Today I hemmed a pair of jeans

note: I actually wrote this about ten days ago. On an actual piece of paper. With a pen. It was kind of a breakthrough moment for me, and I want to share it with you.

One of the reasons I started quilting again a year and a half ago was that I wanted something in my life that no one could take away from me. It's the same reason I started volunteering with GENaustin. Whatever might come my way, whether I lose my job, have a falling out with a friend or get dumped — those outside things didn't define me.

No one but me could take those things away. Today, I realized I had taken something away from myself. It had been more than two months since I turned on my sewing machine; my desk was covered in a fine layer of dust. Hemming those jeans, taking a step back and seeing tangible results of my time and effort, made me realize all I had been missing.

A lot has happened in my life over the past few months to make me rearrange my priorities. But in the rearranging, I lost balance. I lost part of myself. So I've started a new blog with the intent of finding balance. Balance between work and play, academics and creativity. It won't be just a quilting blog, but if you're solely interested in that, there will be a separate RSS feed and archives page.

I will be double-posting in this blog as well, at least for a while. And I'll still be posting updates to Flickr. (My next post will be about this project I've been working on.)

it's about to get autobiographical, y'all

So a little while back, my friend Jimmie gave me a blog award. Blog awards are kind of like the new chain e-mails. Maybe this was just being at the right age with the right technological advances, but when I (and I'm wiling to best many others born in the mid-80) was in junior high, my friends and I would circulate chain e-mail "surveys." This was back in the AOL 4.0 years. We would e-mail asking a bunch of questions (ranging from what color you wish you could die your hair to who you had a crush on, etc.) and then demand that the recipient reply with their answers and then forward the questions on to X number of other people.

So, with a blogging award, I'm supposed to:

1. Thank and link back the person that awarded it to you.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their blog award.

And just to break it up some, I'll include some completely unrelated pictures.

Kaffe Fasset fat quarters I got at a local quilt shop.
These will become a wall hanging for my bedroom.

A quilter who doesn't have a quilt on her bed?

Yes, I'm that girl — a quilter without a quilt on her bed. It's not that I'm overwhelmed by making a queen-size quilt or anything like that. I just really love my fluffy down comforter! I love the look of quilts on beds, but I just don't like the feeling of sleeping under one. I know, I'm crazy! Anyway, I have a store-bought duvet cover, but I couldn't sleep last night and decided one of my next "big" projects will be making a patchwork duvet cover. It will be "quilted" in the sense that I'll back it with muslin or something like that, but no batting. I stayed up for hours looking through magazines and Flickr groups for inspiration. Of course I found an overwhelming amount! Here are some of my favorites:

1. shade garden quilt, 2. Playing with the Boys Quilt, 3. Halloween Quilt, 4. Flying Geese Quilt, 5. geese in the city, 6. finished!, 7. Arcadia, 8. playpen quilt 006, 9. Jakob's quilt, 10. Funky Quilt Squares, 11. Basted - Front, 12. Dick And Jane Quilt

As you can see, I have a lot of narrowing down to do! I want to try to avoid anything with too much white (cause I'm lazy and don't want to wash it too often, ha!), and something that will go well with my black bed frame. I'm thinking lots of bright, bold colors...

I think I'll also make a "real" quilt to hang on the footboard and move to the bed during the winter months to keep my feet nice and toasty at night. Now I just have to decide on a pattern and figure out what colors I want to go with! (My room is kind of a blank slate once you take the duvet I'm using now out of the picture.)

I won't be able to start this project for a while (lots of time to let ideas marinate!), because I really want to try out a voile or cotton lawn to get a nice feel and easy drape. These tend to be a bit more expensive, but it'll be worth saving for. I've never worked with anything but a mid-weight cotton before, so I'd love to hear any tips on working with lighter fabrics.

