Sick again :-(

My old trusty Singer is sick again... she was humming along on our Quilts for Kids quilt and all the sudden her feed dogs just stopped moving. I oiled a couple different areas and Mr. Crafty took some stuff apart (and forgot how it went back together) but no luck. So she goes to the doctor tomorrow or Tuesday.

Stats final tomorrow, back to studying! I don't start my next class until March 11th so I actually was going to have some time to finish some UFO's.

Grrrrr......... I'm annoyed!

Heather Ross Gnomes

Can I just say my 30th birthday is just 30 days away and if you are looking for something to get me for the big day - I WANT, I WANT, I WANT HEATHER ROSS GNOMES! They are available on Spoonflower as we speak. Mom, if you are reading this blog, this is what I want from you & Dad! (And I know I sound like a petulant teenager but these adorable gnomes just drive me nuts with their adorable awesomeness!)

In case you are just dying to know my plans for my birthday, which conveniently falls on a Saturday, we are having an awesome 80's-themed party! And the following afternoon, we're heading to a Diamondbacks Spring Training game - one of the last in Tucson. So sad the Dbacks are leaving Tucson, no more Spring Training in town after this year :-(

Giveaway at Jandi In Stiches

Blogger Jandi In Stiches has a giveaway on her blog this week. Head over and check it out! Super duper cute fabric and her blog's playlist is pretty awesome. Just heard Popular by Nada Surf. Now that takes me back!

This month's bee blocks

This month for the Coast to Coast Block Party Quilting Bee Ebony sent gorgeous pink, green and black & white fabrics and asked us to do free form log cabin blocks for her. I finally was able to work on them the end of the week since I was caught up with school for a second (more homework to get done later today).

These are the blocks I made for her. I added the solid white, the black on black swirl and the pink leaf fabric from my stash. I went a little too wonky and was running out af fabric with more width to add to the blocks!

I am also working on getting my fabric ready to mail out to the ladies. I washed and pressed it last night, now I need to cut it.

March is my month and I have something different in store for them. You'll have to come back later to find out what it is.

Rachel at P.S. I Quilt posted the first of her Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along blocks. Soooo want to work on that. I found a layer cake of Love U by Deb Strain on sale and bought it. Shhhh, don't tell Mr. Crafty. I haven't told him about that purchase yet. And we went to Joann's yesterday so that story will have to wait another day to be told. But he did buy me a larger cutting mat for my birthday next month! They were on sale 40% off.

Introducing the crafty assistants

Nothing too crafty has happened at the house lately. I decided to go back to school full-time for a second master's degree while working full-time. Am I nuts? Probably! Much of my time has been spent reading, doing stats homework and writing papers. Quilting and other crafty things are my "treat" for when I finish my homework. And I am getting grumpy because I haven't had a treat lately!*

I wanted to take a second to introduce my crafty assistants, Maggie and Rory. Actually, Maggie is my quality assurance supervisor. Everyone needs a cat supervisor to make sure there work comes out right!

Rory "assisting" me with binding a quilt

Maggie checking the quality of my work

*Actually, I worked on Ebony's blocks for a few minutes last night between dishes & laundry. But no substantial crafting time for a few weeks.

Heather Ross Gnomes!

Have you heard the news? Some of Heather Ross' out of print & hard to find fabrics will soon be available through Spoonflower! I love, love, love me some gnomes! I splurged recently a bought a leg of pj's of her pink gnomes on Etsy. I just couldn't help myself, I NEEDED it. And that is what I will tell Mr. Crafty when I finally tell him. The fabric is currently stashed at work, no joke!

(Photo from Heather's blog)

Thanks for the head's up Craftyblossom!

For those of you unfamiliar with Spoonflower, you can upload your own images and they will print them on fabric for you. Or you can purchase fabric designed & uploaded by someone else. Pretty cool, huh?

Busted?

I got home from class tonight - it's supposed to be from 4:30-9:30pm every Monday but we have yet to stay much past 8pm, I'm not complaining! - and was reading some of the blogs I follow to unwind. Mr. Crafty busts into the office/guest room and says "You're looking at quilt porn, aren't you?!"

I actually had just finished checking out the latest post on the Coast to Coast Block Party blog of Wendy's wonky log cabin block for Ebony when he busted into the office. I really need to check my mailbox to see if Ebony's fabric made it all the way from Maryland to Tucson...

This Saturday, I went to my friend Asma's henna party. She is getting married next month and I will lose my last work buddy since she is moving to Houston, which makes me very sad. But I am really happy for her. Asma is originally from Pakistan and henna parties are part of the pre-wedding festivities. the photo above is from just after the henna was applied to my hand and the one below is what my hand looked like the next morning. The color actually got darker after I took the picture (and was a little darker than it looks in the photo).

