Saturday, August 14, 2010

Friday Night Fun

For the second friday in a row I've found myself sewing at
Patrick Lose's studio.
Last night the Friday Night Quilter's met up there to sew.
It's been a long time since we have ACTUALLY SEWN!
What a wonderful feeling!


Cheryl finished up a back for her latest quilt.
The backs of Cheryl's quilts are ALWAYS interesting.
Interestingly enough this is a quilt that I started
many, many years ago.
It is an I Spy quilt that I was making using a variety of fun focus fabrics.
It was a project that I didn't think I would ever finish so I passed
it on to Cheryl's mom.
She worked on it and then it was passed on to Cheryl.
This will be going to Cheryl's new grandbaby.
I mentioned that I, too, had a new grandbaby,
but well, she wasn't willing to give it back to me.

Joanne was working on her annual doll.
Each year for her grandaughter's birthday she has made an original doll.
I always marvel at her creativity.
Dolly is working on making bags out of Capri Sun containers.
Like mother, like daughter.....creativity seems to run in the fam.

Cynthia was working on a paper pieced project.
AND brought in a really fun quilt to share.
Wish I snapped a photo!


Since I could not sleep the night before I had all of these
blocks cut and ready to sew.
Whoo hoo!  I finished them all!
Here are all of the finished blocks for the quilt.
Now comes the interesting part of arranging them into a quilt top.

Guess that's it for now.....
sleep well all,
tammy

Friday, August 13, 2010

Sleepless in the Southwest

For some reason I've found myself wide awake
in the middle of the night lately.
Usually I toss and turn and try to go back to sleep,
but this night I decided to take a page from my friend
Carole's book and get up and go down to the studio.

At our last quilt retreat I started working on Debbie Boles "Yikes" quilt and
I made a couple of blocks last week at the "Area 51" Work on your
UFO's workshop I attended. 
Tonight is FNQ night and we are sewing at Patrick's studio so I decided to
get the rest of the blocks prepared so tonight all I have to do is
get the pedal to the medal and SEW!
Look at that!  I've got my blocks and patterns all ready to go!
Hopefully I'll finish them all up tonight!

Yesterday I got to spend some time with my two favorite girls:


And I'll get to see them again today since I get to spend some time
with Mia while Jenny attends to some business.
I wonder what mischief we will get into today?
Last time we were alone I offered Mia some frosting
(something I am notorious for!)
She pretty much shook her head at me and told me
(in no uncertain terms)
that "Babies don't get to have sugar until they have thier first birthday cake"
and "My mommy told me that I could not have frosting until then!"

Isn't she a smart girl already?

It's 5:30am and I think I'll try to close my eyes again and
get a little sleep if I can.
Don't want to be grouchy today with my Mia OR
tonight with the FNQer's!

Night,
tammy

Monday, August 9, 2010

What is the best pick-up line you've heard?

So when is the last time someone handed you a pick-up line?
I've been married over 30 years and if you do the math you
could probably figure out that I'm not in my 20's, 30's or 40's anymore.

I've heard some lines over the years, but I'm usually pretty oblivious to them.
Then I think back and say "HEY!  What was that?"
As was the case one fine steamy hot day last week. 
I was walking up to get a cart in front of the grocery store and as usual
keeping an eye out on what is going on around me.
I noticed this guy sitting on his BICYCLE holding a case of beer right
in front of the door of the grocery store. 
Weird, but not worrisome.
As I walk into the store mumbles something to me.  I keep on walking.....
It didn't really register to me what he was saying until I got into the store!
His words were  "Wanna go for a beer?"

WANNA GO FOR A BEER????
I cracked up! 
So was he picking up chicks on his bicycle?
Gonna go out into the parking lot and toss back a few cold ones?
AND  did he need glasses????
Hell-o?!?

TOOO funny!  Guess I still got it! 

Still laughing,
One hot gramma in Phoenix!
tammy

ps.  I can't end a post without a cute picture of my precious angel.
These are the things that I pick up!
Precious babies and pizza!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Saturday Sew Day

Last week Kathy and I had an
impromtu quilt shop hopping day. 
We decided to check out a new
 Quilter Cafe which had opened
beside Quiltz. 
Turns out it is the new studio of Patrick Lose. 
He wanted a place where he could work and hang up all of his designs.
Then he decided that he would open up this space to quilters to come
in and have coffee, bring in and work on projects and probably some
more exciting things to come.

Hanging on the wall in this lovely shop was a baby quilt.  I decided that
I really wanted to make it and wanted to buy the pattern.  Turns out the
pattern is located in a book that is no longer being published.  So I went
home and did a little search and came up with the Book "Special Delivery"
by Patrick Lose.  Yippee!  When I got home last night the book was waiting for me!


A trip to the fabric store and I'm ready to begin this project today!


I am anxious to begin!


