A Bee Block for Bibi

For August in the Coast 2 Coast Block Party Bee, Bibi asked us to make a block for her son using some of her fantastic scraps and Oh Fransson's Map of the States tutorial. I really like how this turned out. It was a fun bee block to make, although I'm not sure that I'd like to do it for a whole quilt. It is a bit time consuming because you are basically fussy cutting each piece. But I did love being able to pick which part of the fabric I could use.

And for those Trixie fans out there {I keep joking with Mr. Crafty that I need to make her a Facebook fan page} she was "helping" me when I got out my cutting board to cut my batting down to size for my brother's quilt.

Don't worry, she was no where near the sharp sissors. She spent some time in the bathroom with her toys. She cried the entire time and made me feel bad. But she hasn't learned what is and what is not a toy. She also hasn't learned that I am not actually a jungle gym and that she should not play on me with her claws out. Trust me, I have the scratches to prove it!

This morning's amusement

I don't often talk about work around here. I work for a state university in their Extended Campuses. Which means these days {not the "glory days" three years ago} there is very little money for even office supplies.

Mr. Crafty likes to joke about how I work for Northern Arizona University in southern Arizona. Yes, I work for Northern Arizona University in southern Arizona {we're a 4 hour drive from the main campus but the entire Extended Campuses divsion accounts for 1/3rd of NAU's students}. I don't know why Mr. Crafty finds this so amusing, he finished the degree he started at the main campus in Flagstaff here in Tucson and is the "poster child" for Extended Campuses. Ok, maybe not the poster child... but he really is exactly like the students we see here. But I digress...

Part of my job, and now an ever increasing part of my job, is recruiting. Remember how I said that we are a state university and we have very little money? When our higher ups announced this new recruitiment push, we asked if we could have our color laser printer back. No printer :-(

So next I asked if I could get 1 ream of each color of paper. Yes, just one ream. And I got it. I think I actually did a happy dance when my coworker told me she was ordering color paper for me and what colors did I want.

So today, I am updating my recruiting bag {which is a 5 year old scrapbooking bag bought online from Joann's for half price that is falling apart} and I pulled my reams of color paper out of their hiding place. Oh yes, I have to hide them or our faculty would have used them up by now. No joke. One of our faculty members took the brand new spindle of 100 CD's from the supply cabinet. We haven't been able to replace it yet so if I need to take a powerpoint or something with me, I have to put it on my personal thumb drive or email it to myself. So you can see why my reams of color paper were hidden. Ahhh, I digressed again...

So these are the pretty views I got while manning {or womanning} the copier.

Anyone else see a future quilt in there? I sure do! The white sheets in between the colors are my originals and they definitely look like sashing to me.

Look at those strata of pretty! Yes, that's a geology reference. It's like the layers of strata in the Grand Canyon or Sedona but in color paper.

Couple of things I've been working on

Hmmm, my month of crafty-ness during my four week break from school really has not materialized. And now I have 2 classes that start on Monday. Boo!

What was I thinking doing another master's degree? Some days, I have no clue! And although I haven't had classes to worry about, August is always killer at work. Working for a university, it is usually one of our busiest times of the year.

I have done a couple projects I wanted to share with you. And I am finishing up a couple things this week too. I'll show you those when I am done.

{I also have finished 3 and a half non-school books. All of them total chick lit. I found during my first master's program that chick lit was my anti-school reading. It's easy on the brain. And usually a fast read. Perhaps that might be part of the reason I haven't completed many projects?}

A couple weeks ago, I had to travel to Phoenix {4 hours roundtrip in the car} for work twice in three days. The first trip, I didn't bring anything in the car with me since quilting is not typically very mobile. But I was insanely jealous of my co-worker/friend Emily who worked on a crocheted blanket in the car. So the second trip to & from Phoenix, I made this.

