New Beginning

Hello, fellow quilters! It has been quite some time since I last shared an update, and I am pleased to reconnect with you.

First, there have been a number of personal and technical challenges along the way. Most significantly, Quilting on a Budget was previously hosted on a WordPress site that was hacked, resulting in a complete site failure and total data loss. I spent considerable time trying to recover the posts and information, but unfortunately, recovery was not possible.

Since the loss of the WordPress site, I have carefully researched a variety of options for rebuilding the website. Wanting to avoid future dependence on platforms that may be vulnerable to similar issues, I ultimately decided to take a more traditional approach. The new site will be built using straightforward HTML. While simple, this tried-and-true technology is highly reliable, requires far fewer computing and web resources, and offers exceptionally fast performance. Although it can be a bit more hands-on to maintain, modern software tools make that process much more manageable. With reliable storage in place, maintaining the site infrastructure should be entirely practical.

Welcome to the new Quilting on a Budget website!

On a personal note, I have also been navigating the realities of aging and a few minor health concerns. As a result, I have developed several new and modified methods that I look forward to sharing with fellow quilters. In addition, I will be revising and rewriting reviews of tools, quilt blocks, and machines.

I have also been working extensively with traditional quilt blocks and the grid method of assembly. In future posts, I plan to explain the grid method in greater detail and provide block patterns in a variety of sizes. My hope is that this will help more quilters see how straightforward the underlying math can be when creating a block—and, ultimately, an entire quilt. I know that many quilters find quilt math intimidating or overly complicated, so I will be exploring the grid method in depth to make the process easier to understand and apply.

In addition, I have been designing edge-to-edge quilting patterns for embroidery machines. My current designs are created in 149 x 149 mm (approximately 5 x 5 inches) and 199 x 199 mm (approximately 8 x 8 inches), which are standard hoop sizes for many machines. Although I do not use newer machines with larger hoops, I plan to include the master EMB file so that users can resize designs to fit their own machines and preferences with basic embroidery software. I will also make the designs available in Brother/Babylock PES, Bernina EXP, Husqvarna Viking/Pfaff VP3, and standard DST formats.

Finally, I am planning to create short videos that explain and demonstrate the techniques and methods featured in these posts. At the moment, I am considering TikTok because it appears to be both accessible and reliable. I have found YouTube more difficult to use recently, particularly because of the volume of advertising. I may also explore Instagram, as well as several alternative video platforms, to determine which option works best. I do not currently plan to monetize these videos. However, if third-party platforms prove unsuitable, I may choose to self-host them. My primary reason for using an external platform would be to manage the substantial storage and bandwidth demands that video content requires, since self-hosting could significantly affect site performance and loading times.

This is a new beginning, and I hope these updates and resources will be helpful to many quilters.