August Recap

I know I’ve said this before, but the past month has been extraordinarily crazy. I’ve started posts so many times – on scratch pieces of paper, napkins, sitting here at the computer – and they all just get pushed aside for something else. I don’t know the last time I was as mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted as I’ve been this month. This is a LONG post, and it starts out a little heavy, but it lightens up.

I started out this month in Boston. I had a weekend trip up to spend one more weekend with BFF before she moved to Germany for her PhD. I cannot even begin to express how wonderful that weekend was, but it was also incredibly difficult. I’m not sure how you get to the point where you’re okay with your best friend moving halfway around the world, but I am not okay with it yet. She’s been gone for a couple weeks now, and I already miss her in the worst way. Most of the time it’s totally fine, but sometimes I feel like someone cut out my heart and a lung, and then had a go for a kidney while they were in there. We’ve been friends for five years, and of those, four have been long distance. Nothing horrible has ever happened to make it necessary, but it was always possible to jump in the car or onto a plane and fly to Boston if she needed me, and the other way around. It came close one year though. It was New Years Eve 2012 into 2013. M and I had left the bar we’d all gone out to early to go back to his place, make some pizza, watch the ball drop in our pjs, and then go to bed. I have no idea what time it was, but we were sound asleep and my phone rang. I sat straight up in bed, knew it was her without looking at it, and answered “what’s wrong?” She was on the other end bawling her eyes out, and it was all I could do to calm her down and tell me what had happened. I came incredibly close to getting on the first flight to Boston the next morning, but she promised it would be okay, and it was. Getting to Germany in the case of something like that is not anywhere close to that simple. And it would be a big fat lie if I said I wasn’t worried about that.

Last day in Boston – we magically ended up with the perfect cokes for lunch!

She fell asleep snuggling with the stuff I made her while I sewed in the lining of her weekender.

John Hancock’s monolith looks like a giant penis.

Hugh Jass Pineapple, in the Wild!

On a happier note, I did send her off with a metric ton of bags and travel things. She doesn’t do organization well (I swear we’re the same person), so I wanted to make sure that she had, at the very least, cute tools to maintain some semblance of order while she’s traveling. I didn’t get everything on that to-sew list done, but that’s what Christmas is for! She did get a lot of it though, and then promptly tested a bunch of it out on her trip to PA with her mom. So, without further ado, here’s what she got!

A Weekender Bag (Amy Butler)
1 Large Open Wide Pouch (Noodlehead)
1 Small Open Wide Pouch (Noodlehead)
1 Wherever You Go Travel Wallet (Fishstick Designs)
1 Manicure Wallet (Noodlehead/Robert Kaufman)
2 Tiny Neat n Tidy Zippered Pouches (Erin Erickson)
1 Jane Market Bag (Alicia Paulson)
1 Large Wet Bag
1 Travel Document Wallet (Thimble)

Most of the stuff I sent to Germany with BFF. She’s got a fantastic Christmas coming too!

I went for a palette of teals, aquas, corals, and purples. Bright colors, a lot of her, a little of me, and where I could get away with it, some fabrics that reminded me of our time at Roanoke together. We went from pretty much not being able to stand each other to best friends on a May Term trip to Mexico after junior year of college. We were both biology majors, and the class was a Tropical Marine Biology thing. After that class, we ended up having vertebrate biology and our senior seminar together, which means we had a lot of very interesting times in classes together! I used some florals (we also had the same advisor, and she mostly works with plants,) the coral reef on her weekender bag was because Mexico, same with the Cuzco plume on the wallet. Inside her weekender, there are a couple of zippered pockets. One of them got a fish print, the other one got a print that has always reminded me of kelp. The Jane Market Bag was a different beast. I’d been hoarding that fabric for a WHILE. Two years, maybe? I picked it up off of one of the first destashes that Quilt Barn did, and I never really had a use for it. It’s a home dec fabric, and there isn’t anything in my home that I wanted in those colors. I was considering destashing it, and then I started pulling fabrics for this project and they insisted I use them for the Market Bag. I was happy to oblige, and amazing happened.

Sometimes, the projects design themselves.

