Oh what a Beautiful Morning

I made a discovery today!
If you get up really early it is a perfect time for a lovely bikeride!
The cool air just rushed past me as I rode at lightning speed toward
the east and the sunrise.  As the sun peeked up over the mountains
and treetops I turned west and back toward home.  The breeze started warming up abit as the sun rose higher and higher.  Was it the sun? or had my pace slowed to a crawl as I approached home?
At any rate...........it was 6am and the sun had already begun to turn up the heat!

The last 3 days have been nearly 115 degrees here and I'm thinking that inside my house was at least 150 degrees!  Okay, probably not, but at times it sure did FEEL like it!  We are supposed to cool down to an acceptable low 100's temperature for the next few days.  Whoo hoo!

Enough about the weather!  After my very pleasant bike ride  I went straight to the kitchen and whipped up some banana bread and a special cake to take to a BBQ tomorrow.  I love to bake and recently found a recipe for a rainbow cake which I made for Father's day.  Today's cake was made for the 4th so it is, of course, red, white and blue!   I have not taken a picture of the Patriotic cake yet but here is a pic of the Rainbow cake I made for Father's day: 

Love to bake, but hate to clean up!

Lots of dishes to do now.

Looking forward to catching a little nap this afternoon since

I didn't sleep too well last night.

Might have had something to do with the food/drink orgy I

had at Olive Garden last night.

Italian Margarita's.........yummy!

Zuppa Toscana, breadstick w/ alfredo sauce,

Stuffed Chicken Marsala.

Now do you know why I went on a bikeride this morning?????

Also gonna get in a little swimming before a nap!

I think I NEED it!

Today my Jenny is officially 40 weeks pregnant!

She could have baby Mia any time now.

We are planning a spicy dinner outing for tonight

after making her walk and swim!

Mia seems perfectly content to be right were she is at.

However my Jenny usually gets what she wants and she

has been predicting that Mia will be born on the 4th!

Time will tell.

I've been working on several quilting and embroidery projects.

Here is the last one I completed.

It was for a 3 year old's birthday

and I embroidered it on a little dress.

Turned out pretty cute.

Til next time,

Quiltingly yours,

tammy

Surprise Kathy!

Last night we attended a surprise party for my sweet friend Kathy.

A couple of months ago I received a phone call from Kathy's daughter Tiffany who was in search of names and addresses of the FNQers and Bunko ladies.

 so she could invite them to the party.

Providing addresses was easy.....the hard part was trying to come up

with just the right gift.......

Kathy likes quilt kits.....but she has a ton of those and no time

to complete them.  However I knew that she did have a stack of

unquilted pieced quilt tops that needed to be finished.

So while she was away on a trip I asked her husband Paul if I could

have a look in her sewing room and "borrow" one of her unfinished tops.

So that's what I did...........Paul brought over a stack

of tops and I chose the following ones and finished them up.

Label:

Kathy pieced this little wallhanging at our last retreat at Emmanual Pines.

That was a years ago!

This little quilt needed to be finished!

The party was alot of fun, well attended and Kathy was surprised when

she walked thru the door.

Mike took a ton of pictures.

So many that the battery in the camera died near the end of the evening.

Pictures will follow when the camera battery is charged!

Stay tuned............the last tutorial in the t-shirt quilt willbe coming sometime this coming week.

Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there............

especially to my Dad in San Diego....wish I could  be with you today!

tammy

T-Shirt Quilt Tutorial 3

So far in this t-shirt quilt journey we have

been dealing with t-shirts that have an emblem that is the same size.

What do you do with those t-shirts that are much smaller than the others?

There are numerous way to use these shirts........

I'll be showing you one method that I use.

Three of the 50+ shirts I have for this quilt

are smaller than a 15" square

I also had a big stack of those little emblems

that you find on the front of a shirt.

So here is one of the ways I use these smaller emblems

and bring them up to a 15" size:

Remember the stack of unused shirt backs?

I take and stabalize them with interfacing

and cut them into 15" squares.

I then stabalize the smaller emblems

and cut them into a smaller square or other shape

and place them onto the stabalized 15" square.

You may be tempted to skip stabalizing the

smaller shapes but DON'T DO IT!

You will have a hard time when you applique those

shapes onto the 15" square.

I place the shapes that will be appliqued onto the 15" square

and use a water soluable glue to keep the

shapes in place

while I am sewing them down.

Hint: place a SMALL amount of glue

on the back of the shape,

(thin line or small dots in corners)

press by hand in place and

then quickly press with an iron to meld.

