Dinosaur baby quilt

Here's another quilt that I've been dying to show everyone, but since it's a gift I had to wait! 

I made this dinosaur themed baby quilt for a mentor of mine who just had a baby. I haven't met the baby yet but I hope I will soon! They're going to be such wonderful parents; I'm so excited for them!

I ended up using a patterned fabric for one side and appliqueing a dinosaur with a speech bubble and a heart on the other. It's not a very big quilt, maybe a little bigger than 24" x 36", but for a baby that's alright.

I went around the edges three times in different colored thread to bind the quilt. And there's that - pretty simple, all things considered!

So close

Whew, the last few days have been crazy, and I'm not quite done yet. We finished classes on Wednesday, which is such a wonderful thing. It really felt like we would never be done. I ended up going home on Wednesday with my car piled full of stuff from my room here. I took home half of my clothes, all of my art and a lot of other random things. That meant that my room at home looked crazy since I dumped so much stuff in it, so I ended up spending half of Thursday working on a project and the other half cleaning my room. It looks awesome now (I sent a huge pile of stuff to Goodwill). I came back here on Friday, had two exams on Saturday and now it's Sunday, and I'm so close to the end! I only have a paper and an exam left, both on Tuesday. I'm so excited for the end of junior year. 

It is strange to think of leaving though. No more apartment. Only one semester left in my undergraduate career. It's fantastic in a lot of ways - I'm pretty tired of the school routine - but it's also terrifying. I can hardly believe that after so many years, I'm about to reach another milestone. Though, in reality, I'm not done yet . . . still going for my MSW. Ah well, that will be as different from undergrad as undergrad was from high school. Summer's going to be wonderful . . . now I just have to get there!

Rugged maniac

I didn't run it, don't worry, but today I went with Andrew and my cousins to spectate their participation in the rugged maniac race. It was interesting. The worst parts were the lines. Everywhere there were lines. 

We started and ended the day in lines waiting for the shuttle to the race site. Crazy long.

The rugged maniac, if you don't know, is held in Asheboro and is an insane 5k with a lot of obstacles. Among a lot of other things, there's fire and a mud slide. 

I think they had fun though, even if everything they brought was covered in mud. 

Bleach Dying T-Shirts

I love tie-dyeing! I've done a lot of different shirts, normally just white with colored dye. Today was the first time I've ever bleach dyed anything though. It was a lot of fun! 

I did it as part of a group activity with ArtHeels. We started by spray painting the word "artheels" on our tshirts, with ordinary black spray paint.

Then we rolled them up. I used a normal spiral pattern, for what I guess would be considered a "traditional" tie-dye pattern: the psychedelic swirl type thing. 

We didn't have any squirt bottles, so I just kind of dripped the 1/2 bleach 1/2 water mixture onto it with a paintbrush. To do the swirl, you dye alternating pie pieces different colors. You can use more/less bleach for a stronger effect. 

Some people splattered theirs, some tied and then dunked them. Since they immediately went to rinse them off, the bleach didn't completely cover it. 

The biggest thing is that you do have to rinse them off - with normal tie-dye you leave them sitting for a day, but if you do that with bleach it'll burn a hole through the fabric. I left mine for about thirty minutes the first time, but I didn't like the way it turned out, you could hardly see the bleach. 

I ended up retying it and then pouring bleach-water on it using a cup. Not ideal since I couldn't control it very well. I left it sitting probably thirty or forty minutes then rinsed it in the washer. Here's the final product: 

Pretty awesome, though I wish it was more evenly half dark/half light. Still, I'll definitely wear this!

I'd love to try bleach dying a black t-shirt then going back over it with colored dye; it seems like it would end up pretty cool. 

CD Photography

Ever wonder what a photograph looks like through a CD? Here you go!

Very ethereal. 

Impromptu

I had a meeting with my women's studies recitation group this evening for a project/presentation we have to do for tomorrow. I thought it'd be awesome to make a website, since we have to create a campaign for some kind of social change/social justice issue. 

Sometimes I just amaze myself! Check it out here: Play Like a Woman.

Third Grade

I found a time capsule in my closet. It's from third grade - Mrs. Potts class. I loved her class, there was so much love (and reading)! We made a time capsule to be opened when we turn twenty-one, and I managed to wait all these years. 

I was pretty cool for an almost nine year old. 

My favorite things: 

About Me:

What I plan to Do:

What I Think I Will See - my favorite part is "I think I will see a woman president":

Spanish Project

Egads! So much time has passed. A lot of that time has been spent working on my Spanish project: La hermandad del sombrero viajando (aka the sisterhood of the traveling sombrero - an adaption of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, duh). 

We had to make a 15 minute movie. I finished editing it today and will put it up on youtube as soon as Katy gets back and lets me use her computer! In this movie I am an art teacher extraordinaire, although unless you know Spanish it won't mean much . . . 

Here is my adorable group, on my slide of the credits :)

The laundry room

We discovered that Katy has a secret hiding place :) 

Terrarium present

My Aunt Linda made us terrariums for Easter. 

I'm thrilled with them, and now I really want to make one! 

Easter Day

I had such a good Easter with my family. I'm so blessed in so many ways, and I love being so close to my family geographically. I can't imagine what it would be like to not have aunts and uncles and cousins at every turn - probably a lot less interesting!

Two generations:

Nurse Ashley

Congratulations to my little sister on her acceptance into the nursing school at UNC Charlotte! I'm so proud of how hard she's worked to achieve this goal; she's going to be an excellent nurse. We had to celebrate somehow, so I made her a cake. Love you, chica!

Bookworm

I own way more books than I can handle. At least at home I have a couple of bookcases to contain them all, but at school things are getting out of hand. Since we're so close to the end of the semester I decided to bring home some unneeded things like winter clothes - makes less to move out in a couple of weeks. Little did I realize quite how many books I have accumulated over the semester. 

Most of these came home with me. 

Video recording

I've been working on a promo video for the Annie B. Mission, and I needed some interviews from the other people who are involved in the project. This means that I got to hang out with Matt, Elizabeth and Uncle Bear this afternoon! It was a productive time, and even better was M-Staff reunion lunch beforehand!

Elizabeth helped be a shade tree so Uncle Bear's face wouldn't be splotchy from the sun:

The many faces of Matt:

Father and son: