Subscribing to a Blog

A couple of people have asked about how to subscribe to a blog. One of the advantages of subscribing is that you will be notified whenever the blog is updated, so you don't have to click through each of the blogs you read (like this one) manually each day or week to see if there is anything new.

The easiest (I think) subscription is through Google Reader. You need to have a Google account--which means you simply have to set up a gmail account. You don't have to use gmail if you don't want to, but setting up the account gives you access to several services that Google offers.

After setting up a Google account, get on the Google homepage (where you do the searches). When it appears, there should be a line at the top of the page with several of the services available, such as "images", "video", "news", etc. Click on the "more" button and look for "reader." That takes you to the reader page. On the right is a place for you to sign in with your gmail address and password. Once you sign in it will take you to Google reader.

There is an "add subscription" button at the top. If you click on that, you will be prompted to type in the web address of the blog you want to subscribe to. You can copy and paste any blog or web page address that has what is called a "feed," (like this one).

Once you have the subscription set up, any time the blog is updated, its name will appear in bold print.

That makes it really easy to check out new blog posts simply by logging into Google reader.

Many quilt designers, fabric companies, and fabric designers have blogs. Also, lots of regular quilters blog about their current projects. It's really fun to check out what different people are working on, and it's a great way to keep up to date on quilting news. Many bloggers post free patterns and tutorials for new techniques.

Here are some good places to get you started:

Diane Gaudynski's A New Tradition in Quilting
Moda Bake Shop
Minick & Simpson Blog
Barbara Brackman's Material Culture
Pin Penguin

P.S. There are other subscription services that you can use, but I think Google reader is the simplest to set up and to access.