Handmade Christmas

If I had it my way, I'd spend all of my time making handmade gifts for friends and family, for birthdays, Christmas, and sometimes just because!  Unfortunately, real life tends to get in the way.  But I did get to make one thing for a new grad. school friend!  

He SAVED MY LIFE one day when I left my brown folder (that just happened to have a lot of IMPORTANT papers in it) on a chair outside the Ferguson Center.  While I was at home having a heart attack, he walked over and found it for me.  :)  And since he's always wearing a Superman t-shirt...

I dubbed him Superman.  :)

(Doesn't his ornament look so weird hanging on my girly tree?  LOL)

My Semester in Pictures

I'm officially done with my first semester of graduate school!!!  I just finished writing the conclusion to my last final paper, a seminar paper for my eighteenth-century class.  I've already emailed my Teaching Comp. final, and I'll turn in the other two tomorrow morning.  Phew!!!  I've never been done with finals before Finals Week actually started!  It's a nice feeling!

Here are a few pictures to contextualize my grad. school experience.  :)

These are only the library books, for one paper.  :)  

This is the most practical use they were put to.  (The picture quality is horrible, so like a good English major, I'll describe it in words.  "A leaning tower of books, of exactly the right height to allow my laptop to be level with the printer in my entertainment center.")  Don't judge my prose, I just spent 7 hours finishing a paper about letters in the eighteenth-century novel.  The fact that I'm still writing in Standard English qualifies as a miracle.  Seriously, tell the Pope.  

Wait, where are the rest of the pictures?  Oh yeah, I was too busy writing to take any.  :)

Christmas Break, here I come!!!

I lied, this is only a pre-Christmas update :)

I haven't gotten much in the way of craftiness done around here, but I did at least get my Christmas tree set up! Finally!!!

Now, I have very specific tastes when it comes to Christmas trees (and Christmas in general).  I dream of an old-fashioned, classic Christmas.  Think White Christmas and Irving Berlin.  Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, red mittens, and hot cocoa.  All that jazz.  Unfortunately, my apartment is a little small for the genuine Christmas tree of my dreams (plus I couldn't blackmail any male friends into dragging one up the stairs for me :) so I'll have to make do.  

And if it can't be real...

It might as well be PINK!!!

Preview

I'll write a longer post later, but I wanted to show you a sample of my newest obsession.  :)  (Or rather, an old obsession revived.)

Close up

Finished product

In process

Decisions, decisions...

I've got an abstract to write and five articles to read by tomorrow, so of course...

I'm sewing and listening to Taylor Swift's new CD Speak Now!!!

Don't judge.  You wish you were too.  :)

But I've encountered a dilemma.  (Do you encounter a dilemma?  Experience a dilemma?  Hit your head against a dilemma as you try to run from it?)

I need to choose between one of three layouts for this baby quilt.  

A)  The layout of the original pattern

B)  Some solid blocks intermingled

C)  Different solid blocks intermingled, but I think the pattern isn't random enough?

Which one do you like best???

My first doll quilt...

And it's probably the first of many.  So fun and quick to make!  

It took exactly one jelly roll strip to bind a 9x9 in doll quilt.  How handy.  :)

I've never tried pinning down the binding before as I sew it down by hand, but I did this time and I was amazed at how much easier it was!  Usually my hands ache after sewing down the binding, but I'm typing away and they're fine.  :)

There are the most amazing doll quilt swaps on flickr, so inspirational!  Maybe one day I'll feel skilled enough to join in.  :)

Squiggles!!!

I had a nice, lazy day today, but somewhere in the middle of it I started feeling a little productive.  I don't really know how it happened, but suddenly I was motivated to finish that dratted piano key border on nephew's baby quilt.  So... I did!  

Not only that, but I kept going and prepared the batting and backing...

and then I quilted that sucker!!!  That's the great thing about baby quilts, once you sit down to do it, everything goes so quickly!

I was very brave and tried some free motion quilting.  It's not perfect, but hopefully I'll keep improving.  :)

To combat imperfection, I decided to quilt some "purposefully" imperfect squiggles down the seams and in the borders.  I kind of like it!!!

And since nephew gets a quilt, I think niece should too.  :)  And if I can find the time to put a binding on this mini quilt, she'll have an almost matching one for her Barbie dolls.  :)

Time to go continue being lazy.  :)