HeartString Quilts 1st Charity Sew-In

What a great day!

We had a very successful first  Charity Sew-In today!

My friend Kathy and I have been talking about doing this for some time

and today we finally DID IT!

Kathy arrived at my house with a TON of fabric

and started right away started making Kits!

Kathy is known as the Kit Queen......today she EARNED the title!

My daughter Jenny and granddaughter Mia came to help,

along with Berta and her daughter Mo, Sharon, Cheryl,

Sally, Joanne, Katrina, and Lindsay.

We had a kit making station, sewing station, ironing station,

longarm station and design station

and finished 3 quilt tops, almost finished a fourth,

quilted one top and MADE 32 KITS complete with backing!

Berta worked on this top for Camp Reach for the Stars.

Monique worked on sorting 5 " squares.

Cheryl, Berta and Sharon put the pedal to the metal

 and made those sewing machines HUM!

Jenny and Kathy and Sally (not pictured here)

worked on cutting 1 yard pieces of fabric,

color coordinating that fabric, choosing an appropriate pattern and

combining them into beautiful kits!

Monique (and Lindsay not pictured here)

took a turn at longarming.

and of course had her turn working with Mia!

Joanne matching up squares

and sewing them all together.

Quilting all finished on this one.

3 finished quilt tops ready for backs and quilting.

32 QUILT KITS!!!!

We really did have a fun day.

Some of us took a couple of kits home so we can

sew them and bring them back to be quilted and ultimately

donated to Project Linus.

So if you are reading  this and live in the Phoenix area,

come on by and pick up a quilt kit to sew and donate!

God Bless!

tammy

What a weekend!

This wall in my living room has been bugging me

for ages now!

Just before Jenny's wedding I painted it turquoise.

Then I couldn't seem to coordinate

the rest of the room

with that color.

Then I painted it royal blue.

Liked it, but it still was not quite right!

So this weekend I got new curtains and  

painted the wall sage green color to match.

I'm thinking that this may be a keeper!

Now to work on that kitchen color......

I bought an extra curtain panel and made this pillow today.

I loaded the fabric onto the longarm and

quilted this design onto this pillow and

also another one that is still waiting to be sewn together.

Here we are.....

Hot babes at the bay!

Mom, Jenny and I

picked up some Quizno's sandwiches

and headed down to the bay for a picnic

while Jenny and I were visiting last Wednesday.

Hard to believe that we needed jackets.

It was a beautiful sunny day in San Diego,

but was pretty windy down by the water.

One last post about my California trip.

I failed to mention that along with Disneyland

and visiting with my mom and dad

I managed to make a couple of business stops.

You know what they say about all play

and no work.

I made some fabric purchases at

M&L Fabrics.

M&L is located between Knotts Berry Farm

and Disneyland so I really had to stop......

I was right there.

Looking a little PINK!

I had to stop at the Quilted Rose.

I needed some new thread for the longarm

and also some baby designs.

I picked up another bundle of Camp Reach for the Sky quilts

at Rosie's when I dropped off my last bunch.

And made a little purchase as well.....

Very late...........need some sleep!

My Quilt arrived!

My Wintertime Mini Quilt Swap quilt arrived yesterday

and this is what I received:

This sweet little snowman arrived

from Dorothy in Illinois.

The snowman is hand embroidered and is surrounded by snowflake buttons. 

I LOVE the swirly blue border fabric.

Thanks Dorothy!

My brother Bob has been visiting from Utah

for the last several days. 

It has been awhile since I've seen him so it

has been really wonderful to catch up.

I've just realized that I didn't take a single picture

of him while he was here and he left

late last night to begin his long journey

back to Utah. 

Spring has arrived here in Phoenix

and so have my tulips.

Well one of my tulips anyway.

The air is heavy with the smell of orange blossoms

and if you are one of the lucky ones who is not allergic

to this smell it is heavenly indeed!

A week or so ago I planted some

Sweet Pea seeds in this

containter which has seed starting packets

and some of the seeds have sprouted.

I'm hoping that these plants really

take off and grow

well as I'm hoping to have flowers on them by the

first part of May.  Wish me luck!

On the quilting front:

I finished up my last quilt for

Rosie's Calico Cupboard

and Camp Reach for the Sky

I'll be dropping this and 2 others off at Rosies

next week while I am in California.

I know that they have over

100 more quilts that need

to be quilted so I just may be bringing

home 6 more quilts to do by June.

Anyone out there have any batting they'd like to donate?

I quilted a lovely quilt for Beth,

but forgot to take a picture of it.

It was a Yellow Brick Road quilt made

with beautiful bright fabrics.

I did take a picture of the label.

I wanted to include a picture of Lee holding this

cute little baby quilt that she made.

Lee came over one day to show me this top

and was questioning how to go about quilting it.

We added a very thick puffy batting

and she stitched in the ditch and

this quilt turned out wonderful!

I had not seen this method of doing a biscuit quilt,

but it looks super fast and easy!

Today will be a day of

laundry and gathering things

for my trip to California.

Primarily the trip is to go to

Disneyland with Jenny.

Remember?

I earned this trip by volunteering at

Give-A-Day-Get-A-Disney-Day!

(Go to this link for information on how

you can get the same deal!)

