Thank you notes......

I ususally end my posts with a picture of my sweet Mia,

but today I will begin with her!

Here we are putting the icing on a Snickerdoodle cake.

As you can tell she is having a great time

and *most* of the frosing went on the cake!

This is a rare happy photo of Mia.

I know, I know, you have seen tons of happy pictures of Mia,

but when she is focused on a task she is very serious about it!

While it is never enough (for me) about Mia,

the real focus of the post is about the precious

and beautiful artwork that you can see

on the refrigerator behind us.

These lovely pictures were made by Jen's little nieces Cate and Abby

thanking me for making these candy turkeys for them.

I was very touched by their pictures and letters

(mom wrote the words that they said).

This wonderful mom is teaching her children

to be thankful and to say it in their own words.

The world sure needs more of this right now.

Hmmmm......I wonder if there are any thank-you notes I need to write?

Cute, cute, cute Thanksgiving Day kids!

Christmas blessing to you,

tammy

Design Wall Monday

Judy over at Patchwork Times does a Design Wall Monday post every, you guessed it, Monday and provides a list so other bloggers can post what is on their design wall too.  It's a really cool thing because it prompts us as quilters to get on the stick and maybe finish up some projects.  It also provides us a glimpse into what other quilters are working on and quite possibly give us some inspiration!

So here is what is on my design wall today........well there are several projects there since I had a "Work in my STUDIO Day" yesterday!

This little project is almost done,

just needs the buttons sewn on and the binding.

I made up 6 placemats for Thanksgiving, but since

I want to make them reversable with Christmas on the

other side, these did not get finished yesterday.

Probably won't get finished in time for Thanksgiving,

but there is always next year.

On my actual design wall I have these t-shirt squares

interfaced, cut and ready to be designed into a quilt.

Just waiting for the inspiration to come on how to design it.

OH, and I still have the batik Guitar quilt hanging there unfinished.

Hmmmm, I wonder if Judy has some sort of rules about posting the

same quilt several times on the design wall?

Then there is this little quilt that I FINISHED yesterday!

Here is my sweet Mia learning to use the longarm.

Train them early!

Thanksgiving Blessings to you all,

tammy

Hurray for mental health days!

AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Long contented sigh!
It's like a breath of fresh air or sitting in a meadow on a pleasant day.
Or slipping into a hot spa when you have a tired and aching  body.

My schedule has been CRAZY for the last month (as evidenced by the absolute lack of posts here!) and yesterday I took a day just for me and
spent practically the whole day in my studio creating just for ME!
I can now face the world with  a much better attitude! 

So what have I been up to the last month?  Here's a peek:

Saturday was Thanksgiving at my house

and all the kids came over and we feasted.

Jenny made this enormous apple pie.

It was delicious even tho it was sorta juicy.

(Jenny, I think maybe we should have let this pie sit a little longer before we ate it.  Maybe it just needed to be a little cooler?)

Friday night Mike and I attended a special surprise

birthday party for my good friend Sharon.

She is a sweet and sassy lady and her

husband threw her a really wonderful party!

Isn't this the most precious little girl ever?!?

I can tell you that she truly is.

We spent all of last week together while her mommy and daddy

went on a cruise to celebrate their anniversay.

Mia and I had the best time!

Here are some of the things we did:

We ate.

3 or 4 times a day!

Then we cleaned up.

We cooked together.

We played in the sand and went down the slide at the park.

I made her do housework.

(Actually she found the mop and started dragging it behind her.

I think she *might* have been telling me that the floor was

dirty and I needed to clean it!  lol)

We played with bubbles while washing our little table.

We also did some fingerpainting, but

I didn't get any pictures of that.

We went to the duck park with grandpa to feed the ducks.

Side note:  my kids used to LOVE going to the park to feed the ducks.

But when we got to this park I decided to read the big sign at

the entrance and lo and behold.......there it was clear and simple:

Do NOT feed the ducks!

We follow the rules so we didn't get to feed the ducks, but we

did get to look at them.

Now I wonder if perhaps I never read the sign when my kids

were little.  We ALWAYS fed the ducks!

We also took a trip to McDonalds to get an ice cream cone!

My week with Mia was wonderful, but very tiring.

She was up by 6am and hit the ground running every day,

stopping only for naps and food.

She is a happy, but ornery little girl.

Moves constantly and is ALWAYS looking for the next

great thing to get into.

Jenny and Rafael joke that she is a shark since sharks are always moving.

I sure do love that little girl!

Betcha didn't know that!

The week prior to watching Mia I went to

the Houston International Quilt Festival

with 6 of my quilting friends.

Another very physically tiring and overwhelming week.

But oh. so. wonderful!

The quilts were fabulous and inspiring,

the company couldn't be better and

the shopping was great too!

Here is my haul:

Thread for embroidery, stencils for quilting,

a DVD for inspiration, some embellishement goodies and

of course a little batik fabric!

So here are the other things I have done this past month:

Accompanied my husband on 4 day business trip to Long Beach.

Caramba's party to celebrate a promotion.

Boojum Tree Halloween Party.

Project Linus Sew day at my house.

Mia helped with the quilting too!

Trick or Treating with our precious baby.

(I made Mike and I's ladybug costumes.

Mike insisted on being ladybugs since Mia was a ladybug!)

Pumpkin Patch party at my house.

Carving a pumpkin with my sweetie!

Before yesterday I felt very stressed,

but now looking back over my past month

I realize how very BLESSED I am.

I'm surrounded by people I love and people who love me.

Who could ask for anything more?

Guess what?

Christmas is coming!

Quilty blessing to you all,

tammy

 

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.