How You Can Help

Posted by Sophie on December 9, 2015 in housekeeping | 3 comments

A while back when I was questioning whether or not to continue the Block Lotto in 2016, you responded with a lot of support and some suggestions on how you could help.

I have given it a lot of thought, exchanged email with some of you on the subject, and want to give you some concrete ideas about how you can help the Block Lotto continue and help me do the things I have to do to keep it going.

One of the interesting discussions was around the idea of others choosing/creating blocks and patterns.  I am I went down this path with a couple of you and it brought up an aspect I hadn’t considered–copyright.  As the owner of the blocklotto.com internet domain and the website, the responsibility for respecting the intellectual property of others rests with me.  For that reason, I have decided to continue to develop original block directions for the Block Lotto or reference the (free) online patterns of others with full credit.

But, there are other ways to contribute to the content of the site and support the Block Lotto.

Guest Blogger

Is there some aspect of quilting you’d like to share?  A favorite technique? How you choose fabrics? A trick you love?

As usual, the blocks next year will represent a cross section of styles and techniques and if you’d like to sign-up to share your experience, I’ll match you up with one of them (which you may or may not use as an example in your post) and give you lots of time to prepare a guest blog post.

Financial Help

Most years the few hundreds of dollars it costs to maintain the domain name registration, hosting costs and costs of templates and tools aren’t a big deal and I am happy to cover them to continue the Block Lotto.  In more recent years, my life has been a struggle, particularly in the area of money.

If you would like to help, the easiest way is to send money via PayPal.

At the top of the PayPal home page is a link labelled Send.  Click it and it expands with fields for an email address and amount. My email address is the one you probably already know–for those that mostly lurk and download patterns, but want to help,  let me know and I’ll send you my info.

Click continue and it will ask whether you are helping a friend or purchasing something. If you click the Friends or family button, no fees will be charged to me to accept your help.

You will then be asked to sign in or create a (free) PayPal account and for information about how to pay for your gift.

(If you want to help, but would rather mail a check, let me know and I’ll send you my address)

Bees, Blog Hops, Quilt Alongs or Your Great Idea

In my mind, the Block Lotto has become a place where a great bunch of quilters has a shared experience of making a set of blocks that follow the guidelines each month.  That means that we are quilters who can (mostly) follow the rules, make blocks the correct size and have a shared knowledge of the block patterns and techniques used to make them. It seems to me that would make this a good place to find quilters for a Bee … which would give everyone in the group a chance to collect a set of blocks–maybe a former lotto block that they really had wanted to win or would have liked if it was in a different color-way.

Many of you have your own blogs and so I am going to float the idea of a Blog Hop in which you could help promote the Block Lotto in a formal way.  I have never really promoted the Block Lotto, but as many of you pointed out, there is now a lot of “competition” for this kind of monthly activity and, with your help, it might be time to move beyond word-of-mouth.

There will be a Sampler Quilt (actually 2 different designs) and a monthly Quilt-Along next year. I will be posting more information about that soon, but want to give you a heads up.

If you would like to help with any of these ideas, let me know … or if you’ve had a great idea of your own of a Block Lotto-related activity you’d like to see, like to lead,  or think is worth exploring, let me know.