In any case, I showed up in Boston with a pile of stuff for her, and she was thrilled. I still had to finish a few things (like, um, sewing in the lining of the weekender. Oops.), but for the most part, we used them to transport her stuff from work home, and then as we started cleaning up her bedroom to take back to her parents’ or over to Germany. I did get this really awesome snapshot of her while I was working on sewing in the lining…

We had a fun weekend in Boston, with lots of good food and some pretty unintentional BFF things happening. I got to see the sights, we did a lot of walking, I skipped my runs. All in all, it was a solid weekend.

I got home late Sunday night, M and I had a lovely few hours together before bed, and then he woke me up at 5AM Monday to drive him to the airport. He spent a week in Dallas for training, came home Thursday night, and we had a bunch of errands to run, family stuff to do that weekend. I got not a whole lot done, but I did get my Broadway and Hogwarts swaps shipped out mostly on time!

Broadway Mini Quilt!

This doesn’t need much introduction! This was the Hogwarts Swap Mini I sent out!

M flew back out to TX for more training the following Tuesday, and I peaced out on Friday for the DCMQG Quilt Retreat. It was SUCH a fun time. I honestly could not ask for a better guild. Everyone is so supportive and inspirational. I had a super productive two days at retreat, and managed to get a bunch of swap work done, plus a little tiny bit of selfish sewing.

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Unfortunately, I had to leave retreat early on Sunday to get to the airport to head to the National Meeting for work. I spent Sunday-Wednesday in Boston, and I was so tired by the time it was over. It was a great experience to be able to go to the meeting, and I’m really hoping I’ll be able to keep going! I did manage to get a little bit of work done, and I spent some time in our booth on Tuesday (the last day) working on my (drumroll please…) Epic Chemistry Quilt. I’m not spilling the details on the full design, but it’s going to be pretty sweet. More than one member was super excited to see me working on it, which was pretty exciting for me!

I ended up spending most of Wednesday sitting in the airport. I got the call at 12:30 that my 3pm flight was cancelled, so I hustled it over to sit on standby and hope to get a flight. I managed to get a little something finished for my Zodiac Mini Swap, and also finished up the embroidery piece of the Best Birthday Ever package I shipped out at the end of the month.

When I finally got home (on a 6pm flight that was delayed until 7pm,) I was pretty much ready to sleep for a week. The last week of August was mostly just a cluster of exhaustion, but I finally got my life together and finished up that Best Birthday Ever swap, and got back on the Marathon Training bus.

So, it’s now September 2. My next post is going to be a run down of the swaps that I’ve finished/received starting with Alison Glass, as well as the DCMQG Bee update that I’ve been slacking on.

Ooops.

Huh. Somehow, it’s been a month since I last posted. I do have four posts sitting as drafts, and I will get to posting them. I promise.

It’s been an eventful month. One of my best friends from Germany came to visit for a week, which was so much fun. We did some touristing during the week – I worked on the move while we did the National Museum of American History and the National Museum of Natural History. American History was a lot of fun with her – Europe does American history in broad, broad strokes, so it was really exciting to talk to her about the details, and how history has influenced culture and current events here. I also took a few hours to take her up to the Hill and introduce her to a staffer friend of mine. He was able to give us a great tour, including a fantastic extra stop at the Speaker’s Balcony! As many times as I’ve done the Hill tour, that was the first time I got to do that! Her last day here, M and I took her up to the National Cathedral, and then over to the Zoo. We were expecting some massive crowds, especially when we saw that they didn’t have the pandas out in the yard (that pavilion is TINY), but they were doing really great crowd control and the pandas were more active than we’ve ever seen them. I got some fantastic pictures.

Oh, and M and I were pretty cute too.

