Oh Hello March! ... also known as "Let's just not worry about February"

Hi, sweet friends. 

February is over and March is here. Spring is coming and my allergies are cray cray in this valley town. Hallelujah for some Flonase.

If you look back over the last few posts, you know that I've been using the PowerSheets by the lovely Lara Casey. In February, I set goals, I had high hopes... but now I'm learning that I just needed to calm the heck down. Just because I can set every goal in the book, doesn't mean I need to.  Because life happens and work schedules change and you go out of town too much and you get sick for weeks. Goals aren't met and Satan creeps in with a big dump truck full of complacent guilt because of those unchecked boxes on my PowerSheets. Umm no thank yerrr, ladies and gentlemen.

What I need to do is pause and listen to the Lord. What does he have in store for me this month so that he can be celebrated through my life? What will I be celebrating a month from now because he laid it on my heart? I chocked February up to learning more about the grace that is required for myself. That's a win, people. So this month, March and me, we're gonna be on the same page.

So here are my March goals. Short and Sweet.

1) HopeSpoken! (and every detail that it involves... separate list on separate page in my PowerSheets, because who needs the goal page to be overwhelming? Not me.)
2) Apply to the Bryan Arts and Craft Fair. April 17, local friends!
3) Meet with a local small business owner. To learn. To ask questions. To be inspired.
4) No dairy! I had some crazy sinus issues this month and almost everything I researched tells me dairy might be one of my issues. Goodbye Brie cheese, butter, and so much yummy. My nose will not miss you.

So there we go. Bring it on, March.

HopeSpoken 2015

image via

Y'all. The Lord knows what's up. He knows that we have dreams, and he gives us clear steps to take to get there. Our dreams are from him and for him, and he will make himself known through them. So, when your bff texts you, "hey this great women's conference is accepting more people for their vendor market, you should email them," you do it. You email them and ask the Lord what the heck is he doing because this sort of thing is TOO BIG for me. Then they email you back with welcoming arms and you say, "Yes." Yes, Lord. Help me sew all these things and help me love on these women and help me tell people that this is, in fact, too big for me. But its just the right size for your dreams. My dreams. Your dreams. Hopefully it's all the same in my heart.

The Lord is so kind to let us have big dreams and give us the gift of promise and creativity and community. All that to say, I'm thrilled. I'm also very humbled. What a gift it will be a part of the vendor market at HopeSpoken in less than 2 months! Excuse me while I am sewing forever until then!

January 2015 Goals!

Last week I told you guys aaaaallll about how wonderful PowerSheets are and how brilliant and gracious Lara Casey is for sharing them with the world! Even since last week, I have settled into more of a rhythm with my PowerSheets. I look over them towards the end of each day, check off my daily goals, see if my weekly goals are being met, and remind myself of my monthly goals.

Even though we're over halfway through January, I wanted to share with you my goals for this month to give you a better idea of where I'm starting with this whole shindig. Deciding on my overall 2015 goals was a very inspiring think-session. Brilliance abounded and hope was the name of the game, party people. Deciding on my monthly goals was more along the lines of "ish just got supa real." Not quite as inspiring, but even more necessary, I suppose. My monthly goals are tangible building blocks for 2015. They are measurable progress that will fuel my Celebration fire all year long. (The fire mainly consists of glitter and balloons and music.)

So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my January goals:

1. Clean and organize sewing room. (CHECK! See last post for this brilliance.)
2. Finalize exercise plan with Nelson. (Might become a February goal...oops!)
3. Research blog designs.
4. Purge closet. (Again. There's still so much stuff that is not being used!)
5. Celebrate my new job and Nelson's second semester of Ph.D. (That's right, I'm starting a NEW job on Tuesday!)
6. Stick more within budget. (One time a rock flew up and hit our windshield on the way home from Georgia, and the guy came and fixed it then it got really cold, and I turned the heater on in the car and, oh look, a massive crack. Windshield replaced. Budget pressure. Yay!)
7. Check into getting help with taxes for Immeasurable Shop.
8. Research and commit to one craft fair for 2015.

See that Goal Numero Ocho up there? The Lord dropped some crazy big goodness into the life of our little shop and for that, you'll have to come back NEXT WEEK!

2015 Goals

Let me put forth a pretty strong absolute here. I have NEVER seen a January goal to fruition.

But this is a post about goals.

