Tag Archive | Family

Rodeo Time in Houston!

That time of year. Every year. Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has started up again…

I’m not one to go to the rodeo typically, but this weekend I think our family will go and look at the animals. My Mom and Dad called last night and said they were interested in going to the fatstock show. She said it is what they called it before they said “livestock” show. Sounds like my Saturday is planned.

My little cowpeople dressed up yesterday for school for Go Texan Day.

Here they are last year. We took a lot of time prepping that morning.

Jump ahead now to this week. Notice the disheveled look? They look a bit rough in this picture, and the clothes are almost all the same from last year (we don’t buy western wear often)…

We got up a little late for school that day and threw it all together. No one (including myself) got the hats located the night before, so I’m scrambling through closets of toys and shoes and managed to get her hat at the last second.

She wanted to wear the bow tie as a hair clip.

His head has grown significantly since last year.

Tuck in our shirts? Heck no!

Cute as buttons? I think so…

On the quilting front, I worked when I could during the week to start the quilt top assembly for the Snapshots quilt.

Here it is, starting with the bottom half.

It should be no problem getting the rest of it done by Monday. I already have the outside borders cut and ready to go as well.

See you next week!

Yee Haw!

Jennifer

Friday Check-In

Feb5

We are on the brink of another glorious, beautiful weekend! My husband is enjoying another birthday today, so we have a weekend long celebration of family and food and relaxation.

My daughter and I are invited to a tea party birthday for our neighbor tomorrow. Her birthday was this week as well. I decided to convert my plans for my Valentine table topper into a gift for Emily. Here is the quilt top I pieced based on a free pattern put out by Allison through Cluck Cluck Sew:

I was going to use it just for seasonal decoration, but I thought it would make a perfect pillow sham for a 9 year old who loves pink and purple.

Now, for some personalization…

Ignore the wrinkles and such…

It has been a while since I did some embroidery work. But I love how it turned out!

I just need to back it with some white fabric and do some quilting, then make the envelope-style backing pieces with a purple polka dot fabric I picked up last night and stitch it all together!

After that – I think I am going to knock out the last blocks for the Snapshots Quiltalong. Getting so very close on that finish.

Last weekend I was able to finish up the car block and started with all my prepped and labeled pieces (I really want the BLUE set of Alphabitties now, but I have two packages of the pink ones already!):

Then the final result:

And lastly – my Mom is planning the wedding for my brother and sweet fiancé in May, so she brought over some sample dresses for her granddaughter to try on. This was early on a Saturday morning during cartoon hour, so it isn’t intended to be a glamour photo. I think she will be getting a hair cut this weekend also, now that I see this picture again… 🙂 I can also spot in the background that it is time to rotate my Lori Holt Bee in my Bonnet calendar now too!

Have a super weekend everyone!

Jennifer

And… the holidays are here…

Nov9

This year is flying by! Much too fast for my taste at the moment. Especially when I can actually sense when my kids have “grown up” a little since last week.

Lots since the last post, just not a lot of time to sit and type up a blog entry. I appreciate that you stopped by – hopefully you will see something that interested you.

Since the last post, many things have gone on around here. Long post with the pictures, but since I’m down to a single post per month – maybe you can persist with me?

My company moved their office to a completely new building – all new construction and only one other company that moved in the same weekend as we did with three other floors vacant.

Here is my new office. Light, bright and very sterile. I’m deciding on some custom quilt wall hanging to coordinate and decorate my space. Not a lot of wall space (just one full wall and that narrow strip you can see in front of my desk – just perfect for a wall “runner”:

We also had a huge yard sale, which wasn’t really worth the effort that we put into it. And Halloween came and went. Our cat is now as big as my daughter!

During the same weekend, I was able to get a few hours in at the annual Quilt Festival. My husband was a great sport about it and went along with me. First time for Fat Quarter Shop to attend as a vendor and I was very excited to meet them in person! Love their new t-shirts – super soft! I also stumbled into the booth for Red Crinoline Quilts without realizing it. But I looked around and thought … “I know these quilts! Where am I?” Got some great photo ops with everyone!

