About QuiltAlong.net

Once upon a time there was a girl who quilted. She was the first in her blood line to quilt and didn't know many in-real-life quilters, she had some crafty friends but no quilty friends. She interacted with other quilters through blogs & groups but felt like she was always late to the party. Be it a quilt along party, link party or blog hopping party - no matter how hard she tried to keep up with that ever growing RSS reader of amazing quilt blogs she could never seem to catch up and always seemed to miss the most interesting quilt alongs, block of the months and link parties.

A bit dramatic but that's my story, I'm Terri Ann of Childlike Fascination an on-again-off-again quilt blogger who dabbles in photography, crafting and about a million other hobbies that I may or may not have made websites for. I wished there was a website that I could go to to see the current popular weekly link up/link parties as well as the next upcomming quilt alongs and block of the month programs. I've done quilt alongs both "on schedule" and long after they were completed. While it can be fun to do some of the quilts at your own pace after everyone else has finished it's not the same. You don't get to interact with people who are probably having the same issues you are every few days or weeks and there can seem like there is no one around to cheer you on when you start second guessing yourself.

So I solved my own problem. I made a website to link to all best quilting community online parties. I started this project in early December 2014 and did a rapid prototype where I quickly built a working version of the site that I could layer new features in the future.

What's in the Future?

While I can't see the future I do know what I have planned for Quilt Along.net. Some of those features are:

• Monthly Newsletter to highlight some new upcomming programs quilt bloggers are hosting Sign up for the monthly newsletter today!
• User Login
  Allow users to login using Facebook, Twitter or Google and mark what quilt alongs and link ups they are particupating in
• User Submitted Content
  Allow users to add link parties, quilt alongs and blog hops to the site
  Phase 1: I would have to approve the submissions
  Phase 2: Other users could approve submissions or mark submissions as spam, broken links, or wrong subject
• Site and Host verification
  Allow logged in users to claim their domain so that they can control the content on the pages that list their online events
• More Quilt Along Fun!

Some people have given me some spectacular feedback about the site too that I'd like to incorperate.
Thanks Shauna, Ruth, Rachel and many more for some of these ideas

• Quilting Bees
  I'm not as familiar with how quilting bees are organized and run online but I look forward to learning more about them to bring that content into the site
• Swaps
  Not having participated in swaps before I need to understand more about them to really figure out the best way to bring them into the site!