Tag Archive | Kitties

Snapshots – A Picture Quilt

On to brighter topics and colors!

Last weekend I finally buckled down to get through my Snapshots sew-along blocks. Going to get them done before all of these 2016 BOMs get ramped up.

I plan to join in the Fat Quarter Shop Crossroads Charity Quilt-a-Long using the Fig Tree Quilts Strawberry Fields Revisited collection … but isn’t everyone?? Also, based on some affection for other blogger posts – I felt ‘talked into’ joining the Kim Diehl Simple Whatnots Miniature Quilts monthly kits. The first one should arrive at my house today. This will be my first time participating in her program (also through Fat Quarter Shop). Then there is the Fig Tree Quilts 2016 Mystery Sampler BOM that should start in a month or two … and Midnight Clear BOM through FQS using a pattern by Sherri Falls from her upcoming book Holiday Wishes. I’m also waiting on kits from the Vintage Picnic collection and I know I want to make something with “Little Ruby” – both of which come from Bonnie & Camille. So much great stuff this year!!!

Baby girl is holding up the hot air balloon, which took longer than I thought it would to make. But quick enough regardless.

Neighbor friend is holding up the bicycle block which I had stressed over starting because I thought it would take forever. It did take most of my day, in between watching some football and hanging out with the kids. Not too bad at all. Those tiny pinwheels!

The sailboat block went together super quick. Cut and pieced it while the kids took their baths on Sunday night.

Here is a group picture of all but the sailboat:

I think … think … I am going to make the camera block instead of the car block for the front, and that would then only leave the picnic basket. Two blocks and I’ll be ready to start the sashing!

I wanted to share this other rare picture. We feed a feral cat named “Ralph” on our porch each morning and we are owned by another black cat who lives inside with us. I think Ralph has started inviting his friends over now … can you see all 3 black cats? Black as night and as skittish as they can be.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

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

Did I say two weeks? I guess I meant two months…

Oct12

So, I finished this baby quilt over the weekend. I didn’t take the vacation days I expected when I planned my ‘two week challenge’. I’m going to take some days at the end of this month instead, with the intent to spend one full day at the annual International Quilt Festival!

This baby quilt is made primarily with Urban Zoologie and Remix prints by Ann Kelle with a gray background by Riley Blake. It will finish around 58″ square and uses the Tumbleweed block pattern by Lori Holt in her Farm Girl Vintage book.

Here’s a little closeup. I want to quilt it myself, but I’m just not sure. I bought a plush minky fabric for the backing and I’m scared how hard it might be to quilt it without getting puckers and uneven results on my own.

Since I still had some time available, and Houston Astros baseball to watch on TV… I went ahead and started cutting out fabrics for the 9th installment of the Snapshots Quiltalong, called Quilty Cat!

I wanted to replicate the look of our black cat, Violet – without making the cat pitch black in the quilt. I had this really pretty gray fat quarter that worked perfectly.

Once I got started, I couldn’t stop. I had to finish it before I went to bed last night. Isn’t she cute?

Here’s my model, Violet, with her Quilty Cat block this morning. (And my lonesome little Farmhouse block waiting patiently for me to get back to that project)

Now I just have to do the Hot Air Balloon and the Bicycle block to be caught up. The 10th installment gets released on Thursday however, so I’ll be down three by the weekend. But, for me, I’m doing really good to stay caught up this far (7 blocks out of 9).

Hope you are all enjoying the changing of the seasons! I’m rooting for the Astros to win their Game 4 right now!

All my best,

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

I’m reaching … and almost there!

Jul2

I am still working on my Reach for the Stars quilt. This is an installment quilt project published in Quilters Newsletter. We are now up to issue 5 of 7 of this installment. The last two issues will have the final two blocks, the setting triangles and center assembly, and then the quilt borders. This has been my favorite quilt so far to work on along with so many others who joined in an impromptu Sew-Along journey.

The latest publication included the instructions for Blocks 10, 11 and 12. Here they are!

Block 10. I sewed this and found cut corners, so I unpicked a lot of it, tried again and found I had pieced in a section backwards. Unpicked it again and finally got it right the third time.

Block 11. Went together easy-peasy. Photo is kind of blurry. I made my own directions to come up with the 8 HST units and four flying geese units.

Block 12. This one should have been a no-brainer. But with the opportunity for fussy cutting, I took the longest putting this one together. I have to be honest and say that this is probably my least favorite block. I don’t know why, but I just am not ‘feeling’ it.

Here’s a closeup of the fussy cutting areas. I really wanted a ‘lighter’ feel to the fussy cuts, but I didn’t have that much to select from on my remaining focus fabric:

So… do you want to see how all the blocks look together at this point?

