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.

The First Post

As I mention in my profile, I am currently in school.  After some years as a consulting engineer, and many years as a manager of outreach and recruitment, I decided to go back to school.  I have been a creative, craft-sy person for as long as I can remember.  Engineering school slowed that down - just no time for hobbies.  I did quite a bit of sewing, decorating and some scrap booking, and then we had our kids.  We have two wonderful children: A (our eight year old girl) and J (our six year old boy).  I am married to a wonderful man, W who is also an engineer.  As we were starting to settle into a routine with the kids, their school and activities, them sleeping through the night, I thought I'd be able to become more active in some of my hobbies and pursue some hobbies I've been interested in for years.  New hobbies I am interested in pursuing are: quilting, knitting and photography.  While quilting is going to me my main focus of this blog, I am also going to talk about other pursuits like knitting, school and family.

That brings us to my current pursuit - keeping me from any hobby time - school.  For several years I've been bored and unsatisfied with my career.  I loved what I was doing, but I had done the same type of work for many years and was ready for a change.  The problem was that I had a technical background and managerial experience, but the technical work was in the far past.  While pursing various avenues, I had a chance to speak with a former engineering classmate of mine/current transportation engineering professor.  She offered me a chance to pursue a Master's degree in transportation engineering - my first engineering love.  After much consideration and a lot of support from W I decided to head back to school.  This is the second time I've returned to school since I graduated from engineering in 1995.  From 2000 to 2005 I did a management certificate while I worked and we started our family.  Turns out management was a whole lot easier than a Master's in engineering!  I have to say this Master's degree has kicked my butt!!!  I've really struggled with the time management, the boundless content and the "new age" research tool: the Internet.  I have been in school since one year, full time since January 2012 and will likely be done in June 2013.  Eighteen months full-time for a 24 month program is very respectable, but definitely threatens my sanity.

What has been keeping me going is thoughts, dreams and plans of future time with hobbies, travel and most importantly my family.

That's it for the first post.  Welcome, I hope you enjoy following my journey.