Today was the deadline in Amy's One Thing, One Week Challenge. I haven't 100% finished the secret wall-hanging yet, but I did finish quilting and attaching the binding to the front. It's about 28" square, so I'm holding out hope that I might finish at some point tonight. Pictures to come as soon as it lands at its new home :)

and now for something completely different

pinwheel sampler quilt-along block 6

As you can see, I finished block six of Rachel's pinwheel sampler quilt along. I'm really not too thrilled with one of the blocks. (Can you guess which one?) I also pieced them differently. On the cool block I pieced it into squares instead of rows, and I found it to help a lot with the seams on this particular layout.

I also joined another quilt-along. Julie, the author of one of my very favorite blogs: Jaybird Quilts is hosting a hexagon quilt-along. It was a lovely excuse to get some of Josephine Kimberling's Glam Garden, and it was on sale at Burgundy Buttons. The discount worked out to just about equal the cost of shipping.

...And now for something completely different!

All-righty bloggy friends. Leah at Burgundy Buttons has deemed today Mo 'bout Me Monday a.k.a. SWATCH.com day. (Let's just pretend it's still technically Monday... by the time my Monday is over it's usually well into Tuesday morning). Leah wrote:

I realized that we have thrown ourselves into this little virtual world and wrapped ourselves into this web of friends without really knowing anything about each other- well except that we all like fabric!

So I thought I would take Mondays and make it a Mo 'bout ME day. I tell you something about ME and then you tell me something about YOU! It's like our own little Match.com for Fabric Friends! Would that be SWATCH.COM? Hey- what a Great Name!! SWATCH.COM it is!

(I highly recommend following her blog, btw. Leah has some great stuff up there, and she often posts info about sales at her shop, Burgundy Buttons.)

I could not agree more! The reason I started this blog was to get to know other quilters. So in homage to Leah, here's a little about me, in hopes that you'll share with me a little about you!

I'm 24 years old, and I live deep in the heart of Texas. I grew up in Arlington, and moved to Austin in 2004 to go to the University of Texas (obligatory Hook 'Em). I love Austin, so I just kind of stuck around after graduating. It took me about two years after finishing college to wind up in a "grown up" job. I work at the local newspaper as an editorial assistant (I post stories to the Web site at night. It's entirely un-glamorous). They let me work one night on the copy desk each week, where I proofread and write headlines and photo captions. I'm hoping to move over to the copy desk eventually.

The first thing I do when I get home from work each night is put on my pajamas. I could live in my pajamas. I usually don't get dressed for work until an hour or so before I have to leave, unless I have errands to run before-hand.

I definitely get my craftiness from my dad. He is a DIY kinda guy. He laid all the tile in my parents' house by himself. He also took down the wallpaper and textured the walls. He's currently working on building himself a smoker out of a huge propane tank that he bought on Craigslist. I love building things, too, but since I live in a tiny apartment the closest I get is assembling furniture bought at Ikea. I do, however, know how to safely operate power tools. But I can't change the oil in my car.

Another thing I got from my dad is a love of all things Willie Nelson. With that said, I'm not really all that "into" music. I enjoy listening to music, sure, but I'm just not one of those people who seeks out new bands. I am absolutely terrible at defining musical genres. I run into this a lot because my boyfriend is a musician, and people always ask me what kind of music he plays. My best answer is some mix between Grizzly Bear/Animal Collective and Pet Sounds/the Beatles' White Album.

I do, however, love TV. I know that sounds almost pathetic, but I do. I love TV more than movies, and definitely more than music. I really like keeping up with timelines and continuity on my favorite shows, and seeing the characters grow over time. Some of my favorite shows on the air these days are Lost (I'm obsessed), 30 Rock, The Office, House, Bones, Mad Men, Grey's Anatomy, Modern Family and Ugly Betty (only two episodes left of this one). I'm getting to really like the sci-fi dramas like Fringe, V and Flash Forward, too.

I mentioned before that I want to be a copy editor. I have always been known as a stickler for all things grammar. I had a professor once who would give extra credit if we e-mailed her about any errors in handouts she gave us — if all my professors had done that, I would have graduated with a much higher GPA!

There's a lovely lady at my office who keeps a desk drawer stocked with candy. If this post is too much stream-of-consciousness rambling, blame her!

In any case, I'm Meghan. Nice to meet you!