In the throes of academia

I have about 2 months to go. Courses will be done by April 15 and two months until I defend my Master's thesis. Then - as I've promised my husband - my academic career will be over. Back to the easy life of full-time employment, full-time motherhood, full-time spouse...part-time everything else.

Since I've been back in school I've been reminded of just how much you can get done in one day if you put your mind to it. My goal is to have this mindset carry over and do a better job of incorporating some of my passions into our everyday life.

My passions: quilting, knitting, reading, photography, scrapbooking, decorating, sewing, gardening...you can see there are plenty of things to incorporate, but my mind set now if live life to the fullest, because there is so much living to do!

In the mean time, I've been keeping inspired. In the last year I discovered pinterest - YIKES is that fun! And a great way to take a break from data analysis for 10 to 20 minutes (realistically at least 30). Then I was introduced to etsy - OMG inspiration you can buy!!! I'm in heaven.

So lately between the blogs I follow and etsy I've purchased some fun quilt patterns, two quilt kits (its so nice to just touch fabric!). Here are some projects just awaiting my retirement from academia...and a cleaner basement in which to work, but that's a whole other post :)

This is the Good Old Hockey Game Quilt - pattern by Kristie at OCD.  The pattern is available on Etsy here.  My little guy - one of the rookies from the Winnipeg 2012-13 Timbit league - will be thrilled.

I'm a sucker for anything Christmas/winter/holidays...I found this cute Winter Wonderland Quilt Kit on Etsy - it can be found here.

Plus a few others...

Keeping Inspired

I have to admit it takes a lot of energy to keep on studying - sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is very dim and very small.  To inspire myself to perservere, to get school over and done with so I can go back to my life I have several techniques.  The one I engage in the most is following blogs.  My two favourite quilting blogs are: OCD - obsessive crafting disorder and Tamarack Shack.  I visit these everyday as part of my morning routine when I arrive to school.  Coffee, check e-mail, check blogs, get to work! 

My second strategy is reading magazines.  I have been a faithful subscriber to Quilters Newsletter since 2004, and have recently subscribed to Quilters Connection, for some Canadian content. 

I'm also a bit of a Christmas "nut" or "Holiday Enthusiast" as it were.  Christmas quilting magazines....ahhhhhhh

Another passion of mine is baking, specifically Christmas baking with an emphasis on Christmas cookies.  I've purchased THREE Christmas cookie magazines so far this fall!

You can see the magazine on the left had a "sticky note" tab...I'm making the "Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies" just as soon as I finish a paper I've been working on FOREVER!
 

Stategy number four, or number three if you count both types of magazine reading as one, is visiting my stash - and sometimes adding to it. 
I have a cupboard in the basement that is half filled with various backing materials and the other half of the cupboard is dedicated to my knitting yarn. 

The yarn is double stacked, sometimes its good to remove the front stack and remind myself what's back there!

My second cupboard is ALL quilting material!  I love to go and visit the stacks of neatly folded fabric.  I have them sorted by colour.  Last week I broke down and went to my local Fabricland and added a few meters to my stash.  I went under the pretense of buying fabric for my son's Halloween costume.

Not sure if this would truly be considered a "stash" in the quilting world - but it's a start.

I also made a quick stop at a "new to Winnipeg" fabric store: Mook's Fabrics.  I enjoy exploring a new store and I found that Mook's had a decent selection of quilt fabrics, nothing jumped out at me that day but I did get a couple of baby blanket panels with coordinating backs.  My intention is to teach myself to machine quilt using panels.  Conveniently, one of my fellow student's wife is having a baby soon; this makes for a great excuse to log some sewing time.

 That's me for now.  Thanks Kristie at OCD and Kathy at Tamarack for your continued inspiration!


My next post: knitting.