I’m ready to hand over the reins of this blog to some very talented quilters from all over the world. There are 62 guest bloggers lined up for the next month. It’s going to be very exciting. Many guests are offering give-aways. I must admit it’s been a bit strange not searching for new content for this site for the past few weeks.

Slade, my other quilt inspector, is packed and ready to go on holidays. He figures with all these wonderful guests, we can leave this cold and snowy land for some place warm and cozy. I agree!

I hope you enjoy this series. We’ll start off with a post from Meg Cox later today, the eve of Guest Blogger Month… haha!

Promote Your Guest Blogger Post

Here are some images that you can use to promote your Guest Blogger post in your blog. The code provided links directly back to the full series. Once your post is published, if you wish to link directly to your post, change the code, /tag/february-2009-guest-blogger-month/.

This image works best on a light-coloured background as it is a transparent gif.

Promote the Guest Blogger Series

If you’re not a Guest Blogger, and would still like to help promote the Guest Blogger Month series, here’s an image that you can use in your blog post.

Many thanks to my talented graphic designer, Viviane Katz, for creating the images for this series.

Now to go break the news to Slade that we are not going on holidays.

February 2009 will be Guest Blogger month at the Quilting Gallery. If you’d like to participate, please send me an email and I’ll give you the next available date.

First, read other Guest Blogger posts to get an idea of what others have written about.

I don’t have any real guidelines and I am pretty much open to whatever you would like to write about. I do ask that it not be too commercial or hard-sell in nature. That’s not to say you can’t mention your business adventures, you certainly can, as part of the overall write-up. (I accept advertising, so if you’d like to write specifically about your product or business, drop me an email to discuss.)

Here are some ideas on what you could write about:

• your own quilting history, how did you get started quilting
• what do you love and/or hate about the process
• where you are from, where you’ve been, where you’re going
• what you’ve done, awards won, contests entered, personal achievements (smile on a grandchild’s face!)
• what technique(s) do you want to learn this year, or further perfect
• if you blog, why?
• met anyone famous from the quilting world?
• do you have a mentor or idol, if so, who and why?
• charity efforts, teaching events, retreats, cruises, etc.

Everyone loves to see photos, so I encourage you to include a few with your submission (six would be a good number). I’m happy to modify the photos to fit the site. Please submit photos with a minimum size of 400px wide, any maximum is fine.

Links to your site(s) should be included in the write up, just put them in brackets, and I’ll link them correctly.

If you’d like to offer a free gift as a contest to readers that answer a question in the comments, that would be fantastic. It’s not required, but appreciated. Contests and asking readers questions always get more response. You would be responsible to ship the prize to the lucky winner.

Content and photos must be submitted 5 days prior to the posting date I’ll send to you. If you cannot meet your date, or decide not to participate, please let me know as soon as possible, so that I may give your spot to someone else.

Content should be written directly in the email you send to me, or as an attached text document. Please no MS Word or other publishing program.

Ideally, I’d just like to copy and paste the text and not have to edit it in anyway. I do reserve the right to edit and/or refuse to post anything submitted. If you are in doubt if what you wish to talk about is acceptable or not, just email me first.

UPDATE: February Guest Blogger month is now full. Please contact me in March if you would like to be a guest blogger at another time. I allow two guest bloggers per week in other months.