Graduation is Getting Closer!

Then I will have so much time! I don't know what I'll do with myself!

Jamye

Catch Up Time

My life as usual has been nonstop!  I hope to catch up on a few thing I have been meaning to blog about in this post.

I promised pictures of Brittney's room, so here they are!

Before:

After:

So much better...and definitely more fun!

Brittney is growing so fast...it seems like just yesterday she was so tiny and now this has happened:

She has also lost two teeth!

We finally went on our vacation.  It was so much fun!!!  I wish we could buy property in Concan right on the Frio River...it was beautiful and fun!  We spent four days there with great people...you couldn't ask for a better time.  I have a few pictures for now, but I promise more will follow!

On the way out of Concan, we stopped at Andy's On the River, which is a souvenir shop for guests of the Frio.  Mike bought a shirt and I got this beautiful headboard/footboard.  :) I thought he was going to kill me, but he loaded it in the truck and brought it all the way home for me.  He loves me for sure!

After we got home I checked the mail and this had arrived from my Aunt Laquita.  Her neighbor makes them...isn't it the cutest!

You should be jealous for two reasons.  First one is that I LOVE ladybugs...and second is that I have the best aunt EVER!  She and my uncle just moved to Ecuador to work and Mike and I are planning to visit them before they return home.



Jamye

Key to Quilting: Resources

Mike and I spent a few hours this past Saturday at my favorite sewing shop.  I think he enjoyed it as much as I did.  While speaking with the lovely ladies who work there, I had a revelation - I don't know very much about quilting!  Yep, so I am planning on taking a beginner's quilting course this summer.  I am so excited!  The ladies I spoke with know so many simple things that are life savers when it comes to quilting.  I felt a bit silly explaining some of my issues with my first quilt, but they were so helpful and have given me my quilting mojo back.  I am going to put away the Christmas quilt I was working on and try to handle some smaller projects until I begin my Summer classes and hopefully after my quilting class I can finish it up the right way.  (P.S. - Spring classes are officially over, thank goodness!) 

Also, I found a few things I need/really want for my birthday. ;) Hint hint to the hubby!

Horn of America sewing cabinet

Darning foot

Ruffler attachment...this baby is awesome!

Walking foot

Plus any and all Moda fabrics and various patterns by lovely people like Camille Roskelly, Sweetwater, Fig Tree Quilts, and many more...what's a girl to do if she can't dream? Lol!

Lesson learned!  Use your resources...local shops, relatives who quilt, internet videos, blogs, google...whatever it takes!  Success is at your finger tips, you just have to reach for it!

So until next time, I wish you much peace, love, and quilting!

Jamye

Fun in the Sun

This past weekend was so beautiful outside, I think we only stayed in the house long enough to eat breakfast.  On Saturday, we went to visit Kelly and Ivan at their home and the kids got to go swimming. 

Then on Sunday, we met up with the Gomez family and all of the kids got to ride rides and play games.

 

 They had just come back from being upside down!

All together it was a great day!  I hope to have more just like them this summer...minus the awful sunburn I got for forgetting the sunscreen :( OUCH!

 

Brittney and Daddy

Logan wouldn't pose with Sharky lol!

Brittney playing in the splash park!

There is so much to do in Kemah for people of all ages!  For more information on Kemah click here.   

***Aerial photo borrowed from the Kemah Boardwalk official website.

Jamye

April 2nd

April 2nd is a day that is so important in my family!  It is Brittney's birthday, my nephew Kameron's birthday, and my Mom and Dad's Anniversary!  Along with all of these wonderful things, April 2nd is now World Autism Awareness Day.  My nephew Kaden has Asperger's Syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.  I think my nephew is awesome, so World Autism Awareness Day must be extremely AWESOME!  You should support Autism Awareness everyday...there are many ways to show support!  You can visit Autism Speaks here to find out how you can help and/or you could purchase the Piece by Piece Scentsy warmer and 100% of net proceeds go directly to Autism Speaks.

You never know, but you just may be able to help some family like this. :)  P.S. - Kaden is in the red shirt.

*I am not a Scentsy salesperson and am in no way affiliated with Scentsy or Autism speaks, I just think it's a rocking idea and support this message :)

Jamye

Spring is in the Air!

I am so happy this time of year; Spring and summer are my seasons!  There is something about warm weather that just makes me goofy and enjoy life a tiny bit more.  Maybe it is because we get to be more social during those seasons...all I know is I am one happy girl!

