Break and Baby (unrelated other than appearing in the same post)

I have literally not touched my laptop since the wee hours of Friday morning.   Count the odd email check and I was 98% offline this weekend.  WOW. Highly unusual. But I was busy sewing.

I finished midterms this week and the midterm break is underway. This is what the last one looked like:

We were given the diagram a week in advance and had to figure out what it meant. In all honesty, it was surprisingly cool for an exam and obviously testing understanding as opposed to memorization. How wonderful to be asked to think instead of regurgitate!

So I decided to call some friends this weekend, long-suffering and patient ones who have weathered my unavailability for months on end and STILL find time for me, but before I could grab the phone, Mrs. Long-suffering Friend went into labour.  (And crap!  I hadn't finished the baby quilt yet...) Fifty-two hours later, (yes, I wrote 52 hours!) Baby Long-suffering Friend arrived.  I swung by Maternity yesterday to meet her and give her the quilt that I finished while waiting for news of her arrival from Mr. Long-suffering Friend.  They truly are wonderful people, Mr.&Mrs. LSF, and I am so happy for them I can't begin to tell you.  I cried.  I do that around new babies.  I just can't help myself.

The quilt was sewn from a Hometown by Sweetwater charm pack and yardage.  I backed it in some Kona, but I didn't pay attention to the name. I finished it just in time for my mother to remark on the colours and remind me that I owed her a table runner for her birthday. In January. Oops! More on that soon...

These clips have begun to appear all over quilting blogs so I picked some up to try.  LOVE them.  I prefer them to the silver "hair barrette" binding clips.  They hold so well and yet, don't cause your hand to cramp by squeezing them over and over again.  So if you've been thinking about getting some, just do it.

I took this weekend off from homework but I've got two papers to write this week. :-( One is definitely trickier than the other and involves researching legal codes and case files. Yuck.  I haven't touched the homework quilt this weekend but I'm sure I'll make time when my brain starts to overheat from APA standards and case law....