Real Life & Real Friends

I know that this is a quilting blog, but please bear with me for a moment while I depart for a minute from things quilting related.

As some of you may know, I started my masters degree at the beginning of the year. Getting to this point was rather difficult for me - I spent quite a lot of time trying to decide what I ultimately wanted out of my life. And like many people, I'm sure, I changed my mind many times. Thank goodness I have a patient husband! Anyway, when I finally made the decision to go back to school it was quite a change for me and my family...and has significantly cut into my sewing time. I was pretty nervous to start school because it has been awhile since I've actually had to spend my time studying and sitting in a classroom. Then when a stack of textbooks taller than me arrived in the mail I almost had a panic attack!

Luckily, I've had a ton of people in my corner. My family and friends have been super supportive as I begin this new journey. And I've realized that going back to school is very much like riding bike (assuming I knew how to ride one that is) - you never really forget. 

Anyway, one of these super awesome people is my great friend Melissa, who I know from participating in a few quilting bees together. She is such a source of strength and encouragement and was nice enough to send me this lovely notebook for me to use in my classes. It's perfect and obviously she knows how much I love purple and gray together!

So I just wanted to take a moment and say thank you to everyone for their love and support the past few months while I went back to school. You guys rock!

Weekend Sewing

After months of nonstop work, my dashing husband finally has weekends off this month, which makes me jump for joy. Since the weekend is usually my sewing time, I haven't made much progress on anything really in the sewing front.

In the evenings my husband and I have been watching Prison Break (ya we don't actually watch tv much) so I've been in search of a creative outlet that did not involve my sewing machine. I tried my hand at english paper piecing awhile back without much luck....it just didn't stick. I have since moved on to cross stitch, which seems to be doing the trick for now. Here's a sneak peak of my recent project.

Despite not having time to use my sewing machine, I have managed to get my hands on some new fabric including this glorious charm pack of Architextures.

I don't usually purchase charm packs - but I love this line and am hoping to make a quilt out of it sometime soon...anyone out there a fan of charm packs or have a quilt pattern you'd like to share?

And another reason why San Diego is the best city in the USA

I interrupt my regularly scheduled quilting-related post to share with you this awesome video of Xiao Liwu, the baby panda cub at the San Diego Zoo that was finally debuted on exhibit.

Of course this had to happen less than a week after I returned from a month long trip to my hometown of San Diego.

Dang it.

**in case you couldn't guess, or didn't already know, I LOVE pandas**

WIP Wed!

Happy Wednesday!

Like many of you, I have a ton of unfinished projects that are in desperate need of some love and attention. Therefore I have unofficially dubbed 2013 the year I clean out my unfinished project drawer(s).

The first project I want to work on is my x-marks the spot December quilt for do.good stitches. Here is a rough layout. I'm still waiting for a few blocks so I can piece it together. And I have a fun idea for the back, so I am going to start working on blocks for that. I'm really hoping to have the entire quilt finished by the end of Feb.

The second project that I want to work on (aka finish) is my rainbow strip quilt that the gals from the Quilts for Cancer bee helped me work on last year. I just need to decide on a layout and sew the top together, decide on what I want to do for a back, quilt it, bind it and get it on it's way to helping a cancer patient.Whew! I really want to finish it soon, but my goal is to have it finished by March.

I think that I will just share these 2 projects for now...lets try to be realistic here! =) Linking up to Lee's blog for WIP Wed.

Spending a few minutes with my sewing machine

This past weekend I was lucky enough to get to sit down and spend some quality time with Nina (my sewing machine). It was so nice to catch up with her after almost a month of no sewing!

First up on my list of projects to finish were these lovely bee blocks for the Quilts for Cancer bee I am a part of on flickr.

Michelle asked for these bow tie blocks to make a quilt for her husband's aunt who is dealing with both lung and breast cancer. She asked for us to use 30's reproduction fabrics, which were a little bit outside of my comfort zone.

Luckily, I had a few leftover scraps from when I made this baby quilt for my dear friend awhile back.

I've really enjoyed being part of the Quilts for Cancer bee. It is so uplifting to be able to make quilt blocks that I know are going towards a quilt to help someone feel love during such an incredibly difficult time of their lives. This is the final month for that bee, and I am a bit sad to see it end -- although with everything I have on my plate at the moment, I can certainly do with participating in less bees this year. 

Quilt Shop Spotlight: Quilt in a Day

While in Southern California I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a darling quilt shop - Quilt in a Day. 

If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend planning an afternoon to go visit. I even took my non-quilting family members who kept their complaining about my substantial amount of time looking at fabric to a minimum.

The people who worked there were so friendly and graciously allowed for me to take a billion pictures of their shop. Sadly my memory card messed up so some of them didn't turn out, but I do have a few to share with you...a little teaser if you will.

First up, gorgeous quilts like the one above adorned all the walls. I loved the fact that there were modern quilts mixed in with some more traditional quilts...my dad was especially enamored with the lovely quilt featured below.

Quilt in a Day has an excellent collection of fat quarters displayed in fun ways all throughout the store. I really liked this bookshelf display, but there were other equally awesome displays in the other 3 rooms (yes 3!) of the shop.

This is one my favorite vignettes in the store - love the use of the oven!

They also carry a lovely collection of solids...I wanted all of them of course, but surprisingly walked away without any of them...I am sorta regretting it but luckily for me they have an excellent online store so I can remedy that...and you can too!

While I obviously wanted to purchase the entire store, I showed massive restraint and only went home with these beauties.

It's so nice to be home

Life here on the blog has been rather quiet recently...and I apologize. I flew home for about 3 weeks or so and just got back. It was so great to spend some quality time with my family and loved ones...but I didn't even sew a single stitch! Once I get unpacked I will be sure to rectify that. =)

In the meantime, here are some photos for your enjoyment of paradise, via my iphone because I haven't had a chance to download pictures off of my real camera yet.

I hope that you had an excellent holiday season and can't wait to start sewing again! Do you have any fun projects in the works?