Pardon the crappy pics, I took them in the car with my cell phone. This is currently in our kitchen but it's been raining each night this week when I got home from work so I haven't gotten a better pic yet. Also, the towel was an old towle because I am still learning and didn't want to "screw up" a new one.

Oh, and Mr. Crafty's comment when I showed him: "Cool! But why'd you use the towel I wiped car grease on?" Ummm, Mr. Crafty, why are you using our kitchen towels on the cars when we have an entire supply of shop rags from Costco? {sigh, MEN!}

Both are Jenny Hart's Sublime Stitching designs. {I added the "Sweet!" to the old man lemon}

Last Saturday, Mr. Crafty & I drove to Phoenix/Mesa to celebrate my dad's birthday. He loves bowling, so we went bowling after lunch. And by some miracle, I beat BOTH Mr. Crafty {Dan} AND my dad {Steve} in both games.

{My brother, who flew in from Missouri for the weekend, beat me both games. But we won't talk about that, it'll just give him an even bigger head than he already has}

Anyway, the crafty part of the visit...

I STILL haven't finished my brother and sis-in-law's quilt that was their Christmas present. The top has been done since December 23rd but I just have not gotten it put together. I have excuses galore... but...

To make peace, I ran to Target Saturday morning on my way home from my run with the Team {still accepting donations for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. And I ain't too proud to beg} and grabbed some clearance kitchen towels. I actually was looking for some striped ones but couldn't find any but stumbled on these on one of the clearance endcaps. Oh, how I love Target! I wasn't sure how they would work since they are waffle towles but they came out OK. There is a second towel for my brother, but I only got this one finished during the ride up there so I just didn't mention the second one. These are also Jenny Hart designs, from her China Town collection.

The top symbol is double happiness and my brother and {Chinese} sis-in-law used this all over in the decorations for their wedding reception. I used backstitch and stem stitch for these.

More to come later this week... hopefully including the Raspberry Limeade Pinwheel quilt tutorial/pattern

Dream On Winner

Wow, 249 comments! I originally thought I would be happy with like 50 comments.

I enjoyed reading all your comments and am trying to respond to every comment personally. I still have a few more to go. And I am not sure if the emails I sent from my phone went through, sometimes I think my phone hates me, but it's close to time to get new phones. {Don't get me wrong, for the most part the G1 has been great and I have yet to pay for an app but sometimes I email Mr. Crafty and he doesn't get it}

I selfishly asked the question about your favorite part of summer because this is the time of year where I get fed up with summer. Living in the desert Southwest, summer lasts a really long time. And it's monsoon season so now it's hot AND humid. But many of you reminded me the good parts about summer. And now I really want to try to plant a little garden here next spring. Our townhouse has less than perfect conditions for a garden, a teeny backyard that gets sun nearly all day. Oh yeah, and I have a black thumb. I once killed bamboo in my office. But I digress...

{In case you were wondering, my favorite season is spring}

And now for the winner...

Drum roll please...

And the winner is... Joy!

Joy, I'll be sending you an email in a little bit. I'm off to run 14 miles with my friends in Team In Training so it might be later today. {Yes, it's 4:30am as I am writing this}

Crafting for a cause

Looking for my blog-iversary giveaway? See the next post... but please read here first! Thank you.

I have talked about this a couple other times but I am currently raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society as a member of Team In Training. As part of my training for the Nike Women's Marathon on October 17th, I pledged to raise $3500 for this great organization and their mission. They provide support for patients and their families, as well as research for new treatments and to find a cure for blood cancers. A cure for blood cancers could mean a cure for ALL cancers.

While this is a cause near and dear to my heart, it really hit home for me again recently. Our coordinator, who lost her husband 11 years ago to cancer, was just diagnosed with breast cancer herself. Ironically, her husband was a scientist who worked on the early stages of a cancer treatment drug that probably would have saved his life. Here is a woman who spends her days helping those and their families battle cancer, assisting people like me with their fundraising, and coordinating recruiting new participants, travel plans for our races and basically working her butt off. And her response "I'll be fine" and somewhere in there she also reminded all of us to get our yearly exams too. My 12 mile hill run {yes, I said 12 miles and hills together} on Saturday morning was dedicated to her and others that have been recently diagnosed.

