The past few months have been an unbelievable whirlwind of ups and downs. Most of them involve work and I don't want to say negative things about my past employer so I'm just going to say that it was a very stressful time. Unfortunately I had to take a break from my blog in order to preserve my sanity. The good news is I've gotten a new job that I'm so excited about. I've only been working for a week, but I can tell that it is going to be something significantly less stressful and hopefully more fun. I've fallen out of the habit of blogging so for now I'm going to commit to Friday posts. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be familiar enough with the habit that I'll resume my old schedule of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday postings, but, as my mom reminds me frequently, I'm starting with baby steps.
One of the things I'm most excited about with my new job is a flexible schedule. Of course this means that every day is different and I don't have set hours. You'd think that with all of the school supplies on sale right now I'd have no trouble finding a calendar, but I'm picky. I found a great one for next year however that still left the last five months of this year that I needed to keep track of. I found this calendar on the clearance rack. It's not perfect, but it will work and the price was right.
What doesn't work for me is how boring it is. I received my copy of American Patchwork and Quilting this week and was thrilled when I saw Jean Wells' pattern for a notebook cover. I haven't been following the piece and play series the magazine has been hosting this year so I didn't want to try the curved, itty-bitty, insert strip piecing that Jean uses. Instead I used her instructions for measuring my notebook, gathering my supply list, and assembling the cover and went with a basic piecing plan for my cover.
I was so excited to find the deer fabric. I got a deal on the end of the bolt and had enough to use it for the lining of my journal. I used 3 fat quarters for the rest of the cover. I think when I make another cover I'm going to use a slightly bigger piece for the main fabric. My tabs are a bit short so I might add something to help hold the cover in place. For now it works and I love how much more personality my calendar has.