I finally put the binding on this quilt and wrote on a label, using one of the neutral block squares on the front of the quilt (which I did after taking this picture).

Then, this past weekend, I decided to buckle down and start on a quilt for a dear friend. I thought about getting my Reach for the Stars done and gifting it to her, but I think she would really like something more colorful (but not too bright as she has told me). Dawn – you would be proud of me … I at least put on a couple of the inside containment borders, and I left my stuff out and available to get back on this ASAP.

So – I went back to my original plan of Sandy Gervais patterns and fabric. I had selected the Fine China pattern with the Rambling Rose fabric collection to make for my friend. But, the quilt would end up being a huge 102″ square. And I need something a little faster. You see, my friend has been diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer which has already spread to her lungs and stomach. We are hopeful for the treatment therapy (oral chemo) to work a miracle for her. I am devastated by the impact of such a close friend going through this. I work with her every day and I just have no thoughts other than positive to keep her around. So, I took my fabrics for Fine China and am now going to make them into another Sandy Gervais pattern called Rose Garden. I think it will be a great fit for my friend’s personality and tastes.

I grabbed this screen capture from Sandy Gervais’s website that shows the completed quilt. You can follow this link to see the pattern details and order directly from her site.

Rose Garden Picture

You can see I’m using the same fabrics as she did, but I am planning on finishing it a bit different with an extra border in the aqua/rain color print on the left and top sides. I want it big enough to be a lap/couch quilt.

So, it is a labor of love and I’m enjoying the soothing, romantic feel of the Rambling Rose fabric. I hope you are finding inspiration today in your projects as well. Thanks for stopping by and I hope to blog again soon! If you want to check in more often, you can follow me on instagram at jengwyn and I hashtag my posts with #seamscrazyquilts. I think I’m doing it right. Not entirely sure!!

Jennifer

Who is this? Combining play at work

Jun30

Hello patient follower! I think this is the longest gap I have had since I started blogging back in the summer of 2012.

All kinds of boring stuff is going on here, because I have to go to work to make a living and afford my fabric indulgences. Lots of work. Too much work. Which is a good thing for the success of our company, but also puts a lot of pressure on everyone to keep up.

This weekend, I gave my kids a treat and brought them to the office with me while I did some exciting Accounting stuff for a few hours. They love to come to the office, so they can write on the big whiteboard in the conference room:

They also like to act like they are in school (or at least Nora does – she loves to boss around her brother!)

While I was at the office, I brought in my latest quilt top that I was making for Oliver. Something big enough to really cover his queen size bed and tuck in at the ends and corners.

I needed a large open space to lay it out so I could accurately measure the sides for cutting my borders. I think right now it was around 76 x 84.

It kind of looks like a nuclear warning flag.

I bought many layer cakes of the Military Max collection and an olive green dot print from Riley Blake (along with a solid black). I started this with a split nine patch unit and then added some stitch and flip corners to create some interest in the middle. It’s not my favorite quilt, but Oliver likes it a lot. He is really into Nerf guns and Minecraft and playing military with friends, etc…

I’ll post it again after I get the borders done. It will look a bit less chaotic. And huge. I think it could fit a king size bed. Finished size will be around 88 x 96.

Once this is done – I’m super excited to cut into something new. I really loved the collection “Little Joys” when I first spotted a preview of it on this post from Pretty by Hand. I’m waiting to see what Kristyne is going to do with her fabric.

For me, I’m going to put it together in the “Classic and Vintage” Delectable Mountain pattern that was showcased recently by Fat Quarter Shop (they even have a YouTube tutorial). They used the BasicGrey collection Evergreen, but I think this will do great too! I took a chance and ordered some of the Le Creme Swiss Dots – Baby Pink on Cream Dots to coordinate with it for the background. And a Jolly Bar of the new Jingle collection by Kate Spain to bring in some blues and make it a tiny bit scrappier. Planning on the lap size.

I’m also intrigued by this pattern because it gave instructions to optionally use Triangles on a Roll paper for HSTs. I have never used this before, and I’m eager to give it a shot:

So, if all goes well – likely to start on this project next week!