You must know that the fact that I'm even typing out any of this is a result of a lot of transformation that has happened in my heart and mind over the past six months of life. The details of that are a post for a much later day, but let me just say that the Lord is faithful to carry us into unknown places so that he can give us such a great story to celebrate. That is good news, folks!

So here I am writing about goals. Big, who-I-want-to-be-when-I'm-80 goals (or at least goals that will help me get there one day). I have dug into these questions, these hopes, and I have come up with a starting point. The Lord has given clarity to my mind and hope in my heart so that for once, I'm excited about these goals. I actually have real hope that I can get to the end of this year and be proud of the work I've done and the life I have submitted to the Lord in 2015. People, this is a COMPLETELY FOREIGN concept to my mind. But this year is different. I am different and I have hope.

Now, friends, let me tell you about PowerSheets. These are PowerSheets.

PowerSheets are a purpose planning tool developed by Lara Casey. Praise the Lord for her sweet heart and smiling face. For real.

Basically, PowerSheets get you thinking about who you truly desire to be, what you've done right or wrong in the past, and how you want to get to where you feel the Lord has called you to be. Lara has done a fantastic job of weaving a ton of hope, paired with a heap of grace, throughout the PowerSheets. This is key, my friends. In working through the prep process (about 30 pages that took several days), I never once felt called to ideals or perfection. I felt called to seek the Lord and be honest with myself and have hope in the Lord's strength in my life. That is the perfect place to be situated when thinking about goals.

So what does progress, not perfection, look like in 2015? It looks like seven goals that encompass all areas of my life. It looks like this:

1) Celebrate Well!: This is my jam. This goal will infiltrate all aspects of life but is grounded by the idea that the Lord has done much and I would be remiss to not celebrate it as much as possible!

2) Ask for Help: I want to live a life of humble learning. Asking for help has been a painfully difficult thing for me in the past, but the Lord is gracious to mold us, and he is helping me. This goal will consist of seeking wise counsel in all areas of life: financial, business, spiritual, and much more.

3) Intimacy with the Lord: I have been on the path to solidifying the habit of spending time with the Lord, but I want to grow in intimacy with the Lord's heart. This goal will look a lot like deepening community in our church, but also planning out specific margins in our lives to draw near to the Lord.

4) Grow Immeasurable Shop: We have big time dreams for our shop but are in a phase of small steps. We believe that the Lord has made it clear for us to pursue this dream, and this year will consist of a lot of planning, a lot of sewing, at least one Arts and Crafts Show, and a lot of grace!

5) Develop Immeasurable Blog: We are excited to learn and develop this blog as a space to share progress, record life, and deepen connections for life and business. You will hopefully see some changes around here with respect to design, more frequent posting, and maybe even some guests along the way!

6) Develop a Habit of Physical Health: It helps me to see this goal as a habit to develop rather than a mountain to conquer (as I have seen it in the past). I will choose grace with myself, and I will celebrate progress!

7) Live Simply: The ultimate purpose in our living simply is to attempt to lighten the burden that this world has on our hearts. It will mean purifying, purging, and organizing many different areas of life, but also learning what it means to be fully content in the Lord.

(The pictures in this post are courtesy of Goal #7. First step was to clean the sewing room!)

Within the PowerSheets, you set overall goals, but then you break them down into tangible, trackable, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. I will be posting my monthly goals here, along with follow-ups, at the start of each month. I hope that this will be a source of encouragement and hope for any of you who follow along. The end goal is to have much to CELEBRATE!

Wish me luck!

Sources: 

PowerSheets (sold out until May)

planner

tote bag

My First Quilt

That right there is my first quilt. I made it when I was 12 years old. I had barely a clue what I was doing but I was so proud of it. All of the fabrics were purchased at a local quilt shop that is still open in Savannah. I had taken a class there (more like sewing camp) for five days that summer and learned the parts of a sewing machine, how to care for my machine, how to use all of the various stitches and any other basics a little girl might need. At the end of the class, my mom helped me pick out each fabric with care.  I still remember where each fabric was in the store that day.

I have very vivid memories of working with the fabric and loving it more and more as the quilt grew. The little shooting stars on green fabric made no sense to me, but I loved them. I knew that I didn't want the plaid to be at an angle, so I cut it very carefully. I had a pattern in mind and it all worked out quite nicely, but to this day I can show you the three places where I "messed up".

I took this quilt everywhere with me. If I was sleeping somewhere, the quilt was with me. Church camp every summer. France and Spain sophomore year of high school. Sleepovers all throughout middle school. College. France for 3 months. Absolutely everywhere.

