Social Media and the Outlined Plus QAL

How are coming along on your Outlined Plus blocks? On Monday, I had this on my design wall...

Some afternoon sewing yesterday and 18 became 24...

Don't you love that we have the tools to share our quilting adventures?

I'm guessing quilters have enjoyed sharing their work since the dawn of quilt making. Early quilters had Quilting Bees and I have to admit that I would not be the quilter that I am had it not been for my first quilt guild and all those members. I tried to do a google search on when quilt guilds first started and came up with nothing. My guess is that it was a pretty long time ago!

And now we have social media! Sometimes overwhelming with all the inspiration, but I feel it's a goldmine for sharing and ideas. Quilting is pretty much a solitary endeavor and social media can really bring us together!

Do you prefer Flickr? Blogs? Pinterest? Instagram? Facebook?

I'm still an avid blog reader, but I do love Instagram because it's simple, easy, quick and so visual.

The nice thing about Instagram is that I can see all of the progress on your Outlined Plus quilt on one page with the use of hashtags. I miss my sewing days with my friend Gina {@glshelley}, but the next best thing is sewing and sharing together on Instagram. Look at the gorgeous progress she's made on her quilt!

If you've been thinking about hopping on Instagram and haven't yet, and especially if you're joining in on the QAL, now's the time! Download the free app, set up an account, and be ready for some inspiration. There's a great tutorial here.

It's really pretty simple and here's my rundown on the basics of what you need to know...

Once you have the app and a profile, you're really going to just need the 5 buttons along the bottom of the screen:

Starting from the far right {the head icon}is your profile/home page. This is a screen shot of my home page. My IG name is at the top. You can click on my followers or following to find other IGers to follow.

The bubble with the heart icon shows the activity on all your posts - "likes", comments and new followers.

The center blue button is your place to post photos. You can take a picture using Instagram or use one of the photos already on your device.

The magnifying glass is your search page. You can search for people to follow or hashtags by typing your search into the box on top and choosing "people" or "tags".

The house icon is your feed. All the posts by the people you follow will be here in chronological order with the newest one first.

One of the things that I love about IG is no ads!

Two more important things to know:

Hashtags are written in your photo's caption or you can add them in a comment on your own posts. Adding a hashtag will put your photo into a pool with all other photos having the same hashtag. Click on the hashtag to see all of the photos. They are written like this #outlinedplusquilt {they do have to be spelled perfectly - one wrong letter or missed letter creates a whole new hashtag}

To tag a person you'll need to know their IG name. You'll tag them by adding the @ sign before their IG name. If you tag them in your caption or comment, your photo will pop up in that person's activity feed. To tag me in your photo, you would add @clammon to your caption or comment.

I know a lot of you are already using Instagram, but I hope this helps if you've been reluctant to try it. What a great place for us to see all the Outlined Plus quilts!

And if you follow me, you may have seen this photo yesterday...

It's a mini Outlined Plus block and will be part of one of the prizes for completing 9 blocks by Feb. 17th!