Halloween is coming!

That's right.....

Halloween is coming.

But you sure wouldn't know it if you stepped outside.

A few weeks back we had some teaser weather.

The temperatures dipped down into the 70's

DURING THE DAY!

It was fantastic and we all hoped that perhaps summer was finally over.

It was too good to be true, we all knew it was too good to be true.

Summer does not officially end here in Arizona until after Halloween.

I remember one year I planned costumes for my kids that included black sweatpants and a sweatshirt.  Halloween day arrived and the temperature

was still near the 100 degree mark.  I knew they were going to roast in those sweats so I had to go out and buy them black shorts and short sleeved shirt to go with thier costumes.

But I digress.

Halloween is right up there as one of my favorite holiday's.

I try to add one new thing to my halloween decorations every year.

Sometimes I wait til AFTER halloween and get something that the stores have discounted and sometimes I make something.

This year I made placemats.

While visiting my DIL I noticed that she had some

really cool halloween placemats on her dining room table.

Jen's grandma had made them.

So when I found some fun halloween fabric I knew

I needed to make some placemats.

And here they are.

But kinda plain don't ya think?

I fished thru my trim box and found this fuzzy black yarn

and it made a perfect little border.

 Simple. Fast. Fun!

My table is complete!

Mia is getting ready for Halloween too!

Wishing for cooler weather,

tammy

New Marking tool

A couple of Saturdays ago I attended

"Black Bag Saturday"

at 35th Avenue Sew n Vac

and received this pen in my bag.

They simply told me it was a gel pen.

So I used it like a regular pen....

UNTIL

I saw in Cozy Quilt shop newsletter that this Frixion pen

is used for quilt marking.

The pen writes on fabric and is erasable by rubbing or ironing.

I was so excited  I decided to do a little test.

I wrote on the selvage of this VIP fabric.

I tried rubbing it out with the eraser,

but that didn't seem to work very well

Ironing, on the other hand,

worked like a charm!

So COOL!

I was very excited!

Before I wrote this up I decided to have a little google look

to see what others may be saying about his Frixion Gel pen

and this is what I found:

The Quilting Board is a quilter's message board

and there was a big warning about the Frixion pen.

It seems that the markings of the pen, which comes in various colors,

seems to come back when exposed to freezing temperatures.

Hummm.

So I decided to do a further test. 

Got the fabric scrap back out that I did the original test

on and made some more marks, ironed it off and then put it

in the refrigerator.

No marks.

Transfered it to the freezer

and the marks did indeed come back.

Now I don't know about you, but I don't put too many

quilts in the freezer........

I live in Arizona and I don't use my quilts in freezing temperatures.

So I'm not sure that I would worry about the marks coming

back on a quilt.

However, it makes me wonder under what other circumstances

the marks may come back.

A cool water wash perhaps?

So back to some google searching....

The Quilting Climber did a wash test on a

quilted sampler divided into 3 secions.

One untreated, one starched before writing and one starched after writing.

Have a look at her results here.

Looks like some more testing may be required before

I'll actually use this pen on a quilt top.

Mia thinks I should do more testing as well.

Quilty blessings,

tammy

We are a little safer tonight than we were this morning.



San Diego Weekend

For the last 32 years we've traveled the highways from Phoenix to San Diego.  Our car knows the way....we could do it with our eyes closed.  So many things have changed along the way, but so many things have stayed the same.
When we were invited to a destination wedding in San Diego, we were so excited to combine this happy occasion with visiting with family that live there.

One of the things I had planned for the weekend was a visit up to Temecula where their outdoor hung Quilt Show was planned for Saturday.  You can't visit Temecula without a visit to one of the local wineries.  Unfortunately unexpected circumstances derailed these plans.........too bad since adding some quilts and wine to this weekend would have just added a cherry on top to a pretty wonderful weekend.

Here is a picture from LAST year!

I've never attended a wedding that was held on the beach, so the wedding of Vanessa and Jeremy was really neat.  The weather was perfect, the food divine, and the company of friends fantastic.  I've decided that I truly enjoy weddings.  Seeing two young people who are so in love just seem to reinforce my belief that love is the most important there is. 

Mike and I danced the night away but paused briefly

for this photo to be taken.

Fun times.

After the party was over we took a walk on the beach to witness the

"Red Tide" effect. 

Awesome, amazing and not to be missed if you are near the beach.

Waves lighting up with a floresent blue light is a

sight to behold!

Here's a link if you want to read more about this beauty of nature:

http://belmontshore.patch.com/articles/red-tides-glowing-waves-light-up-the-shore

Mom and I got to spend a fun day together visiting Seaport Village and discovering a new part of the city that she has lived in for almost 40 years.
Littly Italy is a quaint part of downtown San Diego that has almost a small town main street feeling.  It is filled with the wonderful aromas of Italian food cooking, and people enjoying that food sitting in little outside cafes with their dogs at their feet.

This picture does NOT do this pasta justice.

It was REALLY good!

While we had a wonderful weekend away

we really miss those we leave behind.

We are lucky to have the ability to Skype

with our sweet girl! (s)

Miss Mia toddles in and out of our vision, stopping

in briefly to show us new treasures she discovers.

I captured this photo of Mia "airing the dirty laundry".

Enjoy the coming of fall and

remember to love one another.

tammy

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

Drawing on your quilt with a wet erase Marker????

OR

How to decide how to quilt a quilt top.

Recently I finished the quilting on this lovely blue and white quilt.

Deciding how to quilt this quilt made my little brain hurt!

When you look at this quilt with your naked eye you do not

see the circles that the quilt pattern creates. 

However thru the camera eye (or the picture that you see above)

you can clearly see the circle pattern.

So one of the things that I wanted to accomplish with thread

was to enhance the circles.