After the zoo, M and I took her out to Wolftrap to see the National Symphony Orchestra perform with Sarah Chang. Immediate reviews on twitter were pretty glowing of Sarah Chang’s performance, but I have to be super honest, we weren’t that impressed. Don’t get me wrong, she was good. But there wasn’t anything terribly special about her playing ability. All in all, it was a great week, and I was definitely sad to have to take her to the airport Sunday morning. I DID manage to also get her addicted to embroidery while she was here, and I sent her off with a bunch of scraps, floss, needles, a bag to put it all in, and a mini quilt for her to embroider. Because it’s not a vacation at my house unless you also sew. 😉

Beyond that, it’s just been busy. Work has been crazy hectic, M started a new job and has been stressed out beyond belief, I started marathon training, and I’ve also been trying to stay on top of swaps AND also put together a travel set for BFF.

BFF found out last month that she’s going to be doing her PhD at Max Planck in Germany! It’s SUCH a big deal, and I am SO proud of her. I mean, I love Germany. It is an amazing place, and I’m so happy for her to get to know the country. I’m also so so proud of her for pushing forward on the grad school dreams. Max Planck is a huge deal. I can’t get over it. BUT, I’m also heartbroken that she’s moving halfway around the world. We don’t see each other very often – she lives in Boston, but there’s something to be said for the ability to call her in the middle of the night, or the ability to jump on a plane and be with her in an hour and a half – it’s not cheap, but $300 here or there isn’t the end of the world at the drop of a hat. This is the end of an era, and I’m crossing my fingers that she gets WhatsApp the second she gets a cell phone over there so I can at least text her. Because otherwise, I might lose my mind.

Obviously, since she’s leaving, I had to make her a travel set, and it needed to include every bag/wallet she might ever need. So, I started with a Weekender Bag, and then promptly lost my damn mind. A Wherever You Go Wallet, an Open Wide pouch in each size, a Jane Market Bag, a Manicure Kit, a Travel Kit, a Document Wallet, a Luggage Tag, a Wet Bag, a Bobby Pin Pouch, a Hair Tie Pouch, a Jewelry Clutch, a Toothpaste/Toothbrush Bag, and (theoretically) cord keepers.

Not all of these things are done yet, but I’m making decent progress. Not great progress for flying to Boston for our last hurrah in less than 24 hours, but I don’t need to sleep tonight!

I promise to have more pictures once I get home from Boston. In the meantime, I’m going to go grab a drink and head home to sew!

It’s Wednesday?

Oops. I swear, you guys, I actually had planned on posting on Friday, and then work is insane and this weekend was insane and then it was today and I don’t know where the past week has gone. I’m sorry.

So, three posts in one? Here we go!

Last week’s running was kind of intense. I did 3.23 miles on Monday, and then 3.89 on Thursday. Monday’s run was our basic 3-ish miler, and we did our normal P&Q route. Thursday was track, which was ROUGH. You guys, it was hot. It was awful. But I pushed through. I did drop the last 200m sprint off my workout, but I’m blaming it on having not done track in forever and then it being so hot. No weekend runs yet. I’m planning on adding in the long-er easy run this weekend, and then by the middle of next month, I’ll be running Saturdays and Sundays. I missed Tuesday’s run last week due to a work dinner, but don’t worry. I’ll be back on track.

I don’t really have much to report as far as my normal rambly Monday post, so we’ll just dive right on in to the WiP Wednesday fun!

This week, I shipped out my Alison Glass Mini Swap, and it’s actually out for delivery right now! I seriously can’t wait for my partner to get it. I went a little crazy, but I refuse to feel bad about it. 🙂

That’s the big project that’s been eating my life for a while, so I’m getting prepped to move onto other things. The next big ship date I have is the SPD Fairy Tale Mini on July 6. I’ve been playing with part of the pattern, and I’m really not loving how it’s working, so I’m going to have to run back to the drawing board with it. It makes me sad, but I don’t know what else to do. I had planned on doing a two-sided mini for that one, so I may just make it one-sided with your standard backing, but we’ll see. If I do that, I probably need to get a better fabric option for it. Maybe something from Heather Ross’ “Far Far Away.”

Other ship dates that are looming? The DCMQG Bee block for June still needs to be started. It’s a challenging pattern, so I’ll be super honest and admit that I haven’t had the courage to even decide on fabric yet. And, I’m also planning on submitting two blocks for #FloodTexasWithLove. One from me, and one for one of my very good quilty friends. She’s actually from Houston, and she really wanted to submit one, but she’s so swamped with work that I’m going to make hers.

