Cheers to a New Year

It's still a bit strange, to think that tonight is really the end of 2013. This year has contained many blessings, most notably my time studying abroad in France, but it was also my chance to explore sewing and quilting which have I grown to love even more.

I won't give away too much yet, but I'm very excited for several sewing things in the new year. Just a couple of them will be participating in the 2014 A Lovely Year of Finishes and the Fierce Quilter's Bee, created by several friends. I'll pull a few more fabrics, maybe some purples, but the pile below (with the clamshells for inspiration) will be my starting point for my first block in the bee. With any luck, I'll get to spend a wonderful first day of the new year relaxing and sewing.  



Cheers to you all, and may your new year be filled with joy and happiness.

SMS Winner!

Wow, I checked the comments from the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway post to pick a winner and I was astounded - 102 comments!? And my blog has surpassed 1,500 page views! This definitely put a smile on my face.

And now for the winner! I used Random Number Generator and it chose:

Which means Amanda is the winner!

She wrote: "I love cutout sugar cookies decorated with frosting and lots of sprinkles! :)"

I'll be sending you an email shortly, and putting together your prize package when I'm finally home on the 19th. And thank you, everyone for a sincerely wonderful giveaway.

Giveaway Day by Sew Mama Sew! - CLOSED

Giveaway winner is #57 - Amanda!

This time I'm back with something great to share - a giveaway for the biannual Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day! You can find out about me and what I sew by looking around my blog, but I know for now you're here for the giveaway so I'll skip right to the prize.

Today I am offering two Christmas-themed ribbon strands, each measuring one and a half meters (almost 5 feet). I picked them out from a store here in Aix-en-Provence, France, and I hope you love them too. I will also include a couple of recipe cards for baked goods my family loves to make, and hopefully some cute fabric scraps too! Please post a comment, how about your favorite holiday cookie type, for a chance to win.

I am willing to ship internationally, so go ahead and post away! Please though, make sure you're a "replying" blogger or I can contact you if you win. You can click the link: Sew Mama Sew to visit their with more wonderful giveaways. Good luck!

Per SMS, the giveaway will last until December 13th at 5pm PST. I'll post and email the winner on the 15th, and since I arrive back in the United States shortly after, I'll send it out on the 20th of December. Thank you for entering!

Milan, Then What?

 

Alright, it's about time I showed just a bit of my trip to Milan! This was the second part of my fall break, and I'm happy I got to see Italy again after living in Rome for four months last year.

 



This was actually in the city we stayed in, Crema, which was unfortunately 40km from Milan's center. It was certainly beautiful and quaint, but quite the voyage to reach the city.

This was a church in Crema too, and this picture is more evidence that I got wonderful luck with the weather!

Of course, I had to take a photo or two of the Duomo! It was magnificent inside too.

This church in a sort of hidden part of Milan actually houses the fresco of the last supper! I was so bummed that I couldn't see it, since we hadn't made reservations.

We visited the Sforza castle too and it was quite magnificent to see.

Of course I had to get gelato! It was fantastic!

We headed to one of the big city parks and just walked around, taking everything in.

 

The city was great to see and it was fun to be back in Italy, though somewhere new, but it felt similar to Barcelona for me. With lots of tourists and commerce, I felt like I was missing the quaint, historic feeling of a European city. It was wonderful timing though, because my school trip the following week was just the ticket! If you'd still like to guess where I went next, I'll send something secret to the winner once I'm home, in just 20 days!



Can You Guess Where Next?

I often think about how I could begin a new post, but I'm often afraid to start. Especially while I'm here in Europe, I've been posting about trips and sightseeing, and I feel guilty not posting about anything sewing related. Then I feel bad for having not written anything new worth reading. But I remind myself, I began blogging because I wanted to have a record for myself of what I've done, and interested readers and such would only be a happy accident. I hope my good intentions are understood, and I feel so very luck to have people wanting to visit this space of the web. For that I sincerely thank you.

 

As with every well planned segue, here are some cool photos taken from my fall break trip to Barcelona, Spain. Enjoy. :)  

 

 

In a center square, at the top of La Rambla. It was quite a cloudy day, but I like the altered sunlight. 

 

 

Unfortunately I didn't get to go to a soccer match, they were extremely expensive, but this outside view of a stadium was very cool, complete with it's own adorning statue. 

 

I loved the giant market off of La Rambla, where I could go and find wonderful fruit and juices just like Kitty did on her trip here. This might have been my favorite thing on the trip.

 

The building on the right, the Casa Batllo, was designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi. I saw another of his famous works, the Sagrada Familia, but the renovation work did not make for a nice picture. His style and choice of colors were nice to see amongst others in the area. 

It's just a short post today, but it's just right for today; I've actually got two more trips to post about so I'm certainly not short on material. I mentioned last time that I'd be going to Milan, but the other city might not be so easy to guess. If you'd like to take a stab at it in the comments, I may be able to reward the first person with a correct guess!

"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" Part 2

Here's a final wrap of the places I've been to in the past few weeks. This is a look at some more cool stuff from travels with my parents, and I promise next post I've got a few sewing/quilting type pictures ready from my France adventures so far.

 

 

This was a beautiful fountain in Nimes, which my blogger friend Kitty happened to take a picture of too, when she visited France earlier this month. I did this funny Vanna White pose for you Kitty. :)

 

This is a Roman temple in Nimes and one of the most well preserved left standing. It was very beautiful even with the cheesy film playing inside!

 

This is the front of the temple, with my parents at the top. This building was humongous and awesome.

 

I also really liked this too, the Roman amphitheater in Nimes. Can anyone believe it was built around 70 AD?!

 

The last city my parents and I travelled to was Marseille, which is sort of like San Francisco for all of you familiar with California. This arch was on our way to the old port and I couldn't pass up a photo opportunity.

 

And that, sadly, is a wrap of my mini adventures in France for now. The next post on here might not be for a while, since my fall break just started and tomorrow I leave for two consecutive trips, to Barcelona and Milan! I'll have to take good photos, as I know these cities have many beautiful sights to offer. I'm off to travel a world I know I was destined to see.

"Not all those who wander are lost."

I think I'm getting good at this forget-to-post/become-shocked-by-the-date thing, no? I picked the post title (J.R.R. Tolkien) because it describes what I have been doing, much better than I could say myself.

In order to keep taking a very spotty account of my times in the south of France, I'll do a short recap, with lots of pictures, to prevent the horrors of reading a novel-sized biography for each picture. You're welcome :)

 

 

 This was a view of the beach and some boats in Saint Tropez, one of the most tranquil scenes I've witnessed in France yet!

 

The giant fountain in the center of Aix-en-Provence, where I'm living for the semester.

 

This was an art show in a limestone quarry cave, where music played and Impressionist paintings were projected onto the walls, like these by Monet. It was so cool!

 

 

The city of Les Beaux also showcased a couple-thousand-year-old chateau and other neat things like a trebuchet and a catapult.  

 



 



My parents came to visit me and we went on lots of day trips, like this one to the cute and quaint city of Cassis. 

 

 

This time my dad (and mom) and I are in Lacoste, a tiny little hillside town. It had beautiful views of the valley.

 

 My mom actually asked me to capture this photo of a cemetery in Menerbes and I think the photo would be striking in black and white. 

I have some more photos of day trip towns but I'll save those for another day, so I have no excuse about lacking content for another post. Here's hoping I won't forget or procrastinate and actually put them up before the semester's over at this rate!