Design Wall Monday

This is what is on my design wall today.

(okay, it is pictured on my table here,

but it is on my wall now!)

I had some leftover curved blocks that I put together

in this little quilt.  Initially I was planning on making

a baby quilt, but I decided on making a wall hanging instead.

It just didn't want to be a baby quilt, it wanted to be an art quilt!

I drew out this guitar shape based on the Guitar Center logo,

since I really didn't want to cover up the pretty batik fabrics.

The guitar will be black fabric and machine appliqued onto the top.

Head on over to Judy Laquidera's blog and check out

what is on the design wall of many other quilters!

http://www.patchworktimes.com/

Prepare to be inspired!

Speaking of inspiring.......Here is a picture of my sweet little granddaughter.

I put her in front of the sewing machine every chance I get!  I am hoping to grow a new quilter!  Mia just turned one a couple of months ago, so of course she can't really sew on the machine yet, but I put my hands on her little hands and we guide the fabric thru the machine together.  (while talking about keeping our little fingers a good distance from the sharp needle!)

Don't you just love rapt attention Mia is giving this project?  Do you think I may have an aspiring quilter on my hands?   Hope so!

Hope you have a great Monday!

tammy

Christmas is Coming!

Look up.

I mean it.....Look UP!

Do you see that it is exactly 125 days until Christmas?

Christmas is coming and it will be here before you know it!

Every year just before Christmas I promise myself that

NEXT year I will be more organized!  and I vow to start in January

and do a little bit each month.  Ha! 

I love Christmas but it's always so hectic and as the mom I always have tons to do to facilitate all the family traditions that we have started over the years.

And now we have sweet Mia............this year should be a barrel of fun with her.  Here she is last year:

She was just a wee babe!

Isn't she cute in her Elf shirt and hat?

So I thought that this year I would share my journey with you all on this here blog by sharing some of the tips and tricks of managing the season

that I'll be trying.  We can all support each other!

I will also share some of my favorite patterns for the season,

but first I want to share with you a great organizing site.

http://flylady.net/images/HCJ2003.pdf

This link is to Flylady's Holiday Control Journal.

Have a look at these pages.

"Flylady" talks about alot of her other helpful routines

in the first couple of pages of this link,

but continue to read thru it, because at

the end there are some really great forms for getting organized.

One of the pages that I plan on using is the one to

organize all your holiday recipes all in one place!

I have several recipes that I use EVERY Christmas.

If you want you can even join the flyladies regular site, both

online and on facebook of course.

She'll send regular messages to help you get organized, both

in getting your house ready, menu planning and grocery shopping.

Here is the link for her regular site:

http://www.flylady.org/

Actually I have already started making some of my holiday crafts.

Okay, truth be told......these projects were started

LAST Christmas,

but they are done now!

See.....it pays to start thinking about Christmas now!

Merry Christmas from our family!

Hoarder?

Have you ever watched the show on the TLC network called

"Hoarding: Buried Alive"?

What do you think?

Are you a "saver"?

Do you feel the  compulsive need to clean after watching it?

Well I do!
I am a compulsive saver.
I just hate to throw anything away that I think I might have a use for in the future.  Trouble is.....sometimes I can't FIND "it" in the future!
I'm pretty sure that I AM NOT a hoarder........YET!
But I do need to do some serious re-organizing!

Today I started cleaning out some of the boxes I have

stashed away in my studio.

Here's a little glimpse into one of the boxes:

What is that?

Could that possibly be....?

REALLY?

Macrame.?.....that's SO 70's!?!

A macrame owl?

REALLY?

I still have a macrame owl?

I remember making macrame owls in my apartment in 1978!

HOW CAN I STILL HAVE A MACRAME OWL?

AND IT IS STILL UNFINISHED!

Do you think I could be a hoarder?

What should I do with it?

~cringe~

So the upside to going thru boxes is that I found two things I've been looking for!  I knew I had a roll of velcro somewhere!  And I've been looking

for the pattern for a bullseye quilt for some time now.