My design wall isn’t big enough so I have laid them out on my ‘design bed’. I should have put a white sheet underneath, but I didn’t. So just ignore the clashing comforter pattern you see…

And another angle… I am only just over 5 feet tall and I was holding this camera as high up as I could, taking a blind shot, without going through the effort of getting a stable chair to stand on. Therefore, this picture is a bit blurry also:

I still have the outer sashing to put on my center medallion. I’m still contemplating the fabric, but it will probably be this polka dot. Still deciding though…

I can’t believe I may have this quilt finished this year. I am going to splurge on some custom quilting if Linh agrees to it. So excited to see this one come together.

As I mentioned before, and shown on my blog, there are others who are also doing this quilt. Dawn at First Light Designs has done a better job of sharing pictures from our friends. Please visit her website to see her pictures and those of Dawn, Jennifer T, Jennifer V, Sherri C and Colleen. She is showcasing four new blocks from Jennifer V in a post today!

Finally, I’ll leave you with a Kitten Centerpiece idea for your dining table. It’s all the rage right now!

This is Olaf (girl), Kristoff, Sven, Anna and Elsa (boy). Our five kittens. We named them before we knew if they were girls or boys. No changing vet records now!

Have a great, safe, happy and relaxing 4th of July holiday (for those of us in USA). GO COLOMBIA! My favorite now for winning the World Cup. They play on Friday.

All the best,

Jennifer

New Trend – Go BIG!

Jun23

I want to officially take credit for any future trend that starts in the near future where the designers go BIG instead of mini. At least, in my mind, I’ll take the credit.

I have finished the main block for the back of my Great Granny squared quilt. This measures roughly 68 1/2″ square. I LOVE IT! I think that truly this will now be a reversible quilt. I will love the back as much as the front…

Those are 25 layer cake squares (10″) and 3 yards of backing. I found a perfect compliment fabric for this backing. It is by Dear Stella and is from the Paloma collection. I got these three yards on a chance, and on a 50% off sale, from FQS. They are now since sold out, which is sad – because I definitely want more of it. My lighting wasn’t so great. All of those orange squares are prints except one. A lot of them look like solids, but they aren’t. Also, this backing is a true light gray and clean white. Not off-white like it looks. Here is a closeup of the backing:

I am asking Linh to mimic the paisely motif designs in the quilting when I send it to her. It feels so great to already know how I want it quilted too.

Now, my decision is to order more of this same fabric to complete the entire backing (I need a few inches on either side and about 12″ on top and bottom), or use a similar print, but in High Street HOT PINK to finish it up (which I already have in my stash). I think I know what I want, but I’ll do my final reveal when it is quilted.

Also, I had some good luck with eBay auctions in the past week as well. Lots of ‘vintage’ bundles from one seller, who apparently is a Fat Quarter Shop fan as well. I am gathering different collections from American Jane fabrics. I was able to get a charm pack of Cherries Jubilee and a fat quarter pack of Building Blocks (from 2007).

I also bid on this adorable sewing tin and won it for only $15! I don’t think the other bidders read closely in the description or looked at all the pictures, because it was full of so many goodies!

Love the decorative pins – can add those to my collection as well. Another ‘vintage’ charm pack of Notting Hill , labels, buttons, needles, scissors, magnets, thread, ribbons, and some hexagon paper piecing templates. I was thrilled to win it.

And, today wouldn’t be complete without sharing some kitten pictures with you. I hope you have a great week ahead!

Jennifer

Happy Friday!

Apr25

It’s 5:30 am, and this is apparently the perfect time to update a new post. There is always a chance that one of my offspring will sense that I am not asleep, then wake up themselves and seek me out – but if I type fast enough….

You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

First – I’ll share some gratuitous kitten pictures because that is really what the internet was invented for after all.

All five kittens were named for characters from the Disney Frozen movie, by the way.

1) Anna (black and white)

2) Elsa (tabby)

3) Olaf and either Sven or Kristoff (we have two solid black kittens)

Olaf is by far the most outgoing. I think he was the first born as well. We are working on socializing them and litter box training. Next week, mommy goes in for her snip-snip surgery. There are just too many dead-beat dad tom cats out there! And she likes to escape and run off with the first one (or several given the out come of this litter) that she finds. Tsk tsk… 🙂

Now, for my latest project. I’m completing the main quilt pattern in Lori Holt’s book “Great Granny Squared”. It calls for twenty of her GGS blocks and then it will have a pieced border of 5″ squares set on point around it. These fabrics have been so fun to work with. I ended up using three main collections: Bluebird Park, Birds & Berries and High Street. There is one fabric round in the blocks from Mirabelle – but it truly doesn’t fit in (see bottom row, second from left, outer pale yellow fabric round). There are also perhaps 4-8 squares in the mix from Wishes by Sweetwater – but I found that the colors were also too muted for what I evolved into using.

I ran out of room on the design wall, so I had to tape up the other 5 blocks on the bathroom door. That is what the blue dots are holding up the squares.