That’s where we are this week. I’ve also been sketching/doodling ideas for my Michael Miller Fabric Challenge Quilt entry. I made the horrible mistake of looking through previous winners, and I’m kind of super freaked out about putting together a good design. Since the challenge is focused on the “Celebration Glitz” line, I’ve been trying to really focus on the “celebration” aspect. I’ve thrown around the idea of a memorial quilt for my grandmother, but I’m not completely on board with it yet. I’ve also played a little bit with the whole “runner with a fabric problem” concept, and I’m kind of loving that direction, but it has the potential to get really busy if I’m not super careful.

I did also finish cutting out 118 hexie paper pieces, which are for a surprise selfish sewing project. I want to dig in HARD to it, but I’m trying to exercise some restraint. You know, because I have eight million other things to do. Points to anyone who can guess why I need exactly 118 hexies. It’s going to be epic.

And, since I need an actual picture of something that’s a work in progress in order to participate in the official link-up over at Freshly Pieced, here’s a new bag pattern I’m working on. This had been planned as an extra for my Alison Glass MQS, but it just did not work as it is. I don’t love the execution, but I do love the concept and I am definitely going to be continuing to play with it as I have time. Eventually, it’ll work and I’ll write a tutorial or a pattern. I couldn’t find either when the concept popped into my brain, and I think the world needs this.

I want it to work so badly!

So, as long as we’re all here, just a reminder that you can access my running calendar and my swap calendar by clicking on the coral menu button at the top of the page. In addition, I’m going to be adding my WiPs either on a new page up there, or in the sidebar. Look for it!

WiP-Wednesday

Oops. This was supposed to go up yesterday. I’m not going to be super wordy here, and unfortunately, I don’t have a ton of pictures.

This week has been insane. Today (Thursday) is my first and only day this week without meetings, and I’m still drowning in files at work. My desk is a disaster. And, since I’ve had meetings, I worked late yesterday, the day I didn’t have run club or an evening meeting, and got home at 8. By the time we had had dinner, M was off to bed, and I was basically only able to interface part of a project and then change the thread in my machine from red to the dove I use for normal piecing. I am exhausted.

So, there hasn’t been a ton of progress. I did finish up that AG mini, I pulled fabric and cut part of the back for the SPD Fairy Tale mini. That HAS to get pieced tonight. I’m thinking that if I drive in to the office today, I can drive home immediately after run club, which will be faster. I should be able to get home in time for the MQG Webinar, which I’ll watch while piecing, I think.

So, without further ado, here’s my (very small) submission to Freshly Pieced‘s WiP Wednesday!

WiPs:
AG Mini Extras – all cut
SPD Fairy Tale Mini – mostly cut
Broadway Mini – fabric pulled, pattern finalized
HP Mini – pattern finalized,
Nola’s Quilt – cut, partly pieced
DB’s Quilt – cut, needs interfacing, sashing fabric finalized
Superhero Quilt – partly pieced, no new work done
Supernova Quilt – partly pieced, no new work done
50 States – HA.
POD – LOL.

Fabric pull/cuts

This is going to be adorable once it’s done. Just wait.

Why I Swap

This post has been bouncing around my brain for about two weeks now, so it’s probably about time to let it out. If you found me through Instagram, you’re probably aware that I have a minor problem. Okay, I might eventually need rehab for this problem, but it’s not alcohol or drugs. I’ve become a swap-a-holic.

I signed up for my first swap ever in August 2014. It was the Stitch It Swap, and we made little pouches full of office supplies. I joined because I saw the post on FB and was like “huh, apparently people who sew hang out on social media together and that’s super cool because no one I know sews.” (Excepting, of course, my cool friend out in Texas.) I felt very isolated in my sewing. Sure, I was making baby quilts and a couple people were talking about paying me to do things, but for the most part, my sewing was something I did to give away part of me. Which is awesome. I love it. And I really love seeing my baby quilts that have homes (as opposed to the ones sitting half-pieced on my sewing room floor) in the wild, being played with and on and it’s fantastic.

