Rearranging the Furniture

(updated Saturday morning, after all my churning on the design stopped ;-) 

It has felt a little like spring cleaning and endlessly rearranging the furniture  . . . if you've visited the blog on Friday,  you might have seen any one of a bunch of different layouts and colors as I played with Blogger's new Template Designer and finally got around to putting the Guidelines, FAQs (frequently asked questions) into their own pages, which are easily accessible through tabs at the top of the blog. I also added an alphabetic list of all the lotto blocks we've ever made, with block photos and links to the patterns we used.

As I tried one thing, then another, I bounced between two and three sidebars, I was trying to put the info we all come here looking for "above the fold" (in the screen you see without scrolling down).  I think I managed to rearrange the various elements (AKA gadgets) just about every way that you can . . . though I think I ended up pretty close to where I started ;-)  I even took the photo of my block lotto banner quilt out of the banner for a while. And, as you might expect, the blog also went through more than a few color changes. Ultimately, I liked the plain blue background and this swirly yellow-orange one best and decided this template had a better definition between the main body and those pesky (but essential) sidebars.

So ... do you like the tabs (and the new look)? I will probably add a quilt gallery tab and one for my contact info (since contacting me is essential to joining the block lotto and it sometimes is a problem for some ... especially if their accounts are set for "no email."  I wondered if it would be a good idea to move our (often very long) list of blocks made onto a page.  Would you mind the extra click?  Would it be too hidden there? Everyone's feedback seems to be to leave it in the sidebar and I like it there, too and think I have come up with a layout that works with the list on the left.  Plus, it's easier for me to use the list gadget to update the list than it would have been to have to edit the "page" if I moved it to the tab.

The Journey . . .

I couldn't stop playing, so I  put the extra column back, thinking I could  "live" with it for more than a couple minutes.  I think I lasted a few hours, but I decided (again) that it was just too busy and that main body of the blog (the center where the posts display) was just too narrow.  If you missed the previous versions of the blog ... the first time I stopped (for a while), the page looked like this:

And then I changed to the template with the extra sidebar and it looked like this:

 

I'm not sure exactly how much the narrower the center area (where the posts are) becomes when you add the extra sidebar, but you can take a look at the March 1 post with the little blocks laid out in a virtual quilt and imagine that virtual quilt when it breaks because each row of images is too wide and so it wraps.  Ugh.

There is still a problem with integrating the Banner quilt ... or deciding to remove it.  I'm reticent to take it out of the banner because, if nothing else, it makes it clear that this "lotto" is about QUILT BLOCKS.  So, I will be tweaking the banner, but (I think), mostly leaving the layout alone for a while after I add the two tabs for our Lotto Block Quilt Gallery and some contact information.

So ... if you have made quilts from lotto blocks you've won OR inspired by lotto blocks and you haven't already posted a photo here, please consider sharing your quilts.