Mike and I have been very busy with spring cleaning, landscaping, and a surprise bedroom make-over for Brittney's 6th birthday present. (Before and after pictures soon, I promise!)  We have also decided that now is the time to finally get back into shape and make some serious lifestyle changes. (Before and after pictures? Maybe not lol!)  We have been eating healthy and have been losing weight and are about to start P90X.  I am so nervous.  I had tried P90X about three years ago and it is outrageously intense, but I am ready this time.  No pain, no gain!  I'm feeling the same way about school too; if I can tough it up and take classes all summer I will finally finish in August 2012!  I can't wait until then...my life will finally be semi-normal.  Then I will have plenty time for peace, love, and quilting!

Jamye

My life is BANANAS!

My life has been out of control!  Work has been busy, school has been intense, and on the homefront everything has been going nonstop.  At work we have won two awards that will be presented at the Texas Water 2011 conference.  I am so proud of my work family for being awesome and loving what we do so much that we are capable of awards!

School has been test after test and the difficulty of the material is getting harder and harder.  I will just have to push forward and battle through the storm per se.  I only have one and a half years left and then I will be able to do whatever I want to do.  I will finally be able to quilt when I want to, plant my garden, buy a boat, keep my house clean, cuddle with my loves, and have a baby!

Mike and I have started a lifestyle change...I won't say diet, because diet sounds so temporary and I am hoping for a more permanent change.  I have to get back to my goal weight by our Frio River trip in June.  So far it has been going great! I can't wait until June...doesn't the Frio River look so appealing!  (Picture borrowed from tripadvisor.com.)

At home we have been planning our landscaping and spring cleaning like crazy!  I have boxes of toys and clothes that are being donated or passed on to people who can use them...making room for new clothes and toys (Brittney's birthday is right around the corner).  Next year we plan on tearing down our deck and replacing it with pavers or concrete.  If we do the concrete my hubby is going to decorative saw it!  It would look awesome!  I have also been planning the interior design for the house, which is so hard because the possibilities are endless and I am bad at making decisions!

We have added two more family members to the fish tank...a yellow tang and a banded serpent starfish!

I will post some before and after pictures of the house as soon as I get some decorating actually done!  Until then I wish you much peace, love, and springtime goodness!

Jamye

Stich in the Ditch

I have been steadily sewing my quilt together using the stich in ditch method.  I have to say it is quite hard to maneuver the whole quilt around.  I can see now why you would want a quilting frame.  I will probably have to invest in one of those babies!  Until then, I will continue to do it the hard way (as shown below lol).  It's not so bad, as long as I am making progress I will be happy!

Progress is happening all over my house, not just in my sewing room! :)  I have been cleaning and organizing like a crazy person.  We are beginning to decorate our house...finally!  Mike has been making us a beautiful fish tank with cute little fishies for me to look at!  Today we officially adopted two clown fishes...aren't they cute!

Thank you my sweet valentine for your hard work on the fish tank!  I love it and I know the kids do too!

Now I must go study...hopefully everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day!  As long as I am snuggling with my honey I know I will. ;)

Jamye

Quilt Sandwich: Attempt #2

Finally, I can declare success!!!!!  After a little doctoring of the seams and straightening my far right edge, I was able to finally layer my quilt into a beautiful (almost edible) sandwich.  With a little help from some spray-on quilt baste and curved safety pins, my layers are securely fastened together patiently waiting for me to stitch it into its permanent position.  Ah...relief at last!

P.S. - Sorry Mom for accidentally calling you to ask you a sewing question at dang near midnight.  I promise I had no clue what time it was.  (She said she wasn't asleep, but she may have wanted to protect me from feeling guilty.  The world may never know!)

Update on the home front: 

1.  I had my Lasik eye procedure on January 29th and it went very well.  Preliminary results show 20-15 vision! Yay! 

2.  Mom and Dad donated their almost new king sized mattress to me and the hubby and we are now sleeping on high cotton...literally!  It is a huge step from a queen sized mattress sitting on the floor to a king sized on a bedframe.  Our bedroom is finally looking good.  Now for the rest of the house...I am thinking rustic meets cottage style?  Who knows, but I sure am excited!

3.  It is so cold here in Texas!  Forecasts of snow for the end of the week...I sure hope so!  I feel so bad for everyone who is at risk of becoming a human popsicle...especially my poor hubby who had to work yesterday and tonight outside.  Poor thing said it was 19 degrees last night. 

4.  Saving the most important for last.  I spoke to my oldest brother two days ago and he was in New Jersey waiting to fly to Virginia.  He will be deploying soon so I wanted to wish him safety and hope he knows how proud of him we are and how much we already miss him.  Love you Jeff...remember we are with you no matter where you are!

