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Tips for New*bees

After being approved to The Quilting Bee, you'll probably want to spruce up your quilt a bit. This guide will give you tips as to how to make your quilt tidy, organized, and generally just better designed overall. The suggestions are exactly that - suggestions. This is by no means the only way to create and design your quilt. The Quilting Bee encourages creativity on your quilt pages. The guide below outlines how you might want to go about creating your quilt. There are also some other neat things you can add to your quilt to make your Quilting Bee experience even better!

• Quilt Creation/Design
• myQuiltAdmin
• Quilt Contents and Organization
• Cleaning/Washing Your Quilt
• Forms vs. Email
• Other Quilt Things
• Super Cool Things You Can Join as a Member

 

Quilt Creation/Design

Quilting Bee members display their quilts in many different ways. These range from using popup windows to full page quilts. The possibilities are near endless. Some things you want to ask yourself when designing your quilt are:

• Is my quilt going to be able to be updated easily?
• Does my quilt reflect my personality?
• Is my quilt easy to navigate?
• Is my quilt clearly linked from my website?

Be as creative with your quilt as you want to be. Make it look like an actual quilt. Make it match your website and/or patch. Make it totally random. The choice is yours. There are special awards you can win for creative and cozy quilts. Be sure to take the time to make your quilt special and look the way you want it to. Have a look at quilts of other members to get ideas. Of course, you could always use a starter template or premade quilt layouts as a base (found on our downloads page).

Linking to your quilt from your splash page/main page is not a requirement, but it is a big help to everyone. There is nothing more frustrating then going to someone's website to trade with them and not being able to find their quilt. Try not to bury your quilt link under several pages of your site. There are lots of buttons and other graphics> you can use to link to your quilt and make it very noticeable for visitors. Also, if you make your quilt one click away from your main site, you can grab one of these nifty one-click cookie patches to add to your quilt.

myQuiltAdmin

A lot of bees manually add patches and updates to their quilt. However, if you want to make it a little easier for yourself, you could always download and install myQuiltAdmin. myQuiltAdmin is a management script fellow bee, Bubs (#77), created to make managing your quilt easier. With the click of a button you can upload patches, change member information such as email addresses or website links, and email the bees you have traded with. myQuiltAdmin will also keep track of how many patches/trades you have made, when you last traded, and how many pending members you have.

• Jem (#123) created an add-on for the myQuiltAdmin (version 2). Her mini-tutorial will explain how to add a comments field to the myQuiltAdmin trade form. This way, bees can share some info so that you can get to know them a little better.
• Gaby (#212) created an add-on so that myQuiltAdmin (version 2) will create a full trade log for you! You can find out more about it on this thread at the BBS.

Quilt Contents and Organization

Some bees prefer to have smaller quilts with few pages. Others like to have everything included. As a Newbee, you might not need as many pages right away. Here are some common links included on quilt pages along with a description of what might be included on each page.

• Main Page (Home): This is what bees will see first when visiting your quilt. It should include your name, member #, your patch and the official Quilting Bee patch. Some members also include their special member id patch. Typically your main page should also include the date of your last trade and who you traded with as well as a link to The Quilting Bee so people who aren't members yet can check it out. Other things you might consider adding: number of patches on your quilt, number of freebee patches and your contact information (form or email). Some bees even display their actual quilt on their main page.
• Your Quilt: If you choose not to have your quilt on your main page, you will need to put it in a separate place. Some bees choose to call this link "Members" or "Bees". The most obvious name for it is simply "Quilt" or "My Quilt". Place the patches of bees you have traded with on your quilt. You may also choose to include another quilt on your page: a miscellaneous quilt or quilt about you. This would consist of free*bee patches you can collect to let others know about your interests, hobbies, etc. This quilt could also include any awards you win or staff positions you may hold.
• About Me/Miscellaneous: You should have a section of your quilt that gives fellow bees a better idea of who you are. You might want to include where you live, your birthday, your hobbies and interests, etc. You also might choose to include a "miscellaneous" or "about you" mini-quilt.
• Special/Gifts/Awards: On this page you could include any special patches that other members have given you such as thank you for trading patches, any awards you might win, or any gifts you receive. You could also separate these into different pages.
• Activities: The Quilting Bee has fun activities and contests you can enter. Most of the activities require you create a patch or something else and trade it with others. There are also activities where you have to find and collect things. You will want to keep these patches in a special place on your quilt so others can easily find them. You can include all of your activity contents on one page or separate them into their own pages. A lot of bees use mini-patches to link to their activity pages.
• Trade: On your trade page, you will want to include either a form, or an email address members can use to contact you. I'd suggest including both on your trade page. Sometimes forms don't work or vice versa, so it's nice to give members another way of contacting you.
• Donations: Did you know that you can create and submit free*bee patches and other graphics? Well, you can! After making your first donation, you will receive a special mushroom by your name in the members list as well as a special patch. You might wish to include a page on your quilt that displays all of the graphic donations you have submitted to The Quilting Bee.
• Retired/Dead/Graveyard: Some bees use this in different ways. Retired could mean retired bees who are no longer members, old patches of members who have changed their patch, or both. Dead/Graveyard would mean patches of bees that are no longer a member of the club. Some members also include their own retired patches on this page.
• Trade Log/Log: You will have a workerbee assigned to you after becoming a member. Your workerbee will visit your site twice a month to make sure you are being an active bee and keeping your website and quilt updated. To make this easier for your Workerbee, have a trade log displaying the dates and names of bees you have traded with. This will make your Workerbee very happy!

Cleaning/Washing Your Quilt

Every so often you will want to "clean" or "wash" your quilt. This means different things to different bees, but the general idea is that you check to make sure your quilt is free of dead links and/or that the bees you have traded with still have your patch still displayed on their quilt.

Some bees like to remove the patches of retired bees and store them on a separate page). You do not have to remove patches of retired bees from your quilt. However, many bees do remove them to keep their quilt as up-to-date as possible and only include current members.

I'd suggest cleaning your quilt once a month. There is a very simple way to do this. If you join the BBS, at the beginning of each month the Queen Bee will post which members have retired. Alternatively, use the retired bee list to check your quilt. It's fast and simple.

Forms vs. Email

There are two main ways to have other bees trade with you - either by sending you an email or filling out a form.

• Forms are convenient. A bee can plug in their information and hit submit very quickly. It's not confusing. It's fast.
• Emails are good because bees can share information with you more easily. Some forms on quilts do not ask for any information about the trader. Other forms do ask for the trader to give some sort of personal information. Letting bees tell you about themselves is good because you get to know them that way. The Quilting Bee is about making friends after all.

Super Cool Things You Can Join as a Member

• The Bee*Bee*S - Quilting Bee members only message board
• Q*Bee Community - The Quilting Bee on LiveJournal
• The Q*Bee Top 50 - A topsite for Quilting Bee members only
• The Quilting Bee Fanlisting - Love the Q*bee? Then you have to join the fanlisting!

The most important thing you can do as a Quilting Bee member is bee active. Participate in the activities and contests. Join the BBS. I guarantee you that you will not be sorry. You'll have a lot of fun, make some awesome new friends, and you should feel good that you are a member of the first, original pixel trading club on the internet. If you have any questions, you can check out the F.A.Q. for answers.

New*bee tips bee-utifully written by Ashley, #267