Conquering fears and bloggy prettiness

Did you notice my new header?? If not please look up now :)  Drawing courtesy of my husband. He rocks. I still have some tweaking to do but it was late when we got it that far. It is a HUGE improvement. And no, my sewing machine is not so pretty in real life. I totally wish!

Have you ever signed up for something or agreed to do something and then thought...hmmm....I may be in over my head? We'll I went to my first Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meeting in Oct(The Nov one is tomorrow, Yay!) and was completely blown away by all the talent. And then I fell in love with these:

Sonja is a member of the VMQG and as I looked at her patterns I realized I had seen her work online and loved it but have  always been intimidated by paper piecing.  It looked so complicated that I admired it and moved on. Never with the thought to actually try it. It happened that there was going to be a workshop with Sonja to learn to make this cuteness so I bit the bullet and talked to Sonja. She assured me that an absolute beginner could take the workshop, so I signed up! Eek!  I was mostly excited until I received the supply list and instructions. It was 6 pages long. 6 pages! And that's without the actual piecing instructions! I had a little freak out. I was sure I had signed up for something completely above my skill set.

I eventually decided that the only thing to do was practice. So I picked out the easiest of Sonja's free patterns on her website. Watched her tutorials, also on her website. And guess what? I rocked my first ever paper piecing!

As with most things the worry of how difficult it was was way worse than how hard it actually was. Sonja's video tutorials were very helpful. Now this is a very simple pattern and the penguin/polar bears will be much more difficult but now that I have one completed block under my belt I'm confidant and excited for the workshop! Yay!

There was a fabric sale at Fabricana this week, which was timely as I needed supplies for the workshop. Rod was home so I got to go hang out all by myself. It was lovely, I browsed and fondled the fabric for most of the morning. I got to actually take time to make decisions! Which was a serious feat indeed in midst of a sea of beautiful fabric that was on sale! 

This is what I came home with. Yum!

I couldn't resist some Star Wars fabric for my little Star Wars freak! Love it!