Happy Blogiversary to ME!

I Can Haz CAKE!

In honor of my 7 YEARS of blogging, I give you the NEW Velma's World: now with pages!

Yep, I started blogging with Blogger way back in March 2003, & despite some hiccups along the way, I've stayed with the blogging date what brung me. My first 'real' post (after "First test post by the dorky blog owner.") was the following, on March the first:

"Lo and behold, the technology works. Typing in my newly-minted fingerless gloves, knit in acid-green Cascade Pastaza 'Lime' and pink-multi Cascade Quatro 'Peachy', my first project involving an increase. Whee! Keeps my digits toasty in the damp No. Cali pseudo-winter."

As you can see, I started right in with the knitting & the infatuation with exclamatory statements. And not even one comment shows up that first month, although I can't remember if Blogger supported commenting that far back; I seem to recall a 3-rd party, buggy app in my sidebar for the first year or two, where comments could be left; lost to the internet sands of time, now. (But that first-blogged project, the fingerless gloves, are not, thanks to Ravelry: I give you, Fibonacci Gloves.)

So, to celebrate my blogiversary I jumped in to Blogger in Draft's new Template Designer mode, scrapping hours, nay weeks, of labor spent tweaking the code of my old, much-modified template. Today I re-vamped ye old bloggety blog, & I DIG! In anticipation of the readers who will ask, here's the Blogger video touting all the hot new things you can accomplish with it.

Of course the best new feature is the ability, possessed by Wordpress folks for awhile now, to create pages. Whee! Check out the new tabs I added at the top of the page for what I'm talking about. Some are only 'Coming Soon!' placeholders (I mean, a girl can only do so much in one day!), but it's looking pretty good, if I must say so myself.

In addition to the new pages, and the obvious design changes (I think it looks much cleaner, don't you?), I've added some other new features:

• Fiber Photo Tutorials: in the left sidebar, designated the CBC side, you'll find a section linking to my photo tutes; so far, that's just the Adventures in Dyeing Self-Striping Yarn tutorial, but I'm hoping to add more in the not-too-distant future;

• Translatation feature: If you're already a reader, you probably speak English or have already figured out a way to translate VWorld into your language of choice, but in the right sidebar, designated the Velma side, I've added a quick and easy way for visitors from other countries to see what goes on around here;

• Art Not Ads: yep, VWorld is an ad-free blog - no AdSense cluttering up the joint for us! Check all the way at the bottom of the right sidebar for a link;

• Tip Jar: that said, I'm not above a little cyber-begging to keep myself in coffee money, so I've added a PayPal donation feature in the left sidebar for those of you with a few extra pennies burning a hole in your pocket - RAK anyone? ;)

Mostly what I did today though was tighten up the design. I hope you'll find VWorld easier to navigate & more pleasing to the eye: better graphics, improved layout, delineation between sections, better load times - my aim is to improve your experience so you'll wanna come back!

To that end, please let me know what you'd like to see happen on these pages. I've got some stuff in mind for the coming weeks & months (fixing the Ravelry project section, adding more tutorials, creating pattern support, shopping directly from the blog, and Yarn/Fiber pages with descriptions of all the COLORBOMB Creation lines collected in one place), but I'd also like to hear what you like/don't like so I can consider tailoring what I present. Don't get me wrong: it'll always be what I want, but I'm not completely immune to your desires!

Here's to the next 7 years!!

Tags: Blogger, blogging, blogiversary