zoe

Seriously, getting those kinds of pictures warms the cockles of my stone cold heart. Also, I love those kids. As a quick side note, 2015 is the year both of their moms are getting married, and I’ll have the honor of having been in both weddings. ❤

But, as you probably know, there’s something about a project when you’re in the middle of it. And you need to talk about it and share it and just let it keep living on its own without smothering it. Until I started swapping, the only person who ever lived a project with me is the same person who still lives them with me – M. He’s pretty phenomenal, and he does a great job of humoring my need to talk through projects in real time, but he’s not a creative type, and he’s fairly easily bored by my “well, what do you think about this vs this vs this?” I felt incredibly isolated in what I do.

And then, I had my first swap. It was magical. I had all of these people who cared about the fabrics I picked and what I was doing with them. So, I signed up for the Schnitzel and Boo Mini Quilt Swap (Round 3) and got addicted to swapping on Instagram. Since August, I’ve sent out six little projects to new homes, and I have another 13 due to ship before the end of the year. And I’m hoping to host one…more details coming in the next few months.

My point though, is that I started swapping because I felt so stinking isolated. Sewing and quilting wasn’t something I did for fun or to escape anymore, it was something I felt like I had to do because I had made quilts for a few people so I should probably make them for everyone. I don’t feel isolated anymore. I’m back to sewing to escape “real life” – the pressures of work, mostly. Swapping partially gave me the courage to join a guild. Our guild is awesome, btw.

Why do I keep swapping? I keep swapping because these swaps challenge me. They challenge my creativity, they challenge my skills, they make me a better quilter. They make me a better artist (I use that term loosely – my drawing skills are crap.) Do you know what I made for the IG Pincushion Swap? A fairy home. Out of felt and furniture sliders and clay, because wood wasn’t allowed based on customs rules for Australia. Six months ago, I would have looked at a similar project and been like “holy crap that’s the most amazing thing ever.” I conquered it this year.

I MADE THIS.

I swap because I love connecting with my partners. I love learning more about each of them over the course of whatever the timeframe is by interacting with them on IG, and I love how often those little interactions turn into inspiration. I’ve had/have a few partners that I can’t find a connection with, and putting an idea together is actual torture. I’ve spent almost four months banging my head against a wall for one of my partners because we have nothing in common, including the swap theme. I have another partner who has basically not been active at all on IG since signing up for the swap. For more on this, please check out KarriofBerries’ post here.

And about that, in case you’re making something for me and you’re irritated because I haven’t been super helpful. For starters, I’m sorry. I do try to stay ahead of the swaps, but I’m not always super successful. Work gets in the way kind of a lot lately. I am going to spend the next week or so catching back up, and then getting some selfish sewing projects back into my rotation, so that my IG feed isn’t full of things for everyone else. Be patient with me, I’m working on getting there!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk a little about logistics around here. I’m going to try to post actual blogs on M/W/F. This was actually planned to go up yesterday, but I got stuck on the phone with Cox and then had to run to run club to make our run. (Thanks to mailfromcheekymonkey for getting my tucus back in gear!) And then I had to actually finish that LPS Disney Hoop Swap mosaic when I got home, instead of this. So, let’s run M/W/F. It seems most practical.

I’m also going to try to start linking my Wednesday posts to WiP Wednesday over with Freshly Pieced. I swear she used to have a button, but I can’t seem to find the code on her blog. I’m going to try to get it and add it over on the sidebar. And also a DCMQG one. Because why not?

For this week’s WiP Wednesday, I’m going to focus on the stuff that has to get done ASAP to get me caught up:

1. Finish quilting, then bind AG Mini Quilt.
2. Fabric pull and pattern finalization for SPD Fairy Tale Mini Quilt.
3. Finalize extras for AG Mini
4. First cuts for Broadway Mini Quilt
5. Fabric pull for Hogwarts, and quilt math.
6. Finish up exterior for mom’s Sew Together Bag, then finish assembly.

I think tonight is going to focus on finishing up my AG Mini to send out. I have one extra for that done, five others cut and ready to piece, and then I need to get myself to a couple places to pick up a few things.