Whirlwind of a semester

It has been a while since my last post. I honestly can't believe how quickly the winter semester flew by. I feel like I blinked and all of a sudden its mid may!

Before I share with you what I have been up to I have an announcement:

I am now a coffee drinker. 

Here it is, my first cup of coffee (yes I took a photo)

Yes, you read that right. I now drink coffee. I managed to finish my undergrad, masters, a graduate diploma and the first semester of the PhD without the help of caffeine (although my tea consumption increased over the years). Then suddenly in March this year I hit a wall, I wasn't sleeping enough, had a growing list of deadlines and couldn't really function normally, unless practically falling asleep in class is normal. So thoroughly beaten by the academy, I turned to the Coffee Gods. They heard my cry for help and responded with Lattes, Americanos and regular coffee. With their help I finished the semester which I suppose is better than giving up and turning to the Alcohol Gods.

So what have I been up to? Well, I finished my final semester of coursework for the PhD. This essentially means that unless I decided to pursue another degree later on (which I won't!!!) I will never have to take a course again. Pretty crazy. For this last semester I was taking 3.5 classes and have never been busier. Often times I slept 4-5 hours a night just trying to get all the reading and writing done while maintaining a little sanity. I'm not sure I managed the sanity part, but I did do well in my courses which is great.

Now that my coursework is done, over the summer I have to write my dissertation proposal (a 20-30 page document that explains my proposed research). Once its approved then I can begin my fieldwork in South Africa! More on all of this in the coming weeks

Am I still crafting as the title of my blog would suggest?

Yes! Despite my busy semester, I still found time to quilt and sew. The Instagram community of quilters and sewers I discovered this year are an endless source of inspiration and they are responsible for a big part of my winter sewing. In part because I signed up for some quilting swaps without really considering my huge work load and partly because I was so inspired by their creations that I employed classic procrastination skills (which I like to call procraftination).

Here are some of the projects I worked on and finished throughout the winter semester. 

This was my first mini quilt swap, I love this quilt, it was sooo hard to mail it off to my swap partner, but she loved it, so that made me really happy.  I made a half size version of the Astrodelic pattern by Artgallery fabrics, its a free pattern that is really easy! 

I made this tote bag for a black and white tote bag swap.  I really like the geometric pattern that I created almost by accident. I didn't use a pattern for this tote, but I did use this tutorial for to make my first interior zipper pocket. It was super easy and I find it makes the bag more versatile.

I made this rainbow feather quilt for a rainbow themed quilt swap. I really like how it turned out. This one was by far scheduled at the craziest time, I had to mail it the final week of classes. Scheduling fail! The feathers were made adapting Anna Marie Horner's free feather quilt pattern

Spring Sewing

I took a much needed week off from school and spent a large part of that break sewing, here are the fruits of my labour:

I finally finished my supertote bag. Although it was much more time consuming than I expected, I love it.

I signed up for another swap!! It is supposed to be for a one hour basket. My basket took much longer  to make because I tried paper piecing for the first time. I love how it turned out. If you want to make one, check out this great tutorial by Kelbysews 

I made one for myself, this one took a little over an hour

I made myself a wallet!!!! This feels like the coolest thing I have made myself by far! Its beautiful and super functional. The "Have it all" wallet pattern by Straight Stitch Society was easy to follow, it took me about 5 hours from start to finish, including cutting out the fabric. The only thing I would change next time is to use more/the right interfacing, the exterior flap feels a little more flimsy than it should. (I used what I had instead of what was recommended in the pattern)

Here's a shot of the inside. Isn't it great!!!

Since it had been so long since I did some patchworking (can I conjugate that?) I decided to make a carpenter star. I will eventually turn this into a lap quilt, but I'm still trying to figure out what to add to it to make it bigger.

All together its seems like a productive few months! I have so many projects I want to tackle this summer, hopefully I will be able to get to all of them and finish my proposal. 

Viv