The Run Disney Princess Stitch-a-long: An Explanation

Now that Jen over at Fandom in Stitches has linked to this project, I guess I should offer an explanation as to what exactly this is...

The Run Disney Princess Stitch-a-long was born because I wanted to make a quilt for my friend Catie. She's a runner and she runs all the Disney Princess marathons. I thought a quilt commemorating this would be an excellent gift for her and I wanted to include the Disney Princesses (and then some) because the Disney women mean a lot to both of us.

Most of these patterns were based on paper-pieced patterns designed by Michelle Thompson and can be found here. I thank her for letting me post my version of them here.



So here's the deal:

• Once a week I will post a new pattern. They have been planned out ahead of time and right now there are set to be 23. The first pattern will be posted next week. I'm thinking Fridays but I reserve the right to change it...
• These patterns will have been tried by me first and will include a picture of my finished work. 
• There is a final layout designed that I will happily share with you all near the end. 
• Right now, you need enough fabric for 32 - 8.5 x 8.5" squares in whatever base color you want plus one larger center square at 18.5 x 18.5"

I hope you'll take this journey with me. 

The Pride and Satisfaction of a job well done

There's something oddly satisfying about wearing, using or sleeping under something you made yourself. And for the past few nights, I've been doing just that.

I've been sewing since I was a wee child of 5 and though I have made many things since then, and taken on many crazy projects (senior prom dress and Project-of-Doom -- I'm looking at you), I think my new bedding is the one I am most proud of. Because people pay good money for bedding that they like. They often search far and wide for the perfect pattern while staying within a certain budget and I got exactly what I wanted because I made it entirely myself.

I'm incredibly proud of myself and look forward to using this quality piece of crafting for years to come.

So glad I became a quilter.

Exciting Announcement!

'That's right, I'm hosting my very own stitch-a-long...and, well, since I'm pretty sure I'm the only person currently reading this blog, it should be very exciting *sarcasm*...but that won't last for long since Jen over at Fandom in Stitches (my new favorite crafting website) has agreed to cross-post my patterns. Hopefully I won't be alone for long.

I hope to post my first two patterns before the weekend, but I make no promises.

Allons-y!

Thanks for the big finish...you left me wanting more...

I just watched the series finale of Smash (I almost wrote season, without thinking...that's how "in denial" I am). What a great, though sometimes strange, journey it has been.

A year and a half ago when I first met Karen Cartwright and Ivy Lynn, I fell in love with a world I thought I knew all over again. As someone who can't make it to New York on a regular basis, doesn't get to see touring productions as often as she'd like and misses the repertory theatre I was lucky enough to live near for 7 years, a television show that brought me the world of broadway, the show-stopping musical numbers and real adult drama (as opposed to another show where childish drama is performed by adults), was bound to change my life. Though I didn't know how profoundly that effect would be. 

Smash gave me something I didn't know I needed and now, to have it unceremoniously ripped away from me by a giant peacock is something I cannot come to terms with. 

There's no more new Smash. I'll never turn on my tv to see what new drama is unfolding (Ivy and Derek raising their baby-will they get married? Jimmy is in jail for at least 6 months...will Karen wait? Will they be together again? Did Ana go on tour or did Daisy get fired? What movie musical is Julia and Tom writing?) or a new show-stopping musical number.

I don't know what to do about this. But I'm definitely not ready to face it. 

 At least Jeremy had a sense of humor about it.

Btw- Bonnie and Clyde shouldn't have closed so early, either. It seems like the curtain drops too soon on all the good things out there...yet American Idol, Survivor and The Apprentice are still on the air. 

Explain me that.

What to do when your Christmas shopping is 2/3 finished on May

That's the painting I made for mom. I painted it today with Nicole and Brandon and his mom at Painting with a Twist and I'm hoping she'll love it and hang it in the half bath. 

And with that, my Christmas shopping is 2/3 of the way done (dads present was purchased in March and I'm very excited by it). I'd be completely finished if they sold 2014 calendars this early.

So what does that mean? It means that for the next 7 months, I don't need to worry about what to get mom and dad for Christmas. I don't have to spend anymore money. It also means that I have to store their presents for 7 months (and trick of tricks: remember where I stored them). But for the most part, I'm excited to be finished. Because holiday shopping is tricky with my parents but this year it just seemed so easy. I mean it must have been, right? To be done so early?

Well almost Happy Christmas...

Some days I want to apologize...

Only now, in my mid-20s, have I begun to be aware if how terribly annoying I must have been as a child. Being smarter than every one else...needing to prove it and constantly show it. Being a stickler for the rules and not letting it go for anything.

I want to go back and apologize for all those times I fixed spelling mistakes of others publicly. That time I got my whole class in trouble for lying to a substitute. 

I wish I could say I'd grown out of such antics...instead I've grown into recognizing them and spend a lot of time biting my tongue and sitting o. My hands (progress, right?)

But I know I still go back there and I can't really help it...but it's not until someone does it to me am I faced with just how annoying it can be. 

I'll do better. I'll try to make it less of a nervous tick. I'll try to be less so only awkward.

I'll try.

Weather Watching

Yesterday, weather ravaged the midwest and my heart goes out to all those affected. And as I looked at the images I'd avoided for hours, because I feel things too deeply and I didn't need to see that suffering, my own stream of warnings started coming in.

Without really noticing, it started raining.

And then it really started...

But soon enough I could see the end was near.

Now I'm waiting for the next line to pass, but it looks like it won't be so bad. Thank goodness.

I find it funny how at the mercy of this planet we are. We try so hard to be in control of everything but this is nature and there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes I think Mother Nature is reminding us if our own mortality...chiding our hubris...our thought of invincibility. And then I hear the thunder and know God is laughing along with her.

What do you want from me?

Sometimes I can't handle when people are less organized than I am. I know that I am abnormally organized about most things: I write everything in my daily planner (this year is Downton Abbey); at work, everything has a file folder, or a notebook or a binder it goes in; at home there's boxes and plastic totes and drawers and shelves. My life is a chaotic mess most of the time. So if I can't keep the simple things organized, they'll never get done.

I know this isn't normal, but it's how I am. And it's how I function to make sure the things that need to get done get done when their supposed to. I keep up my end of the unspoken bargain. Which is why it infuriates me when someone doesn't hold up their end. Especially when the dropping of that proverbial ball leads to my own inconvenience. When it leads me to not be able to do the things I need to do. When it prevents my life from moving forward. 

I admit that people doing things for you is an inevitability of life. To some degree, we as humans are always dependent on someone else for SOMETHING. No man is an island after all. But sometimes I wish this woman could be. Because there are moments, like today, when I realize the only person you can truly count on is yourself.

*this has been a rather pessimistic first post. Promise they won't all be.

Here's a picture of a cat that isn't mine. Maybe she'll make this post a little brighter. As I cat-sit, I realize that she is dependent on me...if only humans were as easy as cats.