Jamye

Quilt Sandwich: Attempt #1

I have decided two things.  1) You cannot lay a quilt out on the floor to work on it when you have dogs.  Especially when your dogs are wild, goofy-butts like mine.  2) Don't freak out when something isn't quite right...fix it.

I know what you are thinking...DUH!  I know, I know...but when I layed my quilt on the floor it looks bowed at one end.  I almost had a mental break down.  With dogs running across all my hard work and it not laying perfectly - I almost lost it!  Well I'll admit some frustration leaked out, but it could have been so much worse.  I have thought of two scenarios where I might have went wrong.  1) When my quilt was bunching at the back of my machine (with this particular quilt having long skinny strips) it was altering the center of the strips seams to be less than 1/4 of an inch.  I noticed this while working on the quilt top and thought I corrected the error.  2) I left my quilt top hanging on my ironing board too long and it stretched on the end that is triangular.  So to fix this, I will need to re-stitch the seams to be perfect or figure out how to shrink the fabric on the one end.

To maintain my positive attitude and deter any tantrums, I will share a phrase with you that makes me feel better.  "Life is not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself."  With this in mind, think about how you want to be remembered forever and work on creating that life now.  Why wait for the perfect future, when you could have the perfect present?

So over the next few days I will be doctoring my quilt top and hopefully preparing for attempt #2 at making a quilt sandwich.  Cross your fingers!  Until then, I wish you much peace, love, and quilting.

Jamye

Eat. Sleep. Accounting?

It has been a crazy week around these parts.  I started back at school yesterday...night classes and a early to bed person like myself results in lots of yawning, which probably results in a teacher who is not amused.  Woopsy!  So besides my normal 40 hours at work, I will be spending three hours each night for three nights a week learning (or hopefully learning) Accounting.  Piece of cake right? Only two more years left!  Woo hoo!  So since I clearly have not made a quilt sandwich :( I will share with you a top ten list of items I would love to accomplish in 2011.  (Picture below is from Mom's quilt she is working on - beautiful fabric eh?!  It is Whimsy by Fig Tree Quilts for Moda.)

10.  Craft many beautiful quilts to cuddle with!

9.  Makeover my sewing room...and every other room in my house.

8.  Learn how to stipple with my new sewing machine.

7.  Buy as much Moda Fabric as I can afford :)

6.  Lasik eye surgery - this will be taken care of January 29th!  I am so excited!

5.  Start back on WeightWatchers, but using the new PointsPlus plan!  Skinny jeans?  Why not!

4.  Make great grades and understand all of my school materials.

3.  Be happy with life and try not to stress on the little things in life.

2.  Visit a super wonderful aunt in North Carolina as soon as the Husband gets vacation.

1.  Welcome home my sweet brother who will be leaving for overseas in about a week.  Love you Jeff!

Hopefully this weekend I will have plenty of time to piece my quilt together...until then I wish you much peace, love, and quilting!

Jamye

Quilt Top - Check!

I just want to say "I DID IT!!!! WOO HOO!!!!"  I can't explain the extreme satisfaction and self-pride I feel right now!  I just pressed my last seam on this beautiful quilt top. 

 

I feel relieved that I finished the top, excited to piece me a lovely quilt sandwich together, and nervous about binding...but it has to be done.  I'm sure it can't be as hard as I anticipate, but only time will tell.  I also feel like a very lucky lady that I have a husband to hold my quilt top so I can take it's picture ;) Love ya sweetheart!  I can't say it has been an easy task to make time to sew...it seems that every chance I get to sit down with my bernina one of these cuties interupts me...I love them all to death, so it is hard to shoo them away.





Now I plan on enjoying a delicious coconut ice cream bar and snuggling with my love until bedtime.  I wish you all much Peace, Love, and Quilting!

Jamye

Lucian "Jack" Crayton

My grandpa passed away this past Monday.  He was 92 years old!  He always said "when I get to a hundred I'll shut it down."  He didn't quite make it to a hundred, but he sure got close.  He was such a sweet, happy man and I will always remember him.  So in his honor I will share with you my top ten list of what I will always remember about my grandad.

10.  Singing "My momma done told me, when I was in wee pants...Son don't do that no more" never gets old.

9.  You should have peaches/pears, a slice of bread, and ice cream at every meal.

8.  Go for a daily walk - many times a day.

7.  Drawing a lady with a boogie in her nose is always funny.

6.  Don't wear a cap at the dinner table.

5.  A stud finder is meant to find studs...including Jack Crayton ;)

4.  Watch out for drunk cows.

3.  A wallet can be hidden in many places.

2.  "I can't wait till I'm old so I can take life easy."