So here is how I started the quilt design process:

First I measured the circle

and made a paper pattern with that measurement.

Then I used my secret weapon....my most used design tool.

I have a piece of heavy plastic that I have edged with blue painters tape.

(I added the painters tape to clearly

mark the edge of the plastic you will see why soon)

I placed the paper circle pattern under the plastic

and on top of the area I want to design topped it with the heavy plastic

and using a wet erase marker I draw

the circle pattern on top of the plastic.

**Important**

Use the utmost care when using a marker around a quilt top!

The reason for the blue tape is to CLEARLY mark the edge of plastic.

You don't want any stray marks on the quilt top that could be permanent.

So now that I have the area I want to design clearly marked

I can pick up the wet erase marker and start drawing right on

top of the plastic protected quilt top.

With the plastic in place I can draw until I am happy with the design,

both in the circle area and also the design in the in between areas.

Then I can remove the plastic and place it where I can see it

while I am quilting the top on the longarm.

Unfortunately with this quilt I STILL couldn't decide on the quilting pattern,

so I had to move on to my next little design tool.

As you may have noticed my little plastic does not cover the entire quilt top.

It is great to use for small areas or to use for block design, but not so

great to use for the overall design of the quilt including the

outside border and any area that is in between the blocks.

I put the quilt up on my design wall.

In this case I folded this large quilt in 1/2,

but I still got the main part and borders.

I photograph the quilt, upload it to my computer,

set my printer to print a low quality, low ink

black and white image of the quilt.

This gives me a look at the pattern of the quilt only and not the color.

Next I slip the copy of the image into a plastic page protector

and get out my handy dandy wet erase marker and

start designing.

This is a great tool since I can see the whole quilt

and how all the quilting elements will work together.

Plus, it provides me with a map on how the top needs to be quilted.

So there you have it......my quilt design secrets.

Now get on out there and do some quilting!

Piece out,

tammy

Design Wall Monday

Still on my design wall this week....

but progress has been made on the guitar quilt!

Hopefully I'll find the time this week to do the machine applique!

This lovely quilt was also on my design wall/table this week.

Do you ever have a quilt that makes your brain hurt?

I worked for days trying to decide how to quilt this particular quilt.

I wanted to accentuate the pieced circle design, but had trouble

deciding how on earth to MARK this quilt since my go-to marking

powders are, you guessed it, blue and white. 

On my next post I'll share with you a couple of really neat tricks

I use in deciding how to quilt a pieced top.

 

Do you want to be inspired by other design wall?

Then check out Judy's blog:

http://www.patchworktimes.com/2011/09/26/design-wall-monday-september-26-2011/

 

So now I'll leave you with another pic of my sweet granddaughter.

 

Happy quilting today!

tammy

Stuffed

Christmas before last Mike and I were given a

gift certificate from Fogo De Chao.

Tonight we finally used it!

Anticipating a large amount of food we didn't want to

eat a late dinner, so I called earlier in the day and made reservations for 4:30pm.

I know, I know.......old people eat at 4:30, but we ate a light lunch early

and by 4:30 we were both hungry.

Here is how this Brazilian steakhouse works......

They serve 2 courses.

A salad bar and Meat.....lots of meat.

The salad bar was wonderful!

Lots and lots of very fresh selections.

Beautiful salad greens, vegetables, various cheeses & breads.

Potato salad, apple salad and many others.

Sliced meats including salmon.

I don't particuraly enjoy seafood, but I always try it when offered.

Guess it is just not meant for me to like seafood......

On to the second course:

MEAT!

And lots of it!

They serve 15 different types of meat which

they bring to your table on a spit and carve to your liking.

During this course they also bring side dishes of

garlic mashed potatoes, crispy polenta, bread and carmalized bananas.

This is a photo of the slab of meat and the gaucho slicing tableside.

Most folks just got a slice of each of the 15 selections.

I think we tried 12 of the 15....some of which I had merely a bite.

There were several top sirloin offerings, filet mignon, filet wrapped in bacon,

chicken wrapped in bacon, little chicken legs,

sausage, ribeye, lamb chops, leg of lamb and several pork offerings.

I was stuffed!

TOO MUCH FOOD!

We overheard the lady sitting at the table beside us

asking if she could have the WHOLE piece of filet mignon

instead of just a little slice. 

This was a piece of meat about the size of a man's hand....

not just the palm....the whole palm and fingers too!

She said it was her favorite.

Not a bad idea I thought.....might as well have a whole piece of

your favorite instead of little pieces of everything.

However she partook of every selection that was brought

to her table!  She must have been slipping to into a bag in her purse!

I honestly don't know how anyone could eat so much!

We scored an extra bonus.....

Phoenix happens to be in the middle of Restaurant week.

I've heard about it, but didn't really know what it entailed.

It seems that a number of restaurants offer a lowered price

and special offerings during this week.

So Fogo de Chao offered a reduced rate on our meal

AND included DESSERT!

Now I was STUFFED!

But you know I didn't turn down dessert!

Key Lime pie and Turtle Cheesecake.

Delicious!

(no I didn't eat BOTH of them.  one of these was Mike's!)

Would I go again?

Maybe I should answer that question tomorrow

when I am not still full!

Honestly it was too much meat for me.

If I were to do it again I would have had my salad course

and meat course together.

I would have enjoyed having the different flavors and textures

offered at the salad bar along with my meat.

Mike thought that it would be nice to have a selection of

different sauces to have with the meat.

All in all it was a great evening.

Good food, good company.

Thanks to our kiddos for such a thoughtful gift!

Sorry we took so long to use it!

Anyone want to meet meat me at the mountain tomorrow?

I really need to start hiking again!

Any guesses who might be in this ladybug costume?

Totally stuffed,

tammy