The women at the party all wore gorgeous brightly colored traditional silk outfits and I was definitely jealous that my sweater and dress pants just were not as cool. I took photos at the henna party but cannot show you any of Asma and her sisters. They wear scarves on their heads in public but were un-scarved at the party. The photo below is Asma's hands. I don't know if you can see the peacock or not.


And these two little girls were soooo freaking cute and well-behaved!

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My?

This morning, I finally dragged my lazy butt out of bed for a run. I headed out to Sabino Canyon to meet up with some Team In Training folks (they are training for a 1/2 marathon, I just tagged along). I LOVE running at Sabino Canyon, even though it's 7.4 miles of hills if you run all the way to the top. I do not love hills but I love Sabino Canyon. It reminds me why I love living in the desert. And today's weather reminded me why I tolerate the summer heat (but it's a dry heat!!!).
Yes, that is water running over the road we ran on! How did I cross it, you ask? I ran straight through it, splashing all the way!!! I channeled my inner child and had a huge smile on my face. (OK, if it didn't actually show on my face, I was definitely smiling in my head). The photo above is one of the bridges where the water was deepest yesterday. There are 7 or 8 bridges and all but one had water running over it. They are actually designed so that when there is a flash flood or just a decent amount of rain, like we've gotten over the past several weeks, the water that can't go under the bridge goes over the bridge.

Now you might be asking, didn't your feet get soaked? Wasn't the water cold? Yes and yes! That's part of the fun. The water in your shoes warms up within a few seconds but it is mountain runoff so it is a bit cold.

(Other people about to cross the fun way.)

Now some people get to the water and either take off their shoes & socks and gingerly make their way across or put baggies on their feet. Boo! There actually is an annual race at Sabino Canyon and the summer rains usually mean that the 500+ runners are splashing their way through.
And you might be wondering, why did she call this "Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My?" That would be because driving into the parking lot, the park ranger stopped all cars to warn them that there had been mountain lion sightings and give out pamphlets. My reaction to this news - Meh, I'm still going to run. Not gonna stop me. Did not see any mountain lions but I forgot to snap a photo of the warning sign for you. Do you like my bridge warning sign above? It makes me giggle and yes that sign is just before each & every bridge heading up and down the canyon.

The photo above is actually from one of my runs with Team In Training during the summer. The others were taken with my phone today. You can see the sun coming up over the Canyon but it takes awhile for the sun to reach IN the canyon so the 5am summer runs there are so enjoyable. I was really disappointed this past summer because there wasn't enough rain (major drought going on here in the desert) for the water to flow, let alone flow over the bridges. Yesterday's run was a great and challenging 6 miles for me. Time to get back into training shape...

While I was running, I thought about my college friends and my bee friends in the middle of their snow storm. And, not to make any of you mad, I was really happy I didn't have to deal with that and I could run at Sabino Canyon splashing through the water. This is why I endure the oppressive heat of late-May, June, July, August and early-September. Oh, and the Spring Training too! I didn't get Ebony's fabric in the mail this week but I DID get my tickets to the spring training game next month that we are taking my parents to as their Christmas gift. Go Dbacks! Please don't take spring training out of Tucson.

New hobby for the Mr.

I have been reading The Sometimes Crafter's digital photography introduction this week. I have been wanting to get a SLR digital camera but haven't exactly had the funding. So I emailed my brother, the photojournalist, about The Sometimes Crafter's series and asked if he had any suggestions about where we could get a decent SLR camera inexpensively. He offered to let us buy one of his old cameras, a Canon EOS 10D SLR camera for dirt cheap. Call it the sister discount if you want but I'll take it. (This after he sold his old unwanted toys to me when we were kids!) It's currently his backup backup camera.

Mr. Crafty Jennifer loves photography and is very excited. He took photography in high school and loved it. He has his parents old Pentex camera and my Canon that I got when I tried to take black & white photography in college (horrible instructor, I ended up dropping it!). But he hasn't been using these film camera so he is very excited to use something other that our point & shoot Olympus camera. I asked him if he can take the pictures of my quilts and stuff so I can FINALLY get my Etsy site up and running :-)

Now, we just need to find a decent lens cheaply. My brother offered to sell us one of his but it's a little outside the budget for what we planned to spend.

Quilts for Kids kit arrived!!!

Just before lunch, my co-worker tells me a package arrived for me. I wasn't expecting anything so I gave her a puzzled expression until I looked at the return address. It said "Quilts for Kids"!!!

I opened up the envelope and look at the beautiful fabric that was staring back at me. (I snapped these photos with my phone. Luckily, it's another sunny Tucson day!)


The fabric is from the Cherie by Masha D'yans line from Clothworks. I found the rest of the collection here.

I'm supposed to hit the gym and then read more in my Adult Psych book when I get home from work today... it's going to be hard to concentrate!

I also need to dig through my stash and see what fabrics I have to put together at least one more quilt to send to Quilts for Kids.