A Year of Lovely Finishes: February!

Wow, it seems like 2013 is flying by -- it's already February! My lovely friends Melissa and Shauna are hosting a year of lovely finishes on their blog this year. Basically they are encouraging us to finish up some projects this year, but focusing on each month at a time. They even have prizes and all sorts of fun things!  Since I have tons of sewing projects for this year to finish I think this it the perfect opportunity to encourage me to finish some of them up. I totally missed out on January, but it's never too late to start.

So for this month my goal is finish the x-marks the spot quilt for do good stitches. That means quilt and bind and everything. Last time you saw it, this was my progress:

Since then I have almost pieced together the entire quilt...and then tore it all out so now it looks like the picture above. The other day I had an apiphany about the design for this and changed things up. As a result I need to make a trip to my favorite local quilt shop and pick up some solids to finish it up. So after I finish up some assignments for school I'll reward myself with some fabric love. I am excited to share the end result with you - hope you guys will like it as much as I think I am going to =)

What projects are you working on this month??

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**