Back!

My Thanksgiving break was great! I did a bunch of homework for a few days and then Lucas and I traveled to Kalamazoo, MI for some quality time with our families and friends. Very little work was accomplished during that time, thank goodness.

I didn't make any real progress on my quilts during that time; however, I did go in search of quilt-making materials. I made the rounds, stopping at my favorite cross stitch shop, Distintive Stitches, a favorite yarn/cross stitch shop--Stitching Memories, and my other favorite--the fabric store-Fields Fabrics. In the process of all of this shopping, I managed to acquire these:



And these....


And of course, after all that shopping I had to eat a lot of food. Luckily, my mother-in-law has a new kitty and we attempted to work off some of the calories by entertaining her. Actually, I think we wore her out.


Now we're back to the grind for a few more weeks. Lucas has two weeks of teaching left this semester and I have two weeks of class and an exam week. On one hand, it's a relief to think the semester is almost over and it's also scary because I've still got a lot of work to do before it's over. I'm trying to keep my sanity now that school is back in session by working on a cross stitch project and slowly making progress on the baby quilt for Madison. I'm also seriously thinking of signing up for a rolled brim hat knitting class that begins next week.

I managed to put the Christmas tree up and it is in a state of incompletion because I ran out of lights. Also, we have less room in our apartment this year (now that I've taken up quilting and need space for my sewing machine) so, to squeeze everything in we've elevated the tree by stacking books underneath the tree stand. I'm looking forward to finishing the lights and adding the ornaments. Also, I finally get to use the tree skirt I finished this summer!

I've just joined my first challenge and am looking forward to its start in January. It is SharonB's "Take it Further" design challenge. I'll be blogging about my ideas and posting photos of my progress. I haven't decided yet whether I will do a crazy quilt or possibly some type of quilt sampler. I wanted to sign up because I've been following the Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge and thought it was a good way to try new things and work outside of my comfort zone alongside (in cyberspace) others. If you think you might be interested, do check out SharonB's page dedicated to the "Take it Further" challenge.