Sunday, December 29, 2013

Finding Time

Of course
The year is almost over. I appreciate the time I've had recently to spend with my family, friends, crafts, and by myself.

It seems like nearly every day this month had some scheduled activity. Hopefully I'll feel like writing more about it later.

Just wanted to share a fun shot from this afternoon. Sitting in a sunny front room, listening to some great music* and sewing whatever the heck I felt like sewing.

Test blocks Sunday afternoon
My two current [active] projects are Elodie from the game Long Live The Queen and the scrap fabric quilt planned since Thanksgiving. Turns out my mother made me an amazing quilt for Christmas out of most of the fabric I was scrapping!

Satisfying work Potential!
I spent all Monday sipping tea, sniffling due to a cold, and cutting 2.5" x 2.5" squares. It was fabulously calming after such a hectic month. When my mother got home from work both eyebrows rose rather dramatically and she asked if I "saw anything I liked". This is amusing because I knew she had made aprons for both my sisters and my sister's roommate. I assumed perhaps I might have been getting an apron too. HA!
My mother made me a quilt!
I love that when the youngest sister arrived home she bee-lined to the fabric pile I was working with. "Wow! Am I getting something? This looks like my kind of fabric!" she exclaimed right away, picking out the crumpled backing fabric for her apron. It was this horrid print of off-white/vaguely yellow cotton with light blue stripes on it. Very prairie kitchen-esque. It's amusing to know what you love and to find out that others know it too. For the record, the quilt's colors are spot on for me. Muted browns and blues, rusty reds, a pinch of gold, and a dash of black.

Other things to cover soon: Christmas cookie swap! Top books & music from this year. Recently watched movie reviews. Shareable code from my last work hackday.


* Apparently everything Lorde does is amazing.

Also listened to: http://asoftmurmur.com/?v=051500000503

Monday, December 2, 2013

The Season

Fabric Hopes
While I frequently get quite depressed before Spring comes around again, I love Fall and early Winter. Which is where we're at right now. Halloween, my birthday, and Thanksgiving always come around in a wave of goodness. Eating, costumes, celebrations with friends and family. I also am quite fond of American Christmas and "The Holidays". While I've no tolerance of any of that religious nonsense, I enjoy the decorations, special color schemes, beautiful gift wrapping, cut trees, and emphasis on lights that "The Holidays" bring.

Had a lovely Thanksgiving this year. PURPLE POTATOES! SO GOOD! (visually that is-- taste wise they were exactly the same as the white potatoes... aka DELICIOUS!) Am wondering how I can work purple potatoes in to some cookies some time soon... It was the first time Adam's mother met my parents, so there was that. I'm looking forward to Christmas, where the whole family (sadly without significant others) will be together again before being blown our separate ways for the rest of the year.

Through casual conversation I have now secured myself access to carve up my mother's fabric collection into tiny squares for quilting purposes (something that I'm not willing to do to *my* precious fabric collection) and I'm quite excited! Just three weeks, three holiday parties, two birthdays, two soccer games, two gingerbread bouts, one table top game, one cookie exchange, and one crab feast to go!