Pinwheels in progress

Believe it or not I have been trying to squeeze in working on some quilts between work and taking Spanish classes.  I'd hoped to finish one up over spring break... but I'm not quite there yet.

Back well before 2008 I had decided to make a flower-basket type quilt for my niece.  This was the general plan:

 

And here were the first few fabrics I'd cut out :

But... it sat in a box for a good long time.  Finally last year I opened it up and did a test block.  I didn't like it and made a vague decision to just make a bunch of half-square triangles and then see what else I could do with them.  

HSTs are a bit addictive though... once you start it's hard to stop. 

Anytime I was bored (aka procrastinating to avoid writing a Spanish paper) I'd just cut up some 3 1/2" squares and spend an hour sewing them up.  I've probably got enough for a full sized quilt... but I don't like making big quilts so I'll probably make two smaller quilts.

First up - pinwheels!

That pink is not the background or anything - it's just the back of another quilt I'm using as a 'design wall' of sorts.  

I've actually added a 'piano keys' scrap border... and am about to start the quilting.  Hopefully I'll manage to finish this one up before I get swamped with homework from my next class!!

Dos anos de Espanol

Y todavilla, no puedo hablar muy bien.

(Two years of Spanish and I still can't speak very well.)

There's a quote from Winston Churchill about WW2 which I find fitting my life quite often:  "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

I'm one class and one final presentation away from completing the 6 terms of foreign language classes required by the graduate program I will be attending in the fall.  I can barely grasp what this means.

I've taken 29 credits of Spanish classes over the past two years!  With the exception of the summer term I took off, I've had classes two nights a week since June of 2010.  I've spent my commutes reviewing flash cards, weeknights completing seemingly endless homework assignments and weekends writing essays.  There have been skits and dialogues and group projects that make me want to tear my hair out.  There have been conjugations up the ying-yang and irregular verbs a plenty.  There have also been a few laughs and I made at least one friend in my classes.

Frankly, I'm exhausted.  

And it's not the end yet, it's not even the beginning of the end.  And in fact it's not even really the end of the beginning.  I'm just inching closer to the starting line of the marathon that will be graduate school.  I have two more per-requisites (Intro to Linguistics and a Grammar class) that I will need to complete before officially beginning classes for my Master's degree in Applied Linguistics.  

But this is the end of my Spanish classes.  After next week all of my studying, all of my homework, and all of my essays will be in my beloved native language!  Which I hope will be at least a bit easier.