A sunny cold day and some fat quarters

First off, I won some awesome fabric from Lilac Lane in the SewMamaSew Giveaway Day. I was pretty stoked to win, since there were hundreds of entrants to each giveaway I visited. So I'm looking forward to getting that package in the mail, thanks Lilac Lane!

When I want to pick up a new little project but don't know what to do, I usually stand at my ironing board pressing fabrics- fat quarters or scraps or any little leftovers- until inspiration hits. I wound up with 6 fat quarters, cut them up and made half square triangles with them.

Then I had moments of pure joy playing with the squares and realizing that I have soooo many possibilities for layout.

I can do squares:

Or stripes:

Or pinwheels:

Or alternate the triangles:

There's probably even more I can do. How am I going to decide? The fun part will be piecing them all together. I don't think it'll wind up to be very big, so I don't know what I'll do with it, but sometimes it's more about the process than the end results. And sometimes it's the other way around.

Layout for the Moz blocks

I laid out the blocks I cut to get an idea for how they should be arranged. I think I hit the nail on the head on the first try. They look stunning together, don't they? A little lopsided and wonky because I had to lay them out on the bed, over my soft, cozy, warm, inviting bedspread that I got to linger in this morning, thanks to getting called off work. It was a perfect day to sleep in, and now it's a perfect day to get sewing.

Little Box- perfect snowy afternoon project

I made a little box from a tutorial on ps I quilt; I left off the handles because I wanted a box for my coffee table odds 'n' ends instead of a little mini-tote. 

There's nothing in the picture for context, but it's small- about as wide as my hand is long. It was a fun little afternoon project.

Gettin' My Mozambique On

After staring at these fabrics for a few months now, I got up the guts to start cutting. I wanted to keep the integrity of the designs, since they're so beautiful in and of themselves, so I wanted large blocks. I cut each of the small-patterned fabrics into 12" squares; I have 15 squares of each of those 3 prints = 45 12" squares to start from.

The fabric with the clover-shaped design wouldn't allow for squares to be cut around the design because of how they were laid out against each other, so I thought about fussy-cutting them and then appliqueing them. Now, I'm thinking the design might be too big to applique them all on...

I might have to wait until the squares are put together to decide how/how many of this design to applique. But since I can't get straight edges/square corners out of this, I think applique is my only option.

Again, any thoughts/comments/suggestions are welcome- I like brainstorming ideas; I love to hear what other people think when they see something.

On another note: starting this blog has altered the way I look at my projects and the way I process them in my head. I'm now in love with taking pictures as I go along and spending time looking at the pictures and processing it that way. It provides me a very different perspective- a bonus to starting this blog that I never anticipated.

Not crafty, just life-altering

I got news today, finally, from the South Carolina Nursing Board. I've been waiting for almost 12 weeks for my license, for no apparent reason, and they said it would be issued today. I almost starting crying on the phone with Karen Jean from the LLR as she told me it would be issued today and mailed tomorrow. Suddenly, the weight of all the stress and worry and sadness about not being able to move forward with my life just came pouring out of me in a torrent of tears. I felt foolish for crying but I couldn't stop. Suddenly, there was hope for me; a light at the end of Morgantown; a tremendous feeling of anticipation.

So from here it will be small steps finding the right position with the recruiter who has the best options for me. Then, BAM, it'll be time for me to move. There's a lot to be done so I need to garner all my energy to make it happen, but I'm hoping that it'll happen fast enough that I don't have time to slow down. I've been nothing BUT slow lately, wallowing in the hopelessness that I was feeling about my situation. I had really begun to stand still myself while I felt my life was at a standstill. But no more. In a show of faith that it'll all work out I started some more packing today. Of course, I only succeeded in making a HUGE mess of the dining room, but, hey, what can I expect.

I have some fears, naturally. But I know deep in my soul that I'm doing the right thing so I'm going to cling to that to get me through the hard times and scary times.

That, and the thought of some sunshine this winter!

Throwback

I've always looked at little quilted pictures, where some interesting fabric is framed by some other fabrics, and have been wanted to do something similar but never seemed to remember that when I was picking out new projects. But it finally came to me while I was thinking of what to do with that awesome grey fabric I bought a little while back. I found some fabric to coordinate, but as it was predominantly white I didn't want to do anything large with it. So I thought it'd make the perfect frame.

Then I used my newly acquired and still shaky free motion quilting skills to quilt it. There's another one to come, but progress had to be halted in order to watch a nerve-wracking Steelers game. But it was a pretty quick project, and with a 2nd one to match I think it'll make for some pretty cool wall decor. I put grommets in the top corners and some sheer ribbon, but the hooks that I hung it on are obviously not what I will use- it was just what happened to be available for me to snap a quick photo of it.

Go Steelers!

Free Motion Quilting- hoorah!

I took the best class this weekend with my mom at Quilter's Corner on free motion quilting. We didn't make anything worth showing in the class because it was all just practicing a skill. But I had so much fun that I bought a panel to practice on. Turns out it's pretty quick to hammer out a small project and it was so much fun.

The fabric was bought with that picture printed on it- I did all the stitching on top of it.
I love that it's forgiving of mistakes and there's so much freedom in what you can do with it. Sooo much fun! I feel like a whole world has opened to me by learning how to do this. My mind keeps reeling with ideas.
I was the happiest kid in class when the instructor told me after a few minutes of practice that she could tell I was going to be good at this. Now, you know that's what we nerds love to hear!