Strolling down memory lane........

It is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL morning here today in Phoenix.
I walked outside and it actually felt cool instead of the usual furnace blast.
What a great opportunity for a refreshing morning bike ride.  I soaked it up since we won't see many more cool mornings until about October!

Ages and ages ago I sat in an excelerated summer school accounting class.
I didn't know too many people in Phoenix having just moved here from San Diego, and I'm a friendly sort of person, so I started a conversation with the nice looking girl that was sitting in front of me.  Marla and I became fast friends.  Lifelong friends too it seems!
It was a "blast from the past" when I opened the email from Marla saying that she was in town and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up with her.........

 Don't we look like two young 20 something's here in this picture!?!

It was great to see Marla and catch up on the last 20 years......
(guess that might make us in our 40's....right?)
We started so many conversations last night and this morning I realized that we didn't finish alot of them.  So I'm looking forward to renewing our friendship.  Marla reminded me last night of a trip we took to San Diego together.....we talked the entire 6 hour ride there, 6 hours ride home and then called each other to talk on the phone after we got home!  Guess we just like to talk!

Seems like just yesterday I shared a very special day in her life.......

 

We were honored to have Marla join us last night as we had a small celebration for Miss Mia's first birthday!

Here is Mia with mom and dad

with her "practice" cake.

Mia is "practicing" blowing out the candle

and mom and dad were "practicing"  making

her real cake for the party on Saturday.

Jenny really wanted to make a cake using fondant icing.

She found a recipe for a watermelon cake and fondant icing

that was made from marshmellows.

I have to admit that the fondant tasted pretty good.

Mia sure liked her first taste of sugar!

She cleaned her plate.

A girl after my own heart..........

Jenny and I have been busy plotting and planning for Mia's birthday party this coming Saturday.

Pictured here are the cookies was have made.

Can you guess the theme of the party?

Quilts, Quilts, Quilts

Last time I posted I mentioned what a fun job I had.
Thankfully my longarm has been cooperating lately. 
I think it may have something to do with the moister weather
I finished up quite a few quilts last week including these two:

Judy brought this to me and wanted the black fabric to fade into the background abit, so she asked if I could use a varigated blue thread to bring a little color to the black.
Sometimes it is scary to use a high contrast thread.....ANY little blips or mistakes show up BIG TIME!  Plus, in the past I've had problem using this particular brand of polyester varigated thread.  The static electricity tends to build up and cause all sorts of problems including thread breakage every time you turn around.  One of the things that was suggested to me by Mark at APQS was to run a dryer static sheet over my rails and thread path to help with the build up.  I did that, but I also cut a little piece of the dryer sheet and attached it to the first thread guide on my machine.  Worked like a charm!
The varigated thread looked awesome on the  black sashing and borders.  Love the way this quilt turned out.

Here is a detail pic of the quilt:

The next quilt that I worked on was this very manly quilt made for Nolan by his Winky Katrina!

Nolan loves cars and Yellow!

So Katrina asked me if I could quilt cars all the was around the perimeter of this quilt. 

I started the top with racing flags and cars with the number 3.

Nolan will be getting this quilt for his 3rd birthday.

Little roadster.

Milk Truck

Fire Truck

Semi Truck

School bus

Race cars

These cars and trucks were designs from

Anne Bright's Quilting pattern books

and transferred to the quilt top using a laser light following the pattern.

Continuous curve quilting on center blocks.

Back of quilt!

Cute huh?

Finished up another large quilt top tonight, but still need to

go thru and check for threads and remove the chalk markings.

Will post a picture soon!

Gotta close with a picture of my sweet baby girl.

Piecefully yours,

tammy