Tuesday, December 6, 2011

What if you could extend the virtual quilt?

Most months, I take the photos that I receive via email from the sneak peekers who make blocks early, crop them to create virtual blocks, upload them to Flickr and use them to make a virtual quilt, which is included in the first-of-the-month announcement post.

What if non-early bird quilters could add their blocks to the pool of virtual blocks?  Here's how this could work.  Anyone at anytime who makes lotto blocks could upload their individual block photos to Flickr and add them to a Flickr group pool. 

As an example, I set up a Flickr group called Scrappy Trips Lotto Blocks and added all the photos I had of sneak peek blocks to the group pool.  To add your blocks, here's what you would have to do:
  1. If you don't already have a Flickr account, join Flickr. The free account is pretty fully functioned, unless, as I did a few years ago, you take hundreds of photos at a major quilt show and want to upload them all at once ;-)
  2. Upload individual block photos of your blocks.  You want them to be cropped so that the image is square and only the block itself shows.  If you don't have an easy way to edit them on your computer (or phone), you can edit them after they have uploaded to Flickr, but choosing the option "Edit Photo in Picnik" from the Actions pick list. 
  3. Go to the Scrappy Trips Lotto Blocks group page at http://www.flickr.com/groups/scrappytrips/ and join the group.
  4. On the group page, click the Group Pool link to see all the photos added so far and the option to add photos.  Follow the directions to add your virtual blocks. 
As I type out the steps, it looks like a lot of effort, but once you've done it a couple times, it's actually pretty quick and easy (which is why I keep using Flickr for the lotto blocks.

Anyway, I thought I'd set up a pool for last months blocks in case anyone want to play around with it and see what you think. It really would be cool to see ALL (or most) of the blocks from the month on a single page. 

Even if your blocks are already there (because they were part of the virtual quilt), feel free to add them yourself to see how things work.

2 comments:

  1. That's a great idea to have all the blocks in "one big quilt" even if it is only virtual. I'll try to have a go with my scrappy trips. Thanks for your hard work

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  2. I think it's a fabulous idea. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet though.....I am busy working on a quilt I started 2.5 years ago (progress is slow with a toddler) and holiday family events are in full force. Please don't give up on me if I don't get to it until after christmas.

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