I got to volunteer at a DOG WALK

surrounded by a million muddy dogs!

However on this trip I will also be acquiring

some fabric, searching for some quilting patterns

that I need for customer quilts and also

buying some quilting thread from the longarm shop in San Diego.

Work day

What a great day yesterday!

I was able to accomplish alot!

First off I finally finished piecing the top that has

been on my design wall for weeks!

This is a Maple Island pattern called

BQ2 that I redesigned to

fit a rectangular shape instead of a square.

I love the red fabric with the yellow daisy flowers.

Now to get it quilted!

I quilted a little quilt yesterday.

This is another quilt that will go

to Camp Reach for the Sky.

This little quilt does not photograph well.

The actual quilt is beautiful!

The black and silver fabric is very glitzy and shiny!

This quilt is going to make some child very happy!

In between quilting and piecing I did a little embroidery.

I made this happy little motif:

And this shirt for my daughter:

While I was quilting I also worked

on transfering my VHS tapes to DVD.

Yesterday I watched the birth of my daughter.

So hard to imagine that she will be having my

first grandchild in July.

Today is the day that Jenny goes for her ultrasound.

We just may find out today if she is having a girl or a boy!

Rusty Barn Craft and Sewing Festival

Today I spent a lovely day at the Rusty Barn Craft and Sewing Festival.
It sticks in my craw a little to pay $10 parking and $10 to get in just for

the priviledge to BUY stuff, but it is pretty exciting to see all the vendors

and fabric, and patterns and supplies and old friends. And TONS of other people go,so I guess I should go too!

AND it IS alot more expensive to get out than it is to get in!!! lol

I attended several seminars, two on fabric stabalizers and one on Shiva

paintsticks, which were very informative. I got to see my friends Bruce and Diane Magidson of Sew Batik and see all of the new fabric that they have.

All in all it was a great day.....and the best part is that I get to go again tomorrow!!!

Here is the picture I promised of the finished heart quilt:

And here are a couple of the indivudual hearts:

Many were just loving sentiments,

And many were Bible verses, but

all carried good wishes, uplifing thoughts

and lots of prayer.

I finished up this little quilt yesterday.

This one came from Rosies Calico cupboard

in San Diego.

I support their Camp Reach for the Sky charity

by quilting the tops that will

eventually go to children who have cancer.

I really enjoy being able to participate in this project.

Camp Reach for the sky Quilts

One of the charities that I support is Camp Reach for the Sky.

I've blogged about it before..........

Rosie's Calico Cupboard in San Diego, CA visits a camp

for kids who have cancer and each one of those children

AND thier siblings get a quilt.

The quilts are pieced and quilted by volunteers

and I happen to be one of those volunteers.

This is one of my most recent quilt tops that I have

quilted. I like to try out different patterns on these quilts.

On this quilt I used designs from "Flower Power"

by Diana Phillips. I really enjoy making flower centers

in blocks!

Close up:

The following quilt is also for Camp Reach for the sky:

On this quilt I used "More Meandering Magic"

by Suzanne Earley. I quilted butterflies in the

outside border, so I chose a meandering butterfly

pattern to do in the center.

I've been asked to quilt butterflies on a quilt before

and I never really had a pattern or something to look

at to do this, so when I found this I figured that this

quilt would be a great place to try it out!

We are off to go and deliver these quilts to San Diego

tomorrow and then we'll be going on a short cruise!

Mike had 5 more vacation days to take and the only

way I can get him NOT to work on his vacation is to take

him out to sea!

I'll let you know how that goes!

Weekend Fun

On Saturday I was able to spend some time in my studio

both quilting and doing some embroidery.

I started this Anita Goodman Design that will eventually

be a Haunted House!

This is the first of 12 blocks.

Each square takes about 3 hours to embroider,

but when it is done it is spectacular!

While the machine was doing the embroidery I did some

quilting on this glorious quilt all pieced in flannel fabric.

Unfortunately you can't see the quilting lines in this picture,

I tried some of Sue Pattens quilting designs.

I had the pleasure of attending one of Sue's classes at

Innovations a couple of years ago and she is fabulous!

Very energetic and a very accomplished quilter!

This quilt will become the "blanket of love"

and will wrap around a child who has cancer.

It is a very cozy and warm quilt and I made sure

to quilt lots and lots of love into it.

Rosie, of Rosie's Calico Cupboard in San Diego California,

goes to "Camp Reach for the Sky" each summer and gives each

child (and thier siblings) a quilt for thier very own.

Rosie has volunteer piecers who put the quilt top together

and longarmers (like me) who then quilt the tops.

This link will take you to Rosie's website: http://www.rosiescalicocupboard.com/

This link will take you to a website with pictures and stories

from the children who receive these quilts and also

tell you how you can be involved in this worthy cause:

http://www.rosiescalicocupboard.com/CR4TS2003Involvement.html

The weekend is coming to a close as it is

already Sunday evening.

Today was the final game in the

Soccer Tournament in South Africa

and Mike had Brian (and his greyhound Audrey),

Rafael and Jenny,

and Jerry and his son over for the game today.

Unfortunately the USA team lost to the

Brazilian team, but it was still

a great game and certainly wonderful to visit with

our kids and friends.