses (applique) quilt. Now I am attending weekly classes in my local area and am finally at the stage of joining the quilted blocks together. I have a few quilts on my "to do" list when this one is finished, plus some other sewing projects.

one block of fifteen - unfinished size of each block 17" square

I look forward to meeting many new bloggers - please feel free to leave a comment; like most bloggers, I love receiving them.

And, if you haven't voted on my 500th post yet, would you please pop over there and vote - it's all for a good cause (or three). Voting will remain open until 8am (Sydney time) Saturday 6th August. Thanks heaps.

Thinks and Thanks!

I was going to call this post Monday Musings but I don't want anyone to think it will be a regular feature!

Blog Comments
Thank you to all who left comments on my 'sticky' post about blog comments. I have decided to follow your suggestions, dear readers, and continue as I have done - if there is anything I need to address publicly, I will write a second post about it.
Otherwise, I'll read my comments which are forwarded to my Hotmail account, respond directly if there's an email address or go to the commenter's blog and comment there. I have, of late, been pretty slack with this - my excuses are my frozen shoulders and the entrelac blanket; go here to read more about it!
Life would be so much easier if Blogger provided contact email addresses, wouldn't it? I'm assuming that when I comment on other Blogger blogs, my name also comes up as no-reply@blogger.com?

TAFE Teaching
Also, thank you to all the kind people who left comments about my new job doing relief work at TAFE. I am a teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages [ESOL]. I love languages, English in particular; though the more I teach the more I realise what a difficult language it must be to learn, particularly as an adult! So far I have had two days work but I've had a phone call offering me a block of work next term.

I'm a winner
Sally, of PomPom blog, had a competition to celebrate her first blogiversary. I have been reading Sally's blog since she started; I met her at a Blue Mountains Knitters' Guild meeting and was so touched by the story of the scarf she knitted for her dad. When she started her blog I read it enthusiastically. During March, Sally challenged herself to post every day for the month and she did! Well done Sally! I don't think I could have kept that up.
Anyway, all who commented on her blog during March were put into a draw to win a prize; one from Australia, one from overseas. I won! I was so excited. I have never won anything in blogland before, never been tagged for a meme, and never been given a blog award. [This is not a request for you all to start tagging me nor to give me a blog award - it's just a statement of fact.] So, it was doubly touching for me to win not only the draw but also to receive a very nice personal email from Sally. Thanks Sally and David [who drew out my name].

Blog comments and responses

I have a dilemma and I'd seriously like to know what you think.

A number of people comment on my blog and I love reading every comment. Blogger is set up to forward these comments to my email address so I know who has left comments without having to open my blog. So far, so good.

Some of those who comment have email addresses and I answer them from my Hotmail account [most of the time; lately I've been a bit slack - sorry].

Others have emailed me personally and since Hotmail stores all incoming email addresses, I can forward replies where necessary.

The rest arrive at my inbox with the following: noreply-comment@blogger.com - I want to answer these so it seems I have two options:

1. write a comment on my own post under their comments - since I rarely go back to posts on other's blogs which I've already read, if there is comment to my comment I'll probably never know about it! After all, I subscribe to 50 blogs; today I had 37 to read - I certainly don't have time to revisit posts I've previously read. I'm assuming that others also don't revisit posts about which they've commented!


2. write a comment on their blog which is totally unrelated to their latest post - I imagine this is a bit frustrating for them

As readers who comment on my blog, what do you think? What works best for you? Do you mind if I don't answer your comment? What about when you ask me a question?

Please, help me solve this - since you are the people reading and commenting, I really value your input.

PS I'm making this a 'sticky' post - it will be here until the end of the month so I can get as many suggestions as possible.

Thank you

Thank you to the people who left comments on my blogiversary post. I have either emailed you privately or visited your blog to leave a comment.

Thank you again - you made my day!

"you all come back now, you hear?"