Drunken Monkey Sews, Too

My good buddy Kara has inspired me to sign up for a few swaps lately, so I thought I'd better post a little bit so the other participants know I'm still breathing!  One of the swaps is a handmade holiday swap hosted by Kara herself!  I have big, exciting knitting AND sewing plans for my swap partner, but I'm not ready to show anything yet.  The second swap is a crafty Christmas swap among my Green Club peeps, and I have AMAZING AWESOME-NESS planned for that swap partner, too... but I have to keep that hidden just in case she knows who she is.   

The last swap is a fat quarter fabric swap, and I got my color assignment last week!  I have to send in 8 orange fat quarters and I'll get one fat quarter of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink, and gray in return!  I'm super excited about some mystery rainbow FQs! (My other two orange FQ's are on their way even so now as we speak!)

I've been a teensy bit obsessed with this drawstring project bag tutorial lately, with EIGHT finished project bags, FIVE more in progress, and TWO more cut out and ready to start.  I think I might be done after that.  (There are only six in this picture because two of the finished bags were snatched up by my mom the last time she was in town... except now I'm thinking maybe I've finished NINE bags, because I think she actually snatched up three of them...)

There are plenty of quilts in the planning, in-progress, and finished stages, as well.  Along with at least two quilts that are in the planning/gathering fabric stages, I recently finished a 46" x 66" quilt...

And the top for my pirate monkey quilt (86" x 86") is finally finished!  I have to piece the back together and get it to my favorite long-arm quilter on Thursday this week.  I'm SO excited about this quilt!  Chaka has already gotten some practice sleeping on it, and it seems to have passed inspection.  

To completely mix things up, I also threw a cross stitch project into the rotation!  Kara (Again! I have got to stop following her around!) inspired me with some fun, modern cross stitch projects, and I had to try it for myself.  I found this awesome Etsy shop and went to town.  Here's my first finished cross stitch project in more than ten years!  I already have plans for more cross stitch excitement.  (Just don't tell Wendy!)

Phew!  Just imagine what I'll be able to accomplish when I'm NOT in grad school anymore!!  Just kidding... I'm planning on getting back together with my couch after next March... :)