WiP for the Holiday

Heeeeey there. Long time no see, huh? Yeah. School and house hunting have been totally wiping me out. I've been lucky to feel like I have enough energy at the end of the day to get some sewing in. But the end is in sight! Just one more paper, 2 tests, and a group presentation and I will be back to the blissful homework-free lifestyle. At least until next semester when I plan on taking another Spanish class :)

But things have been happening...

For example, I decided what to do with my Scrumptious layer cake :D I'm really excited about this one. I definitely need more white before I can finish, but totally have it all planned out!

I even started a few blocks (these were for testing purposes but will definitely be included in the top!). Picture is pretty dark, sorry! There is no light at all here until after I go to work :/ And the sun is gone when I get back. Lame.

I've still got these waiting to be turned into blocks, too.

I haven't made much progress on the scrappy chevrons, but I'm having an Alternative Black Friday Craft Day (yes, it needed caps!) this Friday so I plan to work on that while sipping wine and giggling with my friends. It will be a good day. I also have all the bits for 2 more swoon blocks cut and ready to go on my sewing table... To be honest, my sewing table is quite a mess right now. But I don't want to clear it off because I'm still working on all the stuff on it! So here it is in all its messy glory. Because I'm nice and want to make you feel better about your sewing space ;)

See? What a mess! Oh well. Creativity isn't tidy, is it?

One last thing! This weekend I'm going to be making some 15" Churn Dash blocks for the lovely Audrey of Hot Pink Quilts, who is making a quilt for the people in Washington, IL who were affected by the tornadoes. She lives in that area but was very fortunate not to have any serious damage to her home or her family. But so many others weren't so lucky! Do you have time to make a quick block to send off to her? If so, you can find the details here. And the original post is here. Thanks for considering it!

What are you working on for the long weekend?

Linking up to WiP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced!

So Many Colors!

Progress is happening. It is. I am finally ironing the 500+ little blocks that will eventually become a big scrappy chevron quilt. I am turning the orderly little piles on the left into the chaos on the right:

It took me 2 recorded lectures (both over an hour) to get this many ironed. I think one more and I'll be done... I really hope. I hate ironing! Although I do like it more when I'm actually watching something fun.

Here's another shot of all that color:

I think this quilt is going to be SUPER AWESOME. when it's finished. It better be after all this work!

I also may have had a little shopping accident...

Yes. That is a layer cake of both Scrumptious and Salt Water. And two mini charm packs of In From the Cold and Simply Style... The Simply style is for my granny blocks. The In From the Cold is because I think (probably mistakenly) that this may finally be the year I make stockings. Maybe. Scrumptious is already being turned into a Christmas gift (pictures to come!) and the Salt Water... is because it's pretty. So, whatever. 75% have actual plans attached. That's not bad!

I know I have been an infrequent visitor to my own blog lately and that's because there is SO MUCH else going on in my life. I went to my first conference last week (which means I'm officially an adult) AND. I'm house shopping! AHH! Add the two classes I'm taking to that and it pretty much means I barely have time to think, let alone blog. But once or twice a week is just fine for my brain right now. Hopefully once things settle down in other areas I'll have more time to focus on my far more glamorous internet life. Because let's face it, quilt/craft blogging is MUCH more glamorous than dealing with the day to day problems of a budget-strapped academic research library. RIGHT?

Oh man, I am tired. Have a lovely evening. And wish me luck on my test tomorrow! ;)

Linking up to WiP Wednesday with Lee at Freshly Pieced!

Bee blocks!

The blocks have been arriving pretty steadily over here, but I thought I would wait til I had most of them to show them to you...

Here they are, so happy together. I know they look like they're all different sizes- it's because they are. Some of the ladies purposely left them big so I could trim them down myself. Aren't they fun? I thought at first I would sash them all in white when I put the top together but now I'm not sure. What do you think?

This represents the efforts of 8 of my bee mates with one more for sure on the way... It's a newbie bee and we've had some problems with people disappearing, so I'm planning on just being content with what I receive.

Action shot of the hyper pooch leaping over the blocks (at least she jumped over them instead of running through them?):

Silly dog.

I also made a cover for the cushions on our new couch. See, we bought these awesome new leather couches... The price was so good, we just could pass them up. And honestly, we hated our old couch. It was waaay too much of a hair magnet to have a husky. No amount of vacuuming ever did any good. But we realized (after we paid, of course) that our dogs are definitely not trained to stay off the couches. Which is fine, really. I've never in my life had pets that stayed off the furniture. But that did present the problem of their little claws scratching and ripping our pretty new leather couches...

Enter: super cheap chevron canvas at SAS and my brilliant idea of sewing up a little "fitted sheet" for the cushions. The dogs don't really go on the arms of the couch and I didn't want to cover the whole thing up, so this seemed like a pretty good solution! What do you think? It really is made like a fitted sheet. It has elastic in the bottom to keep it on and boxed corners. So far it's working really well! I know it looks a little loose, but that was intentional. Canvas doesn't really stretch and when there's two or three people on it, it becomes much more taut but not so taut that it pulls the elastic up. Of course, we'll have to wait and see how long it hold up. But at $5 a yard for pretty heavy canvas, I wouldn't really mind making another set!

 I haven't finished up the one for the love seat yet and I have been trying to take pictures of the process. Would anyone be interested in a little tutorial? I figure there must be some other people out there with pets and couches to protect :) Let me know in the comments!

Also, that giveaway I keep promising... it IS coming. As well as a proper post on my first year of blogging! It's just been hectic here and tomorrow morning I leave for Atlanta for my FIRST EVER conference (if you don't count the state thespian conferences I went to in high school)! I feel like such a grown up! I'm going with my team leader and one of the team supervisors, so it's a little nerve-wracking. I'm also using Airbnb for the first time- staying in a nice couple's apartment who travel a lot for business. I'll be sure to report on my experiences on both fronts! But yeah, the blogiversary giveaway will definitely have to be when I get back next week!

I'm linking up today with Show and Tell Tuesday with Randi and Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!

All I've Done This Week...

Well. Other than making it to gym #7. And finishing Sense and Sensibility. And Eleanor and Park. I have been on a huge reading kick this week...

A little wall hanging for a friend's housewarming/halloween party! I used this pattern from Cut to Pieces To be totally honest, though, I only did the quilting and binding this week. I actually finished the piecing sometime in September. Then I got distracted by the Split Personalities quilt. But I finished in time for the party and that's the important thing, right? RIGHT?

Sorry for the dark pictures... I literally finished it *just* before the party and it was dark by then so... Yeah. I'm actually really pleased with how the quilting turned out. It's a star! Like, a Mario Bros. star! I printed a picture from the internets and traced it. It's pretty awesome, I think.

If I'm really, really honest, I hated piecing this. I hate tiny squares and I don't think I'll ever have the courage to make a super awesome David Tennant quilt. But that's okay. Because at least I gave it a shot, right?

If I'm really, really, really honest... I'm two glasses of wine in and typing feels like a lot of work. It has been a LONG week. Promise that giveaway is still coming. Just need to recover from all the craziness of the week first.

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts!