Party pants for blog anniversary!

These are the orange shorts I bought for my trip-to-the-desert that didn't happen. I planned to wear them with turquoise Ts, since blue and orange is my favorite color combo. I was supposed to fly back on April Fool's Day, but instead I've been stitching away at home in the rain while the party pants stayed packed away.

But April 1 is a party day anyway 

because it marks the one-year anniversary

of this blog!

Thank you to all who have followed on my little journey, leaving encouraging comments and signing up as followers. At first I had to beg family members to sign up as followers, but now they dribble in steadily from around the world, which never ceases to amaze and THRILL me.

I didn't know it would be this much fun, but blogging has turned out to be one of my favorite activities. It involves photography, color, writing, making connections, exchanging ideas ... all things this former newspaper journalist and current quilter loves.

And who knew I'd have followers from Sweden and Switzerland? This has been VERY exciting. The one from Sweden even has a bunny for Bunners to look at.

Just in time for the party, my order of hand-dyed embroidery threads from Laura Wasilowski arrived in the mail today. I'm using the threads for the circle blocks (above) that I had planned to work on in the desert. I wrote about them a few days ago here under "The Travel Kit that didn't." I'm excited to add some of the bright green and yellow now that spring is almost here.

I decided to arrange the arc blocks to form circles rather than veering off into swoops and waves. I'll try to keep it simple so the eye can focus on the color and embroidery.

Now for some interesting blog stats

from the past year:

This pink sea star appeared in the post with the all-time high number of page views, almost from the day I published it last April. Click here to read April 20, 2010's "Sea stars, barnacles, slugs, oh my!"

"Discharging with the Twisted Nuts," published here last May 25, took on a life of its own, probably because of the googleable "twisted nuts" phrase. It takes the second spot for page views, with nearly 300 hits. Imagine the surprise of those who were looking for some other type of nuts when they landed on a wholesome quilting blog!


And, of course, any post with Bunners gets a lot of attention:

I wrote about these Bunners quilts here on Jan. 21, 2011, under "Not a Lucky Rabbit." It takes third place for most page views.

Chihuly glass at Museum of Glass

Fourth place goes to "Nice Glass, Tacoma!" which ran here on April 9, 2010. It's about the fabulous art at the Museum of Glass across the bridge in Tacoma. Check it out for some photos of colorful Chihuly glass as well as a live demo at the museum's Hot Shop.

Number five is actually from this week, the aforementioned "The Travel Kit that didn't."  Click here to read it.
 


"We don't need no friggin' rain dance," which is from my second day of posting, April 2, 2010, is holding at No. 10 in page views, for unexplained reasons. It only includes a photo of my "Rain Dance" quilt, above, but maybe that's another popular google search phrase.

That about wraps it up for today's news.

Thanks again to all who have visited in the past year.

You truly do make my day when I read your comments

and see my new "friends" as followers.

I love reading your blogs as well.

New followers always welcome!

"Too Much Fun," original quilt by Sherrie Spangler

Put on your party pants!

Have a colorful day!