It was after the second round in France that I decided, for the sake of the quilt, to retire it. The edges are ripped open on almost every side. The polyester batting is terribly separated throughout the quilt. The fabric is frighteningly thin. It has been loved as much as a quilt could possibly be loved. It has served its purpose. To comfort, provide warmth and be "home" to me wherever I was.

I've been thinking about this quilt a lot over the past few weeks. As we open up our online shop for Immeasurable, I can't shake the feeling of nostalgia and gratitude that is so engrained in this craft that the Lord has put in my path. This quilt was sewn on my mom's machine. It is much heftier than my current machine and doesn't bounce when you put the pedal to the floor. The reverse stitch button is located in a totally different place than my current one, but my hand still goes to that old place first.

I have my Granny's sewing basket by my table with an afghan she couldn't finish before she passed away. On my fabric shelf is a hand-stitched table runner from my Grandma. She hand sews a simple baby blanket for each great-grandchild upon their arrival. My brother's son is next. Some say these are just "things" but to me they are time and story and prayers and blessing.

That is how I learned to sew. With patience and grace, prayer and perseverance. Everything I make, whether to gift or sell, is intended to bless the life of the recipient. It would be a waste if I sewed for any other purpose.

We are opening our shop on Saturday. I'll post more details here before the week is out but right now I am choosing to rest and be grateful for this way of life that I am so blessed to sew.

Arizona Pillows

For once in a very long while, I sewed something to keep!

I fell in love with April Rhodes Arizona fabrics for Art Gallery Fabrics when I first saw the previews a few months ago. I told my husband that that these would be the last fabrics that I purchased before our move. I promise. The last ones. No more. Just a fat quarter of each print and coordinating solids. Just.

They came in from Fat Quarter Shop and I fondled them as I do with any new fabric. Its a ritual. They made it through the move half way across the country along with all 700 lbs of my fabric. (People were all like, let me pick up this one rubbermaid full of fabric and take it to the moving truck, its probably light, like pillows. Wrong. You just broke everything in your body.)

Because of that, here are the obligatory moving pictures. Praise the Lord for these sweet people who helped us pack and unpack the Penske.

Back to the pillows: My sweet mom had given me several 24"x24" feather pillow inserts that she wasn't using, and I thought they would be perfect for what I wanted to do with the Arizona fabric. I've been obsessed with flying geese lately (inspired by this and this), so the first pillow was a no-brainer. I always use this tutorial for making my flying geese and they whip up pretty quickly! After some simple quilting on the top layer, I decided to go for the pocket backing (rather than a zipper), because my brain was not about to tackle a hidden zipper for the first time. You read that right, never done a hidden zipper. I believe in always leaving room to learn more...ahem.

I'm kind of obsessed with the way this one turned out. I love the colors and the flying geese are just as wonderful as I imagined them to be!

For the second pillow, I wasn't sold on what I wanted, so I went with a simple log cabin block. I knew that I wanted to use a bit of eachof the fabrics in my bundle (aside from the solid navy because it was just too dark), and this block allowed for that to happen.

Because my pillow needed to end up 24"x24" and my fabric only extended to 22" (fat quarters are 18"x22"), I decided to add a thick white border on all sides. This allowed for me to be a bit more creative than usual when it came to the quilting on this piece. I always say I need to step out of my quilting box a bit, so this is a small step in that direction. In my eyes, it needs some perfecting, but I'm still quite pleased with it!

They are the perfect bit of bright in our room. If the creative genius comes, I may even make a third!

We Moved

It has been many months since my last post. Here we are in a different city in a different home living close-ish to different family with different goals, heartaches and joys.

In March, we found out that Nelson had been accepted to Texas A&M University to pursue his Ph.D. in English. Praise God! We had been waiting so long for this news. Our hearts had ached and broken over our hopes for our future. After we attempted to do justice to the call of our Faith during that season of waiting, the Lord was so gracious to provide this path for us. I know full well that the path was always there, resting in his will, but his grace has been so apparent to us in the revealing of this path.

So we quit our jobs. We said goodbye to such good friends and strong family, including a nephew on the way. We left our church home behind. We packed our house and drove 1100 miles with our moms and now we are here.

There has been an overwhelming amount of change over the past month, but through it all, there is a steady flow of peace within our lives. This is the Lord and only the Lord. Daily, He carries us. Daily, He brings us closer to Him. I have a load of thoughts and feelings about this move, mostly gratitude, but today I am choosing to rest in the peace that fills our home.