Last night Kathy, Carole and I attended "Area 51".  Bring in your UFO's.
It was a lovely night filled with fabric, friends, fun and food!  Carole brought in her embroidery machine and stitched up some designs.  Kathy traced and cut fabric to use in a large applique wallhanging.   I squared up some blocks for a halloween project, mended a flag and worked on a couple of blocks for my "Yikes" quilt. 
We met some new friends, Suzanne, Kelly and Sue and enjoyed seeing what they were working on.  We had yummy snacks, delightful music, a movie and even played quilt Bingo!
Patrick and Gary shared the Triple Irish Chain quilt tops that they have recently made.  Unfortunately I did not snap a picture, but I DO have a picture of one I made several years ago.

This is one of my very favorite quilts.
I started collecting purple and green fabrics a looooong time ago
and contained in this quilt is fabric that Mike picked out for me
when he was on a business trip to Kentucky. 
He passed a quilt shop everyday on his way to work and one day
he stopped in.  The ladies there were more than happy to help
him pick out purple and green fat quarters. 
They even went the extra mile and searched around in the back
to find a special square of Kentucky Derby fabric.
I made my label out of that!
OH!!!
And that pillow!!!!
This is my VERY FIRST QUILTING PROJECT!
I made that over 30 years ago!
In South Africa no less.


Time to start quilting!
Hope you get some quilting in today too!


ps.....I can't end a post without including a picture of my precious angel!

God bless!
tammy

Saturday, July 31, 2010

What a month!


My precious Angel
July 30th

July has been an emotional roller coaster type of month!!!
We began July WAITING.....
waiting on the birth of our first grandchild.
Mia was due to arrive on July 3rd, but my daughter Jenny
was adamant that she was going to be born on July 4th.
July 4th came and went, as did the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th,
and with each day passing the anxiety and uncertainty started growing.
The 10th of July marked one week overdue
and not even one centimeter dialated
so the doc wanted Jenny to go to the hospital
to do a hormone gel procedure to hopefully
encourage some dialation.
Over 12 hours later.....still no dialation.
The nurse already had the pitosin bag out and
was ready to hook it up to Jenny's IV.
Jenny was ADAMANT that she did not want to
be induced with pitosin and thankfully her doctor
agreed to let her return home and see if she might go into labor naturally.
Unfortunately this was not to be.
Jenny returned to the hopital in the wee hours of July 13th
to go thru yet another dialation/inducement treatment.
This picture was taken around 6am Tuesday 13July.
Still hopeful that the Cytotec inducement would work.
Cytotec has a nickname of "Dynamite" so we joked that
it was taking a stick of dynamite to get Mia to be born!
Miss Mia proved to have an even stronger will than we thought since the dynamite was not successful.  By noon on the 13th the doc was giving the kids the option to keep trying the cytotec, break her water, pitosin or c-section.
Jenny just couldn't see the sense in trying pitosin and having to labor for hours, cause stress to the baby, still not dialate and have to have a c-section.  The doc tried to break her water with no success since she was not dialated enough to insert the tool she used.  So it was decided that a c-section would be performed at 6pm that evening. 
Mike and I went home to let the kids have some time alone together to prepare themselves, but less than an hour had passed when I got a call from Rafael that the c-section might be sooner and Jenny wanted me to come back in to the hospital. 
This is what greeted me when I got back to the hospital.
Mia's heart rate had begun to drop and not come completely back up with the small contractions that Jenny was having so they started preparing 
for the c-section.
Jenny kept saying over and over...."I don't want to do this anymore" and "I don't want to have a c-section".
She was taken back to surgery at 3:30pm and Mia was born at 3:58pm.
I am so proud of my daughter.  She wanted so badly to have a completely natural birth experience with no drugs.  She had been preparing herself mentally for this for months.  She did everything in her power by trying less invasive drug treatments when it became apparant that things just were not going to happen on their own.  She truly wanted the best for her baby.
Mia, of course, has taught Jenny the first in many lessons...Babies have thier own ideas about things, thier own time schedules, and moms just need to learn to be flexible!
After weeks and weeks of agonizing wait I get to hold my grandchild for the very first time.  The emotion clearly seen in my face is a mixture of elation, extreme joy and the release of days of pent up anxiety and worry. 

As you know the birth of a baby is just the beginning.

God's Blessing to you,
grammy tammy


I just had to post this picture again at the end of my story.
Is this baby girl just a perfect angel?
Can you tell that I am a berry proud gramma?
This picture was taken yesterday when she was 17 days old.
Can you see her TEETH????
Mia was born with 2 teeth situated just under the gums and started poking out the day after birth. 

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Waiting........

I finally got to spend some time in my studio today and this
is one of the things that I made.
Well, all I really did was embroider Mia's name on this little dress.
Oh, and I did make the headband to match.
You can buy the stretchy ribbon at Hobby Lobby and just
sew it together.
I also bought at Hobby Lobby a bouquet of flowers and I pulled
off the flower head, removed the hard plastic part, hot glue gunned
the petals together and then hot glued it onto a hair clip
so it can be mixed and matched with various headbands and outfits.

I also spent some time ironing the baby clothes I had handwashed
earlier in the day.
I took such care with them because they were mine when I was little.
I remember a story that my mom told me about my
cousin Diane coming to visit from California and helping mom
iron my little dresses. 
WOW!  I ironed those little dresses today and it was
a heck of alot