My photography skills at night in a spare bedroom are lacking. The colors are really so vibrant and cheerful.

My daughter’s favorite block:

One of my favorites. Once I added in some of the High Street collection, I wish I had more blocks to make!

I have the sashing strips cut, so that will be my next step. This is going to be a housewarming gift for one of my coworkers. I have plans to make another of these for myself, in Vintage Happy fabric and other Lori Holt collections.

Have a great Friday and thanks so much for visiting my blog today!

Jennifer

Midnight Caller

Mar5

I use to have midnight callers, believe it or not. Hard to remember now – it’s been so long… My midnight callers now usually entails either cats or my kids. Notice I didn’t mention husband. We’re too tired. lol

However, one night earlier in the week I got up around midnight and my fabric was calling out. I have several projects laid out on the cutting table and I can’t wait to have time to work on them. I decided to respond to the call!

I have my next Great Granny Squared block laid out, ready for stitching:

I worked this morning a bit as well, connecting the pieces to form my strips. I’ll have this block done before dinner tonight!

It is also no secret that I love Fig Tree stuff. I tend to hoard and not actually use my precuts for some reason. Stupid really, since I love it so much – why not make it into something I can enjoy every day -right? I was inspired by a post from Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life blog who also does a lot of stitching for Joanna Figueroa and she had made a wall hanging from her Canned Pears pattern. You can (click here) to visit that blog post.

I really loved seeing it done that way, and I decided that I could adapt it to be a nice window valance hanging for my kitchen window, perhaps with a roman shade layered behind it.

Anyway … I wanted 5 pears to go across the valance, in a staggered fashion like the quilt pattern. But the pears are too big, so I had to draw out my own dimensions for the pieces to make it fit.

My challenge was to make my initial pear block out of charm squares from the new Mirabelle fabric collection from Fig Tree. Therefore, I have two different fabrics for the pear body, but I think I will like it when it is all done. Right now, it might may it look a little more like a vase or jar, instead of a pear, but I have high hopes! I reduced the size down by about a third.

In closing, here are a few midnight callers of my own. Aurora staring out of two different windows, within about a minute of each other…

She’s my Christmas Eve rescue baby. She looks very healthy and all adapted to her purrever home now though!

And two more of my rescue babies, … Sparkle and Jewelry (taking a bath, so she’s a bit blurry). Having their morning naps. Always close by.

See that quilt they are on? It is the backside of a 2011 FQS Designer Mystery quilt. Quilt police confession – I start using my quilts even before I have the binding on. I just make sure there is a stay stitch around the edge. I procrastinate really bad on bindings!

Have a great day!

Jennifer

Nantucket Backgrounds

Nov6

I’m working as much as I can at night to get this project off the ground. I can’t wait to get to the end result!

The pattern calls for 6 background fabrics in 3/4 yd cuts. Since I’m using a FQ bundle, all my cuts are FQs…

My solution was to group my background/light tan fabrics together in 6 sets of 3 fabrics. I am treating each set like a single 3/4 yd cut as called for in the cutting instructions. Here are 5 of my ‘sets’ of backgrounds.

I take the three FQ pieces and stack them neatly on my cutting board and proceeded to cut.

First, after trimming up a straight edge, I did the two skinny cuts for the 9 patch units.

Then, I cut three strips at 4 1/4″ each.

The pattern wants you to end up with six (6) rectangles that are 8″ long and also (21) squares. To do that I took one of the strips (that is 3 fabrics deep) and cut twice to get my 6 rectangles. Then I was able to get one more cut done for 3 of the squares.

I took the next strip group and cut it into 5 squares (15 total for all fabrics).

Finally, I just had to make one cut off the last set of strips to give me the total 21 squares needed. That left me with 3 background strips that were around 4 1/4″ x 17″ long. Scrap bin stash!

Here’s the result of one of my 3/4 yd sets:

The project pieces are at the top, again 6 rectangles (2 of each fabric) and 21 squares (7 of each fabric).

My leftovers are on the bottom of the picture. Some smaller pieces that I may never use, but certainly stash away those 4 1/4″ strip remains.

My progress so far … I have cut the red strips for the 9 patch units and I have cut this one ‘set’ of background fabric. I plan to catch up tonight on the cutting though!

Here’s Jewelry, helping me out as always…

Good thing this quilt will be for me. I wouldn’t let my kitties sit and walk on my quilt pieces for someone else’s quilt. Or at least, not intentionally.

Have a great day! Thanks for visiting!

Jennifer

Seams Crazy

Quilting and Family – both crazy!

Tag Archive | Kitties

Snapshots – A Picture Quilt

And… the holidays are here…

Did I say two weeks? I guess I meant two months…

First Day of School – DONE!

Summer 2014 Coming to a Close

I’m reaching … and almost there!

New Trend – Go BIG!

Happy Friday!

Midnight Caller

Nantucket Backgrounds

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