Do you have a Christmas in July project planned?

Finally, I have joined Instagram and started s.l.o.w.l.y posting some pics online there. I’m not sure exactly about the proper etiquette about jumping on hashtags without being invited. Is that ok? I just don’t know. I tried it out by tagging some pictures with #littlejoysfabric

I appreciate your input on that for those of you who are now experts in Instagram. I’m going to see about setting up the IG account under this website name instead of my own. Try to keep some sense of privacy, but who am I kidding. It’s all out there in the cloud, right?

All the best,

Jennifer

Family and Farming

Apr6

We had an exceptional Easter holiday, with our family joining us at home to let us host them for lunch. Normally we go elsewhere, but the kids wanted to have the holiday at home this year.

I enjoyed putting together their Easter baskets and then getting up at 4 am to wrap them in plastic wrap and setting them out. I know Easter baskets and egg hunting aren’t the reason for the holiday, but we had a great time doing it all…:

Stuffed Baymax and Wall-E were just sitting around, not part of the basket, but had to be included in the picture 🙂

Today, I also got to enjoy a special lunch out with my husband to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary. He was super sweet to bring me a rose and a card when he picked me up from work:

When I came back to the office, I had a package waiting for me too!

Is everyone ready for Farm Girl Fridays? (Click here to see about the new Sew Along by Lori Holt) #FarmGirlFridays

I have no idea when I will have time, but I have the book – so there’s a good chance I’ll give it a go…

Have a great week!

Jennifer

MODA Love – Round 2

Sep8

When I say this quilt pattern can go together fast, I meant it. The only reason I don’t have this square actually pieced together is because I obsessed over the placement of the fabrics. This ‘second round’ will finish at 32″ square. It will nest inside the final round, which will take it to 72″ square, but then I will be floating it again inside more black fabric, then add a pieced border.

I auditioned my two options for the inner block.

First – leave the red pinstripe on it and nest it inside the next round:

Moda Love Round 2 Red

Second, try my best to lay out the remaining scraps i had of the black print to imagine how it would look just ‘floating’ inside the next round:

I made a definite decision to get more of that black print and ‘float’ the block. Luckily, there is a LQS within driving distance open on Sunday and they stock tons of MODA fabric and older lines as well. I had no problem getting a couple of yards of this print. The outer black fabric is not the print, but a fabric from the MODA Weave collection in black. Great match with the fabric and it isn’t a solid, overwhelming black when you see it in person.

I also picked up a charm pack of American Janes A La Carte (just released) and Fairy Tale Friends. These will come in very handy when I make the pieced borders.

The first round was made with a “Wee Play” charm pack. The second round is more “School Days” charm pack with some of the “Wee Play” mixed in. The third round will be mostly from a layer cake of “Potluck” and perhaps a few from “Ducks in a Row”.

We all survived the birthday party and I think everyone had a good time. I know Nora sure did and really loved having a huge play date for her birthday. We finished off the day by going to the college football game – just me and her.

To top it off – she has a VERY wiggly bottom tooth, likely to be gone by the end of today. First tooth for her. Growing up fast…

Have a great week!

Jennifer

First Day of School – DONE!

Aug14

My kids started to school yesterday. My husband and I took them into school and waited while the morning gathering meeting was held (it is a small charter public school), then kissed them as they went into their big girl and big boy classrooms.

sniff ***sniff

My experienced child, posing for me in his 2nd grade classroom:

And my nervous baby girl, going into 1st grade. She had a great day though, she couldn’t stop talking about it last night 🙂

On to Quilting Updates!

I have gotten Block 11 done of the 2013 FQS DM BOM. I really love working with the Avalon collection by Fig Tree Quilts. I had made a really quick quilt earlier in the year with Avalon when it was just hitting the store shelves (or was that last year???). I only recently got it off to the quilter and back, but I haven’t shared it yet. I need to get the binding on it.

Here is my design wall from a couple of days ago – showing my Block 11 twins (on the right side):

Any one of these BOM blocks by themselves would make a beautiful quilt. I often think about which one I would pick, but my wish list is already pretty full.

