My Fabric Stash from Patalier

If you think my life is all gloom and doom right now, that's not totally correct. Some good things DO happen, and here's one of them:

If you can believe it, ALL of that fabric came in the mail the other day. A neat box filled to the brim with fabric! The fabric on the bottom was expected, but ALL of those smaller pieces of fabric were unexpected.

I just want to send out a HUGE thank you to Patty from Patalier for sending me these wonderful vintage and new fabrics. I was sooooooo surprised when I opened the box. In fact, I was confused. "I don't remember ordering these..." I pulled the fabric strips out of the box and discovered the pretty vintage fabrics I had ordered underneath. When I realized that she had simply sent me the fabric strips as a gift to feed my fabric scrap obsession, I was really moved.

They look so pretty all stacked up on my dresser, and the fuzzy edges look soft and friendly.

They didn't actually arrive that way. They were perfect, crisp fabrics protected in clear plastic.

However, I had an incident where I became allergic to some of the fabrics sent to me from a shop owner that had pets, so I now insist on washing all of the fabrics sent to me before I work with them, whether they have pets or not. I figure that someone with allergies will appreciate this extra precautionary step because I have essentially "saved" them from getting allergic. That is, unless they are allergic to laundry detergent and fabric softener. I use only half a sheet of gentle fabric softener since I seem to be allergic to everything.
It's more work to wash all of the fabrics, and I have to trim all the edges afterwards to remove all the threads that become loosened. Perhaps Patty will cry when she sees that I have washed her perfect fabrics and made the edges fuzzy, but don't worry Patty, once I trim them all and iron them out, they shall look perfect once more. If it makes you feel any better, I used the gentle settings! :P Oh, and the fabric smelled wonderful when it arrived. If I wasn't so paranoid, I wouldn't have washed them so I could have preserved the scent.

Do you see the giant ball of threads that I have collected thus far? It looks too fascinating to throw away.

If you ever need an awesome quilt or pretty vintage fabrics, Patalier is a lovely shop to buy from.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Week 12 of Nursing School

Oh my goodness, what a crazy week. I have to tell you about it.

First of all, we had a written exam on Monday that we're not allowed to fail on. We HAVE to pass this exam in order to continue on in nursing. The marks got posted today and while I didn't fail it, I didn't exactly ace it either. It is safely my lowest mark so far this semester, but I passed and I'm grateful for that.

The morning after this test, there was a practical laboratory exam where we had to perform mastery of skills like taking blood pressure, pulse rate, and breathing rate. I have been practicing on all my unlucky friends and family so I was able to pass the vital signs portion. I haven't got the mark back for the written part so hopefully that went well too. I was soooooo scared about the vital signs because I saw some people fail it. In fact, I was so terrified that I stopped the blood pressure test too soon. I had to check the blood pressure again and I listened very carefully and got it right... phewf! Mastery of these skills is mandatory to continue in the program so I am very relieved that it is over with.

A very odd thing that I discovered during this vitals test is that I might have high blood pressure. I was the patient in one of the scenarios and they were surprised to find that my blood pressure was through the roof. They thought that it was probably due to the stress of the examination situation and the teacher thought that I was holding my breath as well, but I was still recommended to get my blood pressure monitored by a doctor just in case. Of course, hearing that I might have hypertension made me even more worried... argh!

Immediately after this test, I had a group presentation. Can you believe it? It went really well though. I had good group members!

The morning after was an interaction analysis exam, and THEN, the creme-de-la-creme, our entire nursing class was sent to a room for a discussion on academic dishonesty.

I thought it was just a reminder on the school policy as we prepared for the next semester, but it turned out that there were some allegations of cheating and they are asking for more information on the situation. They threatened to punish the entire class if people did not come forward with names or if no one came forward to confess. Needless to say, people were not happy. I won't go into it too much since it has not been resolved yet, but it's a big headache because we are scared of being punished for something we didn't do.

After that emotional meeting, we had to perform some group skits about developmental transitions. That was a nice break from the stress because the skits were entertaining to watch and there was a lot of humour thrown in. I came to appreciate that teacher because she was so thoughtful and respectful of what we had just gone through and she was especially sweet to us and very encouraging. It made me feel better.

So, week 12 is finally over for me and I have just another group presentation, a paper, some assignments, and two final exams to really look forward to.