Didn't find the pattern, but looks like I already have quite a few blocks

already done!  Guess I can figure out the dimensions from this kit.

Quite a few boxes to go..........I can't wait to see what treasures I uncover.

Just hope I can make some decisions to

GET RID OF SOME STUFF!

Sweet Mia would LOVE to help me reorganize!

In Pieces,

tammy

OH man!  I've done it again! 

My last post was AGES ago!

How does this happen?

We spent a little over a week earlier this month in San Diego.

Mom and dad took a little vacation and asked if we could come over to stay with thier kitties. We had to think long and hard about leaving our 110 degree heat to stay where it was only in the 80's...........

One day we drove up the coast to visit with our friends that we met YEARS ago in South Africa.

It's always a great day getting together with Rusty, Lyn and Terry.

Here I am at the bay enjoying a picnic supper.

Thankfully we had a quilt in the car.....It was only 64 degrees!

We took several LONG bike rides  (15+ miles each),  went to the beach and bay, ate at Kono's and The Chicken Pot Pie shop, and basically just enjoyed the great weather.

I did work on several quilty type things while I was there.

I made mom some new kitchen curtains,

and made a whole stack of Petite Potholders

and of course visited The Quilted Rose and

Rosie's Calico Cupboard.

As you know, all good things must come to an end and well,

we are back in the 100+ degree heat.

Thank you God for Air Conditioning!

This is one of the projects that I am working on at the moment.

I had some leftover squares from a larger quilt I made and

thougth that it might make a baby quilt,

then reconsidered since the colors were not very babyish.

My brother is in a band and plays the guitar

so I thought that perhaps I could applique a guitar

and add a border to make a arty type wallhanging for his apartment.

Tonight I drafted the guitar pattern for the top using the

Guitar Center logo for the basis of my drawing.

Guess that's it for now.

Do you think our sweet angel knows

that she is loved alot?

Quilty Blessings,

tammy

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin.....

Can you believe that it is almost the END OF JULY!?!?!

Do you remember those days, ( back when you were a kid), that time seemed to move at a snail's pace?  The school year lasted FOREVER, when you were anxiously awaiting summer vacation.  Summer vacation dragged on and on when you couldn't wait to get back to school to see your friends again.  Sunday drives with the family seemed an eternity when you were stuck in a car with your 3 brothers, mom and dad and it was raining outside and stuffy in the car.  (Had to add that one in there for YOU mom!)

Welcome to adulthood.  Where time moves at lightening speed.  You blink your eyes and 1/2 of the year is GONE already.  Where. O. Where does the time go?

July has been a super busy month starting off with the happy occasion of a wedding.  Our family has known Oliver since he was just a little guy.  We were honored to be included in the celebration of his marriage to Kim who is beautiful both inside and out.  Here they are taking their very first steps together as husband and wife.  Don't they look happy?

The other major event in our busy month was the

1st birthday of our precious granddaughter Mia.

Mia and mommy were so excited for the party!

We were so blessed to have 53 people in attendance to

celebrate Mia's 1st birthday.

Rafael and Jenny decorated their house so nicely.

Jenny made delicious pulled pork sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad

and a tasty watermelon punch. 

This is a picture of the Watermelon cake (s)

that Jenny and Rafael made. 

Pretty clever!

Mia polished off her little watermelon cake in a matter of minutes.

She looks like she is watching out for someone to come

and take her little cake away.

She truly enjoyed her first taste of SUGAR!

Must take after her grandma!

Another notable July event was the big Haboob

that hit Phoenix!

We get dust storms all the time, but this wall of dust measured

one mile high and about 5 miles wide.  

It was a monster.

This photo is a picture of our back yard and

 a baby haboob that hit

a few days later. 

My picture is not as dramatic as the ones shown on tv!

Time to end this little story for today.

Tomorrow I'll catch up on all of the crafty things

that have been happening in July.

Here's a picture of my favorite little "blogger in training".

Is it any wonder that the kids nowadays know more

about computers than we do?

Love, Piece and TIME,

tammy

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