My cutting table had Block 12 all ready to start. Since this picture was taken, I have pieced about half of these blocks and hope to finish it tonight or tomorrow. Love those Alphabitties, but my letter “G” has gone missing somewhere … 😦

Olaf the kitten is still doing well. Treating her eyes with some steroid drops several times a day. She is so affectionate too. She sticks really close to us when we are home. I was lucky to catch this picture, she won’t sit still for long unless she’s laying right on top of you somehow:

I hope you are having a great week yourself.

Don’t stress out – it is just school time again!

Jennifer

Summer 2014 Coming to a Close

Aug10

Hello kind friends and readers. Thank you for the patience and for checking in periodically to see if I would show up again. I’m still here. Time just decided to go into overdrive this past month. It has been just over a month since my last post, but not a lot of things accomplished in the quilting realm.

Work is busy. The kids went to summer camp every day and got to swim every day, which they loved. But that is over now. We just came back from a vacation getaway to Moody Gardens in Galveston, TX. It wasn’t a far drive from home, and in fact – my husband made an early morning trip back half-way through to get some cheaper snacks for the hotel room and a few forgotten items. Most of the time was spent in the water. I’m very tired of being wet and bound in a swimsuit. I bought my first swimsuit in 8 years for this vacation and I couldn’t believe how much those things cost. Especially ones that offer the … ahem… full coverage that I was looking for.

On a very sad note, I don’t think I mentioned that all 5 of our kittens tested positive for Feline Leukemia (FeLV). This is like contagious cancer for cats. It doesn’t spread to humans or other animals, like dogs. I had to go through the sorrow of losing 3 kittens in one day, then another kitten three days later. They are just over 5 months old and they fall so fast. All four that have passed had respiratory distress due to fluid building up in their bodies and starting to choke out their lung capacity. We have one kitten left – Olaf. When I took her in with the other sister, I had noted the night before that she had some cloudiness in her eye. The vet said it could be a tumor starting or just an eye infection. I have since taken her to the kitty ophthalmologist and they prescribed some steroid drops for two weeks to see how she reacts. They don’t think it is a tumor (relief). Her eyes are looking better already, but she will always have this underlying condition that I can’t control and at this point and I am so sad to know that at any time she may not make it past another few days. FeLV opens the door for infections or cancers to just come right in and take her down. We are doing what we can within our means to give her a comfortable and happy life and right now she is good.

So, I had been busy and depressed and not in much of a mood to sit and sew. Because that is usually a happy time for me. I don’t normally do ‘sad sewing’ or ‘angry sewing’, if you know what I mean.

There were a few days here and there that I found myself doing some piece work.

Here is my design wall today. I completed my two twin blocks for 2013 DM BOM – block #10. Next to it is the first block of the 2014 DM BOM series

Here is my cutting table at the moment:

I am working on Block #11. The folded stack of fat quarters is for another quilt that I haven’t started yet. And the clear envelope on the right side of the picture holds the first shipment from Fig Tree Quilts of the MODA Modern Building Blocks BOM program!

Here is a close-up of Block #11 that may be finished tonight:

Here are the pattern covers for Block #12 (the last block) and Block #2 of the new series that will be done next. I will be caught up after these are done.

I’m super excited about Fig Tree’s version of the MODA Modern Building Blocks quilt. It was offered through their website a couple of months ago, but it sold out quickly. Fat Quarter Shop is also offering this as a kit in September 2014. Here is a link to their site for that kit (click here).

A lot of the blocks will be made in the MODA Bella solids (like the original), but Joanna is also going to mix in some of her small prints and tone-on-tone fabrics from her newest collection called Somerset

In the first shipment, we received three cuts of Bella Solids. This fabric will be used to make five of the blocks in the pattern. One large block (36″) and four 6″ blocks. Their program is a total of 7 shipments.

Finally, I leave you with a super silly picture from our vacation to Moody Gardens. I love these kids!

Again, thanks for stopping by for a visit. I appreciate all of your emails and comments and hope to see you again very soon!