Meanwhile, it's time to catch up on some sleep. I am really sleep deprived right now. I can't bear to go to sleep knowing that there's an exam the next day. I stay up late to pore over notes and to cram as much as I can into my brain until I basically fall asleep where I'm sitting. Then I know it's game over and it's time to crawl into bed... which is what I'm going to do right now.

Have a great week! I'm out!

Thank You To My Readers

I just wanted to take the time out to thank you all of the people who stop by this blog to read my posts and to leave me comments. I really appreciate it! Your comments cheer me up immensely and I am always amazed to see how many of you stop by!

From now until December 31st, you are invited to take advantage of 10% off all items in my Etsy shop. I also take custom orders, so feel free to ask for specific things if you so wish.

Just use code BLOG10 when you're checking out.

Have a great day!

P.S. - Check out the snow at my house! I couldn't believe it when I looked out this morning. "Holy Smokes! It's snow!" It looks really weird on the bright orange marigolds so I had to take a picture of it to show you.

Patchwork Pouch Completed

In a flurry of productivity, I followed the tutorial on Pink Penguin and completed this lovely patchwork pouch. As you can see, my very first of these pouches includes the hedgehog fabric that I loved so much.

It was hard to put together a collection of the right colours to go with the hedgehog fabric, but I really liked this mix of peach, yellow, pale blue, cream, and seafoam green tones. They just seemed to work together.
Inside of the pouch, there is a foilage green patterned fabric on one side and a yellow butterfly fabric on the other side. The pockets are orange. Yes! There are pockets inside of the pouch for cards and chapstick! How functional is that?
There is also a green patterned handle on the side so that this can be held like a wristlet. An additional little loop is great for adding things like charms.

This pouch took a long time to make- much longer than I expected. I wanted to get all the squares even, and it was my first time making something quilted. I managed to make most of the squares line up perfectly and the back and front align neatly too.

It wasn't possible to use the Pink Penguin tutorial alone so I had to refer back and forth with the other zipper pouch tutorial that I have listed under "When You're Bored". Did you know that I had useful links listed on the side column? You might find those handy one day.

Adding a layer of batting to the pouch makes it sooooooo much more sturdy and awesome than the other pouches that I have made in the past. It isn't too puffy either because ironing the pouch afterwards seemed to flatten out the batting. It liked that. This pouch is also larger in size somehow. It's 7 x 5.5 inches.

My friend saw the pouch and she really liked it, but she thinks that I should make it PUFFIER because quilted things in her mind should have puffy little square pillows all over it. I think such a puffy pouch would be rather cumbersome to keep in the purse though. Perhaps I will make her a "special edition" with puffy little pillows all over it.

I'm still a little bug-eyed that I managed to sew this pouch. It sure turned out better than I expected. I hope the rest of my experiments turn out this well.

Have a great week!

Nursing School Update

I've started to lose track of which week of nursing school it is, but it's getting close to the end of first semester now. My final exams will be on December 13th and 14th, and that's not very far away. Most of the tests and assignments are in, and there are only a few more major ones to go. I have two group projects, an interaction analysis, another integration lab... and then the final exams. Craziness.

The good news is that first semester is almost over; the bad news is that I'm getting disorganized now. I seem to have put in my best effort in the beginning, and like losing track of which week I'm in, the readings that I have fallen behind on are catching up to me.

What can I say now about the first semester of nursing school so far? Well, I like it. It's been very stressful, but the stress is good in the sense that the end result is worthwhile. I like the idea of becoming a nurse, and I like how so much of this semester has been focused on learning about how to communicate better and how to take ownership of my feelings when I talk. "When you (behaviour), I feel (emotion), and that (consequence of behaviour)."

It's also exciting to have learned how to change an occupied bed, give a bed bath, and how to take blood pressure. Admittedly, I'm not particularly good at doing these things yet since I need a lot more experience, but these are still skills which I think are pretty useful.

So, I'd say first semester is still a hit so far with me. Some students are thinking about dropping out, but that's not me. I'm still going strong. Of course, this is me talking during a nice, relaxing weekend. Perhaps if you ask me about what I think of nursing school during the week when I'm running on 6 hours or less of sleep, I'll be less inclined to give you a positive answer.

Have a great week!

The Supplies Have Arrived!

Just when I thought life couldn't get any better (because the fabric scraps arrived from Fabric Flair), two packages arrived in the mail this morning. Yippeeeeeeeeee!

