End of the Week Roundup

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts! I used to enjoy doing them because it reminded me to be grateful for the little moments from each week. 

1. Friday night was dinner with Aunt Penny and Uncle Chuck. Good food and great company is always the best way to start a weekend!

2. Saturday I spent the day sewing this romper together for a friend's baby's 1st birthday. I got the pattern off of Etsy. The first few days after I made the romper, I'm not going to lie I couldn't stop looking at it, I loved it so much. It was my second time trying a piece of clothing and the first time it turned out as well as it had. I definitely plan to make more to sell soon. 

3. Sunday was spent working on more sewing projects, like this t-shirt quilt in the making and a bear, while Dave installed our new window. 

4. Monday afternoon I met the teacher that I will be student teaching with and she seems really cool, so I have a feeling it'll be a great experience. Monday evening was the last teen book club I'll be hosting. I decided to step down a few months earlier because I knew there was a pretty good chance I would be student teaching. Next month we will meet one more time to have a goodbye party. This month we talked about the last book in the Divergent series, Allegiant. 

5. Wednesday night we went out to dinner with my in laws since it was my father in law's birthday. The meal was delicious!

6. Thursday night I was back at the school I'll be teaching at for "Meet the Teacher" night. It was really fun to meet a few of the students and chat with my host teacher. I'm very excited/nervous for what is to come!

That's all for this week, how was your week?

End of the Week Roundup

Hello friends! Happy Friday! This week has been quite busy, I'm kinda glad for the weekend, so I can relax!

1.  Saturday I spent the day working on quilts and this bear. The auction for the bear ends tonight at 8 pm, so you still have a shot at it! 

2. Sunday Dave and I met up with his brother and sister in law to hang out with our nephews. We spent the day at the Lehigh Valley Zoo. It was such a cute, quaint zoo, it was the perfect way to spend a Sunday.

3. Wednesday Teen Book Club met up and we discussed Moon Over Manifest. This summer we're going to read the Divergent series together and I gave them an extra "assignment" of figuring out what factions their parents would be in and what they think they'd end up in. I'm so excited to hear their responses! 

4. Is there anything more peaceful than a sleeping kitty?

How was your week? Have a great weekend and have a happy Mother's Day!

"Luck Fupus" Bear

Sorry for no posts this week friends. I usually write up my posts Sunday but this past weekend I spent some time with my nephews at the zoo instead so I decided to take a small blog vacation. What I do want to share with you is a bear that I'm currently auctioning off on my quilts page for a good cause.

Many of you know MJ from Luck Fupus. She's an incredible person who has been dealt a really crappy hand when it comes to health. The thing I love most about her is her resilience. With each new heath issue that arises she approaches it ready to fight. I've never met anyone as strong as her.

Anyway, inspired by her fight with lupus, I decided to create a bear to auction off. All proceeds for this bear will be donated by the winning bidder to the lupus foundation of their choice. Please head over to my Quilts by Nicole Facebook page to check it out. Even if you don't want to bid, just sharing the status is helping a greater cause. MJ has aptly named it the Luck Fupus bear, which I love!

As promised, here is the newest bear that I am auctioning off to a great cause. I'm hoping we can beat October's auction...

Posted by Quilts by Nicole on Monday, May 4, 2015

Thanks for checking this out, and I'll see you Friday with an end of the week roundup!

End of the Week Roundup

Another Friday is upon us! Whoo hoo for the weekend! Here's the roundup for the week (which is only four things, because it's been a bit of a slow week, thankfully):

1.  Friday I stopped at my nearby fabric store and picked up a ton of fabric for a few quilts that I'm making. One of my favorite things about being done school is having more time to sew. 

2. Sunday I met up with my friend Melissa and we decorated some wine glasses. This was literally one of the easiest crafting projects I've ever done. All you do is dot some nail polish on a cup! 

3. Monday night I met up with my other friend Rebecca and made wreaths. I thought it was going to be harder than it actually was, so another easy crafting project all done! No picture though, whomp whomp.

4. Dave is my quilting helper. He helps me with patterns to make sure it's all mixed up and holds up my quilts for all my pictures. Squishee is Dave's "helper", nothing more needs to be said, haha. 

End of the Week Roundup

It's been a while since I did one of these posts. It's mainly because I have had a Thursday night class this semester (which is when I normally write this post up) and by the time I get home I'd either forget or be too tired to write up a post and also with the weather being colder there isn't much to roundup from the week. Anyway, here's the roundup for this week...well more like weekend.

1. Friday night I met up with two of my friends and had a small ladies game night.

2. Saturday was a busy day! First Dave and I went to a local library for their book sale....which if you know anything about me, you know this is a day I look forward to all year. 

3. After a great book haul, we headed over to our local movie tavern and saw Furious 7. If you don't know what The Movie Tavern is, it's a theater that serves meals with the movie. The seats are extra comfy and somewhat recline along with a swivel table to set your meal on. The food was good and the movie was good too. This is all I really have to say about the movie:

4. After the movie we went over to our local Ritas and grabbed our first water ice/custards of the year! 

5. Sunday I met up with my friend Gabby for lunch so we could catch up and I could give her the Doctor Who bear I made her. 

That's all I had for this week(end). How did your week go? 

End of the Week Roundup

This week has been a rough one. For the most part, every bad thing that happened would not have been a big deal if it had happened on its own but when it happens along with a bunch of other bad things, it makes for a bad week. It's during weeks like this one where I am reminded of the song "Lonely Day" by System of a Down when the song ends with "Such a lonely day, and it's mine. It's a day I'm glad I survived". I think I can definitely say I survived this week. 