Now you don't have to get up at 4am and do a 20 mile training run, I'll do that for you. There are too many children and adults out there going through their own marathons - with cancer treatment. I want to help these people but I need your help to do that.

As part of my fundraising for LLS, I am raffling off two quilts I've made, pictured above & below. Both a lap quilt-sized, with the Land & Sea (blue & green) measuring approx 46" x 52" and the Raspberry Limeade (pink & green) measuring approx 42" x 60". Every $10 donated to this cause gets you 1 raffle entry, and each $50 gets you an additional entry. Example: donate $30, get 3 entries; donate $50, get 6 entries; and donate $100, get 12 entries. Winners for each quilt will be drawn at random August 25th.

Make your tax-deductible, secure online donation here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/nikesf10/jennifer

AND you get an extra TWO entries for each friend that you refer to this raffle that makes a donation. Have your friend put your name in the "additional comments" section on the donation page or email me at jennifer.wellborn@gmail.com.

Thank you for your support!

First Blog-iversary Giveaway!!!

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!

A couple days ago marked one year since my first crafty blog post ever. I missed celebrating with all of you on the actual day for several reasons. The main reasons are that I finished 2 summer school classes the day before, then reported to jury duty and was trying to figure out what to do for Mr. Crafty's birthday {which was yesterday}. I am happy to report that in the past week, I  have read TWO non-school books. But not much crafty to report. Oh, I did make these delicious snickerdoodle cupcakes for Mr. Crafty...

By the end of this month I hope to have a pattern/tutorial for this quilt... saying it out loud will make me do it, right?

Anyway, now to the giveaway. I thought about this over the past couple months. What did I really want to share with all of you? When I saw the Dream On line by Urban Chiks for Moda, I knew I wanted to give some Dream On away... and then I got it in my home and started thinking I might keep it. I love the vintage sheet-ish feel to it and I am a floral fan but more the 60's & 70's florals than your traditional florals.But I am not keeping it, I am giving it away to some lucky reader!

Here's what you get: Uptown Girl pattern by Carolina Patchworks and three charm packs of Dream On

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!
AND you get more than one opportunity to enter to win. Here's all the ways you can enter {please leave a separate comment for each}:
1. Tell me what you favorite part of summer is
2. Follow my blog {or tell me that you already follow}
3. Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with a link to your blog
4. Make a donation to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society here and leave me a comment letting you know that you donated. This also enters you to win one of two quilts that are being raffled by me for this great cause.

Please make sure that I have a way to contact you :-)

A winner will be randomly drawn on August 20th at 9pm Arizona time. Happy crafting!!!

Happy birthday Mr. Crafty

Sunday is Mr. Crafty's birthday but I just made these snickerdoodle cupcakes when I got home from work today. I wanted to share with you. I haven't sampled them yet {OK, maybe a bit of frosting} because Mr. Crafty is stuck at work :-(

Edited: OMG, they are soooooo delicious! I had to take some to work for fear that I would eat all of them myself.

I'll post a link to the recipe soon. Writing this post on my phone from my kitchen while I make dinner for one :-(

Edited - Here's the recipe: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/07/snickerdoodle_cake_for_cinnamo.html. I didn't use the applesauce & used an entire stick of butter for the batter. I threw in a little bit of extra cinnamon in the frosting too

First Blog-iversary Coming Soon!!!

I'll be posting a fantastic first blog-iversary giveaway very soon. Make sure you check it out...

{On a somewhat related note, I am DONE with summer school and have almost 4 weeks until the start of my next classes. I think I am still rocking the 4.0GPA too! Oh, the crafty things I have planned...}