Jennifer

End of an Era

Jun19

Every other month, there is a “large trash” pickup day in our neighborhood. We try to purge what we can. This month, we decided it was time to get rid of the car seats.

***sigh***

***sniff sniff***

The kids are now too tall to really be comfortable in these seats anymore, and although from a distance, they look pretty good … you don’t see the food stains, crumbs, dirt and dried icecream in the buckles. Car seats are also one of those items that they say you shouldn’t get used, or donate. Hence, they are ready for the trash pickup.

I am so sentimental about these kind of things. I would keep them in the garage forever if my husband would let me.

When I was driving the kids across the street this morning, with just the regular seat belts on, my daughter exclaimed “I feel like a Queen!” and my son said “I feel like the President!”. They are enjoying the increased leg room I think.

Bring on the booster seats!

Happy Thursday,

Jennifer

Nantucket is Home! Picture heavy post ahead…

Jun3

I sit here to think of how to explain why I can’t post more often and I struggle with trying to sound gracious and humble. But it’s hard.

My kids are absolutely a terror when it comes to picking up after themselves, causing more of a mess while I’m cleaning up the last mess and they do NOT like to get up out of bed in the morning. One child begs me to let her stay up later and read more and the other runs screaming through the house when he has to do 2 pages of homework (that would take him all of 3 minutes if he would just down and do it).

I spent about an hour and a half last night doing the summer school homework with my son. Two little pages. 90 minutes. Several calm and thoughtful discussions in between about how we are going to be a team this month to get it done and a little bribery slipped into the mix. I soooo wanted to take my left hand and complete the homework for him, but I drew the line. Just a few more weeks and they are all play, all the time. Until then, we have a little extra work to get through to prepare for 2nd grade.

The days fly by. The nights are even shorter. And we have eaten at McDonalds waaaayyyyy too much for my comfort. !@#$!@#$

So, anyway, the conflict I feel is to record in my memoirs this moment in time and to also be aware that others are reading this and I want you to know, gentle reader, that I am very blessed to have my family and I wouldn’t want any other family in this world. I love my children. I spoil them rotten I’m sure and my husband pulls more than his weight around the house. But we both work full time and that leaves precious little at night to feed everyone, bathe everyone, do homework and wind down enough to slip into an unconscious state.

Now – for quilting pictures!!

I would like to formally state that my official quilter is Linh at Lima Sews. She is fantastic and I was overly thrilled when I got my Nantucket back from her this past weekend. I gave a couple of design thoughts and asked her to ‘do her thing’.

I’ll just pop these pictures in, back – to – back for your viewing enjoyment. I’m so glad that my backing allows the quilting to show off well.

Love the cross-hatching in the inner border…

See what I mean about the backing? This is my favorite picture of the group. You see all the designs in one place.

My only initial design request was circle feathers in the big stars. They turned out just like I wanted!

I tooks these pictures minutes after I pulled the quilt from the box. Should have ironed it out a bit first 🙂

Thank you Linh for a great quilt job! It is going to be so very hard to give this away – but at least it stays in the family. The binding needs to go on before Father’s Day, so I should be able to swing that at least.

If you want Linh to quilt for you – you can visit her blog and website.

She blogs under “Elvy Crafts”: http://elvycrafts.blogspot.com

Her longarm services can be linked from that site, or you can go here under her company website for LiMa Sews: http://www.limasews.com/services

Go to the bottom of her LiMa Sews site and you will see the SWOON quilt I did last year for a wedding gift in Happy Go Lucky fabrics.

Thanks for visiting my site today. I hope to get back into a routine that will include more posts. I am so very close to finishing my Great Granny Squared quilt. Just the plain outer borders left to sew and then a pieced backing.

Until next time!!

Jennifer

Seams Crazy

Quilting and Family – both crazy!

Tag Archive | Family

Rodeo Time in Houston!

Friday Check-In

And… the holidays are here…

Who is this? Combining play at work

Family and Farming

MODA Love – Round 2

First Day of School – DONE!

Summer 2014 Coming to a Close

End of an Era

Nantucket is Home! Picture heavy post ahead…

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