1. Saturday wasn't all bad. It started out rough with my hairdresser cancelling on me because she was sick (understandable!) and the receptionist at her salon not being accommodating to me at all (not understandable). After she felt better my hairdresser called me and squeezed me in next Thursday. Anyway, not the point of this bullet, I also met up with my cousin and we had a crafting day. We decided to try out the arm knit scarf and I think it turned out great!

2. Tuesday a deer hit my car. Well I should say that a man driving in the opposite direction of me hit a deer which then sent the deer into my car. I cried for the deer. I cried for my car which has never been in a major accident in the 8 1/2 years that I've had it. I cried for the shock of it. Then I moved on. Dave, being the awesome husband that he is, picked up the rental for me while I took his truck to school for the evening. I, being the unobservant wife that I always am, crushed the flowers he left in the truck to lift my spirits by throwing my purse on top of them and not realizing they were in the car until I got to school. I'm an ass, I know, thanks.

3. My Quilts by Nicole page hit 200 likes on Thursday (yesterday). I definitely needed a good boost yesterday morning and that did the trick. I was so happy I held a quick one day giveaway and gave a bear away! Speaking of bears, I also finished the She-Ra bear that I shared with you guys last week. 

4. Also occurring on Thursday: Me catching Squish practicing for America's Next Top Model. 

5. I know it's not the "same" but I kinda know what parents are talking about when they talk about how cute their kids are. This is going to be creepy, but I'm okay with that, but I swear my cats are so cute they could be models. Please judge me silently or behind my back. 

That's it for this week, thank God it's over! How did your week turn out? 

End of the Week Roundup

Hello friends! Another Friday is upon us. This week has been slow, which is good for relaxing but tough for weekly roundups. 

1. Take yesterday for example, when a massive snowstorm hit. I stayed home and binge watched Breaking Bad and starting reading You. This is my idea of the perfect day, but most definitely not conducive to a thrilling blog post. You, by the way, is gripping. I hate how cliche that sounds, but it really has me sucked in. 

2. Cold days lead to adorable snuggling. 

3. Tuesday was another bad storm day. While waiting in traffic I decided to see if I could have any of life's philosophical questions answered. I should have known better than to ask Siri. She and I fight often. 

Is she calling me fat?

4. I started another bear this week, this time using She-Ra fabric. This particular fleece is a pain to work with because it's so soft and the fleece sheds a lot, but it'll be worth it for the end result. 

5. Snow days and cold nights leads to this, which is amazing until you have to get up and get huffed at.

End of the Week Roundup

The majority of this week, including today, I've been feeling a bit under the weather. I hate being sick, besides it throwing everything off balance, I hate working at less than full capacity. Especially considering my schedule is full capacity. 

1. Friday night I met up with some girlfriends and took a painting with a twist class, which was fun!

2. Saturday, Valentines Day, was spent lounging around with Dave and making cheesecake. Check back on Monday for my cooking challenge results, including how the cheesecake turned out. V-day was super relaxing and I enjoyed every peaceful moment of it. 

3. Tuesday I finished up a few bears for some friends, which boosted my mood. 

4. I started reading The Girl on the Train last night, so far so good! 

5. These two, they are my heart and soul.

Here's to hoping I start feeling better this weekend! Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

How It All Began

Many of you know I run a (very) small side sewing "business", Quilts by Nicole. Ashley suggested I write a post about how it all began, and I thought it was a pretty good idea too. 

It all really began with my grandmother. I've always been a really creative person, especially as a kid. A friend of hers passed away and his wife, who was a sewer, had passed away a few months before he did. They didn't have any next of kin and so my grandmother was charged with clearing out his possessions. She gave me all of the woman's sewing kits (she had quite a few) and I started to play around with hand sewing things together. 

My grandma Maxine passed away almost two years ago and one of my biggest regrets was that she wasn't able to see how much I've grown as a sewer and that I couldn't thank her for helping me realize this gift. 

The spring break of my 10th grade year, I didn't have anywhere to go so I decided to take all my spare fabric and patch it together to make a quilt just to see how it would look. It took the entire spring break of me doing nothing but hand sewing each piece together but the end result was this: 

It's not pretty by any stretch of the word, but I did this with no help or tutorials or real prior knowledge. I still know where each patch came from. The leopard print was for pillows I made my sister, the Taz fabric was for pillows I made for my mom, the country pattern was for a hamper I attached fabric to for my mom, the checkered blue print was for an angel set I created for my mom, and the colored blocks and brown fur was for a werewolf I had made for my step-dad at the time. I was so proud of this quilt for so long I kept it in the back of my car for years which is why some of it is discolored. 

I've definitely come a long way since I created that quilt so long ago and I still have a lot to learn, but it's nice to be reminded of where it all began. 

End of the Week Roundup

Welcome to the first roundup of the new year! How did your week go?

1. Classes for the spring semester of my class started Thursday night (last night). I'm half excited, half over it. I feel like I've been in school forever...oh that's right it's because the majority of my 20s (minus 20 itself) I have been in school. 

2. I've been really digging this song this week.

3. I have some down time right now between quilts and bears so I decided to start working on a chevron quilt (my first!). Here's the beginning stages of the quilt:

4. Speaking of my quilts, I created stickers and bought bags for customers, instead of giving them their items in grocery bags. I'm in love with the stickers!

5. Five seconds before this picture was taken, Nibbler had his head right up against Squishee's bum.