1.  Always be a character.  If you can't laugh at life then it's not worth living.

I love you Grandad! We will miss you so much!

April 12, 1918 to January 10, 2011

Caution: Work in Progress

Let me start off by saying my babies are mad at me.  You see I had to lock them up for a little bit so I could lay out my quilt strips on the floor.  Now, surely these cute faces would never walk across my beautiful quilt and wreak havoc. (L-R: Lola and Sugar)  Yeah right!  Mama didn't raise no fool!  You see Lola is my dirt digging, wood and tennis shoe killer and Sugar actually ate a 1' x 2' hole in her last plastic crate and will eat any no-sew blanket in sight.  So you can see why precautions were taken. 

I got the instructions for this quilt from the Winter 2010 issue of Quilts and More magazine.  It was designed by Holly Hickman and is adorable!  The instructions are available for free here!  This was very easy to start off using jelly rolls.  Next time I will buy a jelly roll of Moda Basics for the white strips instead of cutting all of them by hand.  I will warn you the strips are very long and you will need a large area to work with.

Not too much longer and I will have my first quilt under my belt and hopefully on my couch with me and two snuggle monsters.  Maybe they will forgive me then...

Hope you had a very peaceful weekend with lots of love and quilting!

Jamye

Out with the old...

My mother, bless her, gave me this lovely Necchi machine so that I could start to sew at my own house.  Which was great because before I got her if I wanted to sew I would have to drive two hours to visit my family and borrow Mom's Husqvarna.

Though we were only together for a short while, I have to admit I was excited about Necchi's departure.  Don't get me wrong I liked Necchi okay, but with her departure meant I could finally pick out a new baby!

Shopping for my new machine was hard and I started to feel discouraged when I found out that for new Bernina's to have automatic tensioning you had to spend around three thousand dollars...Yikes!  Things began to look up when my mom happened to mention my issue with the new Bernina's to the cashier at our local Moda/Bernina distributor.  The words she had to say were as sweet as honey!  She told us that she had a great, used machine in my price range that had automatic tensioning and everything else I'd ever want in a machine. It was almost like seeing your wedding dress for the first time...I just knew that I loved it and it was going home with me!  Two hours later I got the okay from the hubby (major husband points for this) and I wheeled out the red carpet all the way to my house.  Here she is, isn't she a beauty! 

I know, I know you may be feeling bad for Necchi, but believe me she did not get the shaft. On the contrary she has found a loving new owner that is cute as a button!  My lovely neice Nadia, who is ten years old and would love nothing more than to be a fashion stylist and has taken a liking to quilting.  She certainly is alot like her Aunt Jamye!

More on the progress of my first quilt tomorrow...I promise!  Until then I hope you have much Peace, Love, and Quilting.

Jamye

The Beginning of the Rest of my Life

I have finally taken the plunge and began my very own blog.  I must admit that I am semi-obsessed with blogs.  I get so inspired when I find a blog where the author is completely and utterly passionate about life or a hobby that interests me.  I feel it links you to that person and even though you don't know them, you feel like they are a long lost friend.  But they are not an old friend, they are a new friend!  What is better than having a new friend?  Well if I may be honest, the only thing better than a new friend is a new friend you can learn from!  Can you imagine the amount of information available to us now-a-days --- anything is possible.  Anything can be learned, practiced, and eventually mastered.  This blog is my journey of exactly that.  By no means am I a master at quilting...I am merely a beginner!  So come along with me as I learn, practice, and hopefully one day master a piece of my heritage...who knows maybe we can learn something together.

Alas!  I will let you take a peek at my very first quilt!

The printed fabric is Adoring by Sandy Gervais for Moda Fabrics.  The white fabric has a cute, little swirl design in it and is from Joann Fabrics.

You may ask why a Christmas quilt in January? I will tell you three reasons:
1. I think we should celebrate Christmas all year.  I have even thought about leaving a Christmas tree up all year and decorating it for each holiday/season.  Would that be a sin?

2. I love Christmas so much that I have Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer footed pajamas and wear my Christmas socks all year long. Hey now...don't judge me!

3. I snagged all of this beautiful fabric for a whopping 50% off!  Completely awesome, especially since it is Moda!

Now, if you don't tell...I am going to snuggle with this baby as soon as it is done! Updates on this beauty to come very soon...I swear!

Until then I wish you all much Peace, Love, and Quilting!

Jamye