Wowsers .... a Liebster Award!

Have you seen/heard of the Liebster Award?  The word "Liebster" is of German origin, meaning "Beloved, Dearest, or Favorite" and it's a blog award given to "exceptional" blogs with fewer than 200 followers.  It's a way of recognizing small blogs that other bloggers find interesting and bringing those small blogs to the attention of everyone else.

Well, by golly ... I recently received this honor!  I am simply flabbergasted that anyone would think enough of my blog to bestow the Liebster Award!  Thank you, Pamela (of Pamela Quilts ) for your good taste thinking that my blog was worthy of this award! .  :-)

For those who decide to accept the award, the Liebster Rules are:

1. Post about your win on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented you with the award.
3. Copy and paste the award to your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs that have less than 200 followers that you think deserve to be recognized.
5. Let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

[note: apparently like everyone else, I am also unable to discover whoever originated this award.  Everyone is following the same rules, but whoever created this award is a complete mystery.  Come out, come out, where ever you are!    *YOU* should be acknowledged also!]

Now comes the hard part - deciding on 5 blogs to pass the honor to!  It turned out that the most DIFFICULT part was finding out the number of followers a blog had!   Sometimes the blog itself will show how many followers it has .. that's the easiest way.  But not all blogs do that.  But, I persevered; it turns out it's VERY simple ... at least in Google Reader!   There is a drill-down arrow to the right of the blog name.  One of the selections is "View details and subscriptions" ... BINGO!  That will show how many subscribers there are for that blog .. at least through Google Reader.    BUT ... the blog follower number may not be the same as the Google Reader subscriber number!!   One blog that I just love reading had a low Google Reader subscriber number but a follower number that was over the 200 limit.  Oh no!!  ::sigh::   I'm going to be so embarrassed when I find out there's a Really Easy Way to do this.  :-)

So, with the limited resources available to me and with the research I've done,  here are my awardees.  All of them have inspired me in one way or another ... piecing designs, quilting designs, techniques, tutorials, methodology, and/or their general philosophy.  I hope you, Dear Reader, will enjoy reading these blogs as well.

* Finishing lines
* One More Quilt
* Quilt Stitching and Sew On 
* Silly Goose Quilts 
* Timber Hill Threads