Monday, September 13, 2010

giveaway alert!

In keeping with my promise to share really neat giveaway alerts with you, here is another one:

I think we all know Rashida Coleman-Hale of I Heart Linen, right? Well, she has graciously offered up a fantastic prize on Petite Purls. Seriously, SO good (it includes a copy of her book)! So go check it out and win yourself something nice!


a sneak peak

Life has been busy here. Even though this is my husbands second year back at school, I really felt the rush and business of "back to school" season this time around.

Maybe it's because we said goodbye to his little brother as he went back to University in Ontario, or because we gained a brand new roommate (who is totally awesome!)or because there were so many preparations and so much cleaning, shopping and organizing that goes along with those things.

Joel started an internship at the Calgary Counseling Centre last week. He is officially more than 1/2 way done his Masters in Counseling Psychology and this internship is not only a great learning experience but a really neat opportunity for him. But, working at the CCC 3 days a week and taking FOUR masters level courses tends to leave one a little busy.

After a super relaxing summer of not much work, I am back full-time and loving it. I never get tired of hanging out with the great kids I nanny. This morning I got an unexpected phone call giving me an extra 2 hours until work, so I thought it was high time I churned out a blog post.

I have been sewing like crazy. Crunch time is on because I have a LOT of projects due in the next month or so. I finally finished my mini quilt swap for July/August in the theme of landscapes. I can't show anything but a sneak peak right now as the swap partner in question is the dear friend we just visited in Portland and she reads this blog. SO, you will have to wait until she gets it to see the full mini. Let's just say, I am extremely happy with how it turned out.

STUD July/August Sneak Peak - Sent

So you don't think I am boring and have nothing, here are some posts to look forward to. Two new quilts (or old, since I guess you've already seen the tops) to be finished by the end of the week. A new baby quilt commission, 2 new mini quilts for swap, the rest of what I did on my summer vacation, wedding gifts, a single girl quilt update and more! yay! Please don't leave me. :)

Saturday, September 4, 2010

what i did on my summer vacation: part two

Powell's!

powell's city of books
(Borrowed from Peyri's Photostream)

What can I say about this place? It's fantastic! I didn't actually spend a whole lot of time there but I loved what I saw. 5 stories filled to the bring with new and old books and all sorts of fun bits and pieces. A true book lovers paradise.

The reason I didn't spend much time there was because we took our sweet time checking out Bolt.

close knit & bolt - Portland, Oregon
(Borrowed from john.murden's Photostream)

What a cool store! Easily my favourite fabric store outside of Canada. Cute, chock full of great fabric and patterns and super nice helpful staff. I found myself a delicious pile of fabric (after more than an hour of circling the store over and over again).

New Fabric!

In that pile there is some stuff I don't recognize, but there are some serious treats there too. Some Far Far Away II, some Momo, some Echino. And all at wonderful, reasonable American prices!

I also picked up a pattern:

Ice Cream Dress

I LOVE this pattern! My problem is I don't have anyone to make it for. I guess I could make it for cute little Miss A, but I thought it wouldn't be fair if C didn't get something too. Unfortunately, there haven't been any totally awesome boys patterns that have caught my eye. I'll have to keep thinking on that one.

One of the things I had planned on doing was quilting with Krissy. We managed to pull each other's names in the August swap for Swap Till You Drop and had planned on finishing our quilts together and exchanging. Unfortunately (fortunately?), we did SO much adventuring while we were there we didn't really get more than an hour or so in. Oh well!

Krissy's mini is getting finished as I type (or well, not as I TYPE per-say because clearly I don't have more than 2 hands, but you know what I mean) and the plan is to send it out on Tuesday. More on that when it's done.