Helpful Hint

I know it's late. DH is ready for bed and I just don't feel like I can wind down yet, so I am hoping blogging will help.

Today/tonight I remembered a tip/hint/piece of advice that I always try to follow.

Know when to walk away and take a break.

My day: trying to finish up a quilt for my nephew's birthday gift (which pictures will be posted after it is given. this is my rule that I stick to and you can see in past posts I always do) and I was attempting to spray baste the quilt.  Of course I always clear off and wipe down my kitchen table and do it there...but this quilt is a larger lap size and needed more space.  So I swept and cleaned my kitchen floor and laid it all out to baste by myself. (Which I always try to baste my stuff while there is someone else around because I don't know about you all, but sometimes it's like an Olympic sport trying to get those layers smoothed out)

So after I thought everything was fine and smooth, I got it up out of the floor only to find a nice size bubble on the back. Terrific.  So I put it down and made a necklace.  And of course DH wasn't home for me bribe for help.

The plan is to have help to re-baste the back and then quilt it and bind it and give it to him by the weekend.  But we will see what happens.

The necklace I made was pretty cool :)

Tomorrow will be full of house work and getting ready for the week and I hope to make up some hair bows, which is something I haven't done in quite a while.

And since I haven't posted pictures in a while...This isn't the necklace I made tonight, I will post that later..

This is a necklace I made from black and turquoise beads.  You can find this and other homemade items at thurmans.etsy.com!

Thanks for reading tonight!

Life on the outside

of college that is!

I must say it is pretty amazing to finally be done with college after 5 years of busting my you-know-what.

But now what to do with all of my time is the real question here.  This week I worked a lot (at the day job) and I had little time for crafting because sadly, when I got home from work all I wanted to do was...well...nothing.

Currently: I am watching Sherlock Holmes with DH and "working".

I define "working" as working on my dream job ie: blogging, and uploading things to my etsy site to sell items that I loved making.  (again I will share the site info with you after I do a little more work to it. thanks for hanging in there)

My MAIN reason for wanting to make a living from quilting and crafting:

I really do LOVE to quilt and craft and I love coming up with new ideas for myself or seeing and making ideas from patterns made by others.  And when I gift items to my loved ones that I have made I see how happy they are and (often) how amazed they are that I am capable of making handmade gifts.  Or when I sell items to people, I love to hear later after they give the gifts how excited the recipient was.  (And I am blessed that gift giving sometimes creates more sales which allows me to keep doing what I love)

Another thing I am VERY thankful for: Today is Friday :) which means I am a super busy bee tomorrow because I need to quilt one quilt and machine stitch the binding (I then turn it and hand-stitch the back side) and I also need to finish sewing blocks together for another quilt and chalk up some quilting lines!

Confession: I am still new to quilting on my (amazing) Janome so I still use chalk lines, and I'm not ashamed to share!

Dream: One day own an (amazing) quilting machine and I won't have to use chalk lines :)

Fun fact: I am now 23 years old and I have been sewing quilt tops since 2007 (in '07 I was a senior and graduated from high school)

One more Friday Fun Fact: I looked up when a local quilt guild meets and I am considering going to my very first quilt guild meeting next Thursday! I don't care if I am the youngest person there (unless someone brings a young granddaughter along) because I will most likely connect more with the wonderful people I will meet than with people my own age.  And honestly, I am okay with that :)

ALSO, one more note: QUILT EXPO AT KCI EXPO CENTER IN OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!

Who's excited?! THIS GIRL IS! Absolutely CANNOT wait!

Hopefully this story will tide you over for now :)

Have a totally fab weekend!

Life as I've always known it...

Involving school anyway...

Is about to come to a halt! In 30 minutes I will take the last final for my Bachelors degree!

Then I can get on with my craft life!

I will definitely let you know how it goes!

Update!

Hello!

I have been busy, busy! Unfortunately not with anything fun.  You know, boring adult, grown up stuff.

BUT I have been trying to make a little time for crafting every night and that has resulted in... well a necklace and working more towards getting my Etsy site running.  (Which I will share that site with you shortly after I get that up and running a little better)

I have also been working towards getting my posts transferred over.  So if any of you have any suggestions on the best way to do so... Please let me know!

Thanks for reading!

D

P.S. I have successfully transferred over all of my posts from 2010! Whew! What a move.  Please feel free to read and explore my past projects.  Thanks to the lovely, updated version of Blogger I can now adjust the date and time stamp to match my original post!  This is super exciting!

Greetings!

Hello readers,

Thank you for following me to my new site!  Please bear with me while I get this new blog up and running.

Currently:  I have been doing more crafting and less blogging.  Plus I have been working full time while trying to finish up my degree (4 weeks left!)

I have been dabbling in jewelry making while still working on quilts.  I have also been making plans to organize and simplify everything in our home.

I have a lot of envy for the women and young women who can balance work and home and still have everything clean, and for the mothers who stay home and still have everything clean! (I know you exist, I've read your blogs!)

I have also been planning to get my etsy site (found here) more up and running and (hopefully) make some sales!

I have big plans after school is finally out.  I will have more time for crafting and cooking and all other domestic activities that I prefer to do over other things.

Again, thank you for continuing to read and I will make a point to get my other blog entries over to this one so there isn't any confusion.

Follow me on twitter @mrsb530

Huggies,
D

oh my!

20 days have passed since my last blog!

Well let me tell you what I have been doing!

Currently: I am struggling to listen/watch an online Microeconomics lecture. Blah.  But I have to do it so I will.
I also came to campus (where I am now..) an hour early for some help with my calculus homework.

I have a test next week in my Risk Management & Insurance class....and we've only had that class two times. No worries, I got this!

And all other classes are full of extra work too...of course.

I know one day I will look back at all of these college moments and say "Wow! And I thought I had problems then!" or something along the lines of "I wish the only thing I had to worry about was acing a calculus test!"

(I like to pretend to be wise on occasion)

Anyway...I found this organizing blog here that I intend to use.  So whatever is on this blog is what I plan on doing in my house.

Sorry this post isn't too crafty but I haven't had time to even go in my sewing room.

So now I am going back to watching my microeconomics lecture...

Have a good day everyone!

<Basically this post was to share the link for the organizing blog...haha>

Busy bee...buzzzbuzzz

YES! I have been so busy! Which is shocking since I haven't started school yet and I'm taking time off work.

Ever since the new year hit my body went into you-will-never-stop-blowing-your-nose mode.  Horrible, but I've been getting a lot done.

I've been trying to get a lot of sewing done before I start my LAST semester of undergrad! Super exciting for everyone who has ever met me (lol).

Let's see....in the past week or so I have:
-finished a baby quilt top, quilted, and I'm almost done binding it
-finished another baby quilt top and I'm thinking of how I want to quilt it now...
-finally quilted a Christmas ...thingy? I call it a thingy because I don't know if I want it on the back of the couch as a decoration, or if I want it as a table topper, or if I want to sell it and let someone else decide what it is (haha)

Right this second I am cutting binding for a quilt that has been in my "inbox" and I've just been putting it off.

While I'm here, here are a few more pictures...

These are super cute dish towels! Here is where I found the template for the hanging part.  I just bought a 6 pack of towels from Wal-Mart and there I went! They made super cute Christmas gifts :)  Plus I used some buttons from my mom's button jar.

This is a set of John Deere "snack mats".  We've seen mug rugs and we all own place mats of some kind.  Well these mats are made for snacking! This was a gift for Christmas too :)

Snack mats for a motorcycle fan! 

This is what I have for you for today.  The weather here today is B-E-A-U-TIFUL! I hope you're having nice weather wherever you are :)