The fabric scraps I ordered from Overall Baby were crammed full of uber cute designs. Including HEDGEHOGS! Okay, if you know anything about me, you should know first and foremost that I love hedgehogs. Ever since having one as a pet in high school, life has never been the same again. Now it's hedgehog enthusiasm 24/7.Do you see how cute this is? There are even little green clovers and ladybugs on this fabric. I'm in heaven!

Zippers in a rainbow of colours also arrived from K and C Supplies.

Now I am all set to make pouches and other sewn goodies! The only catch, of course, is that I'm not quite done my first semester of nursing school yet. It's not over until final exams are done on the 14th of December. Arrghhh! That's so far away!

I better work REALLY hard so that I'll have time to play with all my new goodies.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Log Cabin Patchwork Pincushion Success

After gazing longingly every day at lovely log cabin patchwork pincushions and other marvelous patchworking, I came home to a most wonderful discovery - my fabric order from FabricFlair had arrived!
It was filled with many pretty fabrics. I ooh'd and ahh'd, and then I picked out my favourite pieces and sat down for some sewing.

I had to refer to a YouTube video on how to sew a log cabin quilt, and I referred to a tutorial on Purl Bee blog for some idea on what size to cut the strips. They recommended 3/4 of an inch wide strips, and that worked out well for me. (The resulting pincushion will be approximately 2 x 2 inches, so make the strips wider or add more rounds if you want a larger pincushion.)

Here are all my pieces cut to size and laid out the way I want them. This was really fun.

I only have a little piece of the strawberry fabric, but I knew that I wanted it to be part of my new pincushion. Then I chose a pink bird... because it's cute :) Then came some edges of yellow butterflies.

I was going in pastel rainbow colours so green foilage came next. I meant for blue and green florals after that, but the center of the flower ended up looking more like a blackberry, which I like even better! Everyone knows that strawberries and blackberries make very good pies... mmm!

And then came pink stripes because I'm feeling kind of girly lately and that calls for pink!

I've been saving a piece of really neat designed fabric for something special, and the back of the pincushion seemed to be a perfect spot. I chose a portion of the design that happened to have some red and pink in it... and a little black-eyed bird!

Ah yes, success is sweet. I adore my new pincushion and, guess what? I'm going to make MORE! Let me know if you want one too!

As I was making this, it occurred to me that this would make a darling pillow for a doll. Would you agree?

Have a merry day!

Things That Inspire Me This Week

I feel like my brain is overloaded with information this week, but I feel good about this because some of the information is infinitely pleasing. Have a look at what has been inspiring me this week!
I'm still eyeing the fabulous patchwork projects by Pink Penguin, and she made this super adorable pincushion. It sold instantaneously in her shop and, if you can believe it, her shop is completely empty right now. I'm so envious of her ability to sell products, but even more envious of the person that snatched up this pincushion. As soon as I get a hold of some cherry fabric and awesome Heather Ross gnome fabric, I'm making a pincushion JUST LIKE THIS!!! Actually, I say that about everything she makes, lol.

I have a fabric scrap pack arriving soon, so you can bet that I'll be scouring it for any sign of bits and pieces that I'll be able to make into a log cabin patchwork pincushion. I spent a good amount of time last night watching YouTube tutorials on how to create log cabin patchwork. I love the look of the log cabin patchwork design.

I also came across the amazing work of Laurrain Yuyama of Patchwork Pottery. She's an amazing artist. She made that quilted pillow out of a drawing that her little daughter's best friend made. I think that is so sweet and thoughtful. This pillow was then given to the little girl for Christmas. If I ever had a little child and they drew a picture that I loved, I would hope that I could immortalize their artwork into something breath-taking like this too.

So, devoid of the time to make such lovely things myself, I did what little I could... I made piles of coloured paper butterflies. Fluttering en masse all over my desk, they bring a little light into my life.

I also stopped by the local thrift shop and filled my eyes with all the different kinds of new and vintage fabrics. It's a very different thing to look at a shop and to only view each item of clothing as a potential fabric source. Suddenly, the most hideous dress becomes a treasure trove of the most ideal fabric. I carried one little children's shirt around the shop with me for a period of time before I finally set it back down. It had the most perfect floral print on it, "but if I just have a little patience," I told myself, the real fabric stash will be arriving shortly. I can hardly wait!!!