Elopement!

After ~9 years of dating, Matt an I finally made our partnership legal. That's right, we got married! We had a nice little joining at our house at 7:30 on February 29th, 2012. We were married by a wonderful woman, Rowan TwoSisters with Grady and Bobert in attendance. Matt had dubbed Grady the best man, but I think Bobert did a better job stikcing around. Follwoing the signing of the license we Skyped my mom, dad, sister, Jeff, and Jaxon. Each of us had a bottle of champagne- we popped the cork and toasted to our union.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Our signed marriage license!

Cupcakes picked up from 'What;s up Cupcake?"

On a side note-- I finally finished a project. We had a scrap challenge for the Houston Modern Quilt guild. I made a little drawstring bag (rawstring yet to be inserted). I use up most of the scraps and had a fun time making it. One day I will graduate to complicated patterns-- just maybe.

This may explain my inactivity on-line

So I haven't made the time to make any blog posts. I suppose i truly have no excuses except that I have been mentally concerned with other things in my life. There have been lots of changes in the last 5 months- 1) Work has been extremely busy with an upcoming drilling well, 2) Matt started a new job that he really likes, and 3) we are expecting a little baby boy on July 8th! This may be my main distraction. Instead of blogging I have been thinking about what I need to get, finding a doula, setting up child care, deciding my future work schedule, planning trips, etc. This is a fun process, but a little overwhelming at times.

I am currently 19.5 weeks pregnant. The ultrasound below is my 18.5 week image. He is pretty cute. During the whole ultrasound session he wiggled a little but the majority of the time he kept his arms covering his face and his legs in lotus pose....my little yogi :)  I only hope he is calmer than I am most of the days.

18.5 weeks old!

On the crafting front. I finally completed my little pinwheel baby quilt for my friend, Shelley. Unfortunately it was several months late. Right now I am working on a beetle bug quilt for my friend, Heather, who is due any day now. I have a little gender neutral panda quilt in the cue for my friend, Keena (due in May), and a Richard Scarry 'busy town' quilt for me. I am also hoping to knit up a few baby rattles and sew a little stuffed owl for my little boy. I have been obsessed with owls lately. There is some super cute fabric and designs out there. This is the bedding I am currently thinking of getting- Hooty owls. I am just not sure if I can still paint the room green. What do you think?

Jay McCarrol Habitat challenge

I really don't know much about the fabric world. I like fabric, but I like music more. I mean I could spend hours listening and talking about the newest albums of the week, but get lost in the world of fabric names and designers. That being said....I think some fabric printsnare beautiful.
So for part of my quilt guild, Houston modern quilt guild, they participated in a Jay MCCarrol habitat fabric challenge. We all got some fabric from the new fabric line and were asked to make something. I planned on stepping outside my comfort zone to make a little clutch but have yet to piece it all together. So, I then decided to make a patchy wine bottle cover. I like it, it turned out quite whimsical.



It was fun to do and hopefully I can finish the little purse also.

On a side note- awesome new CD's
- Feist 'Metals'
- The Jayhawks
- My Brightest Diamond
- St. Vincent

I should write about some of these sometimes, but I never am good at explaining music. It just is and I love it!

Also-- for anyone who reads this and is interested. The guild is having a meetup for the quilt festival.

A halt in creativity

I have been in this waiting pattern to start a new project. I recently finished a scarf I need to block, a tank top I need to sew all loose ends in, and a quilt that needs to be basted and quilted. Then i have been working on picking out fabrics for a new project. This has been an adventure in fabric shopping all it's own. Basically I have come to the conclusion that Houston lacks the modern fabric store I desire and I end up shopping all on-line (thanks etsy!).

On the otherhand, I have been creative in the science part of my life. I successfully gave a talk at AASP, judged a poster competition, networked, and served on the board. I am putting a link for my abstract if anyone is interested.

https://www.ocs.soton.ac.uk/index.php/aasp2011/AASP2011/paper/view/105

This generated a wide rangeof conversations regarding palynofacies and their utility. This is a topic where more research needs to be completed, especially in modern turbidite systems. How can we fully understand the fossil record without a very thorough understanding of the depositional processes. I am hoping some young academics out there will get to the research portion of these questions.

Anyway-- here are some pictures from my conference trip.

Work and play

Unfortunately this is a word post. Hopefully fololowed by some pics. I am about to get on a plane a take a quick skip across the pond to the UK for an AASP ( American association of stratigraphic palynology) meeting. I will be giving a talk, taking a field trip to the Isle of Wight, and hobnobbing with other palynologists. Should be fun! Afterwards, Matt will be joining me from Home so that we may explore a little bit of Scotland. I hope to post some up-dates along the way.

Blog win!

I am so excited. I have never won a blog give away until today! I follow a whole slew fo blogs in order to get ideas about new quilt patterns, fabric, yarn, crafting in general. I love spending a few minutes a day checking all these cool things out. Sometimes I even leave comments for blog giveaways. I won one free yard of fabric from the http://www.sewmamasew.com web-site. I was excited abou their highlighting of orange fabrics because I am trying to collect a bunch for my next project-- a twin size coin quilt made out of orange fabrics. So I got to pick out a free yard!  I chose a made for Robert Kaufman print.

I love it. Let the collection continue!

Summer tank

After about a year of knitting on and off in-between my sewing distractions I have been working on a summer tank top. I finally finished it! Luckily I used a late summer color, burnt orange, so I am all ready for my Houston fall tank top sweater. The pattern is an Interweave Knits pattern called 'summertime tunic' by Katie Himmelberg.

Yeah for nice, simple and cute patterns.