You could use a fusible web, but I find that these

squares are already pretty heavy from the

weight of the shirt plus the stabalizer so

why add more?

If you have one of those machines that have a variety of applique stitches

then you have alot of choices to pick from.

I used a simple zig zag stitch on some of these shapes,

but my favorite is the blanket stitch which

was used on most of them.

Now these squares are ready to be placed in the body of the quilt.

Check back next time when we will be designing the quilt top

and sewing it all together.

tammy

T-Shirt Quilt Tutorial #2

Decisions, Decisions......

 

No t-shirt quilt is alike!

T-shirts come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes

don't quite fit the cookie cutter mold that

a pattern would provide.

So that means you have some decisions to make!

And that is where we begin this little tutorial......

I start with my stack of freshly de-sleeved

and de-backed t-shirts and I place my 15" square

ruler on top of the design.

If the design fits I start a pile of shirts that will become 15" square.

This stack of shirts contain designs that

are 15" WIDE but obviously not 15" square.

I put these in a stack where 2 could be sewn together

to make a 15" square.

This stack contains all of those little emblems.

These could be sewn together in groups of four

to make a 15" block.

OR

They could be appliqued onto a larger block or even the border.

I'll make those decisions as the quilt is coming together.

My last stack is the tricky ones.........

Not 15" wide or  15" square.

These ones will have to be "built".

Luckily I only have 3 of these ones!

Stabalization!

This is the

KEY to SUCCESS

with any t-shirt quilt.

Since I am going to be cutting 15" squares I will

rough cut a 16" square and iron it onto the back of my t-shirt.

~A word about stabalizers~

I use the lightest weight stabalizer I can find.

I buy the $.99/yard type by the bolt at Joann's with a 50% coupon

Apply the stabalizer to the back of the shirt

using a hot iron.

~A word about hot irons and t-shirt emblems~

Many t-shirts have an emblem that will stick

to a hot iron and make a REAL MESS

both to the shirt and the iron.

So beware of sticky emblems on the front of the shirt

and STAY CLEAR OF THEM!

After stabalizing the shirt I cut each one into a 15" square.

Here is a stack of properly stabalized 15" square shirts.

There are 40 of them in this stack.

Also pictured is the little bits of leftover scraps

which will go into my charity dog beds

and the stack of wonderful rags!

Next time we will talk about how to handle

these odd sized shirts.

Happy quilting to all............

tammy

50 Marathons....can you imagine?

Phew!  I've spent a busy day today

working on t-shirt quilts.

This morning I loaded Maryanne's t-shirt quilt onto the longarm and started the quilting process.

I designed and worked on a couple of embroideries in the morning.

They are drying right now and not quite picture ready yet.

A couple of months ago Cindy brought me 2 huge bags filled with t-shirts so I could make a t-shirt quilt for her husband.  So my afternoon and evening was filled with preparing these shirts to become a wonderful quilt.

I am really excited to make this quilt because it is going to be filled with so many memories.

Here's the story:

Cindy's husband Mike decided at age 40

to run a marathon

in each of the 50 states before his 50th birthday.

Do the math......10 years.....50 marathons....

That's 5 marathons a year folks!

Can you imagine????

Well I'm pretty impressed!

So my challenge this week is to design a quilt to represent

each and every marathon shirt.

I'm thinking that it is going to be one HUGE quilt!

Follow my journey with the tutorials I will be posting in the

next couple of days.............

Happy Quilting!

tammy

I love a bargain!

A couple of weeks ago I found this Kindercraft cradle

at Savers.

It was priced at $34.95

and I did a double take when I noticed that the

price tag color was the one that was 1/2 off that day!!!!

Score!

A beautiful cradle for $17.50!!!

So the last couple of weeks I've been cleaning it up,

tightening it up

and making a mattress for it.

I went to Joann's and bought some

high density foam and

covered that with some flannel backed vinyl

to make it "waterproof".

After that I made a double sided mattress pad

and two sets of double sided sheets.

I've been doing this inbetween my quilting jobs,

so it feels like it has taken me forever.

I also made this pink "skirt"
for the cradle.


Now to make the "Boppy"
cover!

Did I mention I was going to be a gramma soon?

ttyl,
tammy

Spring is here!

I hadn't checked

on my little hummer lately

so today I decided to venture out and have a look

and see what I found!!!!!

I quickly came back inside to grab

my camera so

I could snap a picture of these two hummers in the nest together.

I'm not sure if these two are babies

or if perhaps

it is the mom and dad hummer.

I've never seen 2 hummingbirds in the same nest before

so this was a real treat!

bye for now,

tammy