One Little Word, once a month

Since I am participating in Ali Edwards' One Little Word project again this year, and am committed enough to be signed up for the class at Big Picture Classes, I figured I might as well devote at least one blog post a month to my one little word.

Here is the title page I made for my class album:


I have been thinking a lot about how I want to put my word into action this year, but I will save that for another post : ) January's not over yet!

Etsy Taste Test

Have you tried etsy taste test?

Basically you click on several images that appeal to you for some reason or another, and then it returns pages of items for sale on etsy that supposedly match your taste.

Here was my first attempt:
http://etsy.me/gQlxmz

and my second attempt:
http://etsy.me/eyIG0x

Even though I clicked on completely different images each time, there seems to be some overlap. Interesting....

three, yes THREE, quilts finished in 2010

I wanted to post a summary of the three (!!) quilts I finished this year, since I am so so happy to have completed projects.

Exhibit 1: Girls of the World for my cousin Emily


I actually finished this top last, but thanks to the speedy quilting of That Quilter and binding by my friend nanann, it was completely done first! I mailed it off to the lucky recipient and heard that she wrapped her cute 6-year old self up in it on Christmas morning and explained to her grandmother that "C made it for ME!" (And for the record, my sister helped on the design and piecing of the top, so she needs recognition too!)
Also blogged about it here.

Exhibit 2: Sister's Choice, a wedding quilt for my sister

This one was quilted by a friend of my mother-in-law's in Montana. My mother-in-law sewed the binding on (she is in the picture on the left).
Here is a close-up of some of the quilting:

Original blog post here.



Exhibit 3: Troikas, a Russian quilt for me!

This was also quilted by my mother-in-law's friend. There is so much detail in the quilting -- I just love how it turned out, and it is currently on my bed!! (Troika is the Russian word for the sleigh depicted in the focal squares). My mother-in-law did the binding on this one as well. Here is the back:


Original blog post here.

I am now motivated to finish three projects in 2011 -- more on those soon!

One Little Word

Well, you may have noticed a new banner in the side bar. Yes, it is another Ali Edwards' project, no surprise there! I am choosing one little word to focus on throughout this year. I did this last year and found that it really helped me to stay on track with my goals for the year.

Last year's word was finished. I chose it because I wanted to be finished with my dissertation and finished with a number of unfinished projects. It hadn't been enough to resolve to finish these projects in the past, so I chose the past tense version of the word to hopefully visualize them actually done rather than the process of getting them done. And there are so many things that I FINISHED!
* three chapters of my dissertation
* three quilts!
* two papers for publication, one is submitted and one is being reviewed by my advisor
* my Teaching with Technology certificate through UT's Graduate Student Instructor program
* Week in the Life
* all of the foundation pages, pictures, and journaling for December Daily (I haven't finished assembling it yet, but I have all of the pieces that I need)

This year's word is embrace. There are so many changes coming up this year that I know are good for me and for my life path. I want to embrace these changes, feeling at peace with my decisions rather than wondering the perpetual “what if?” that I have plagued myself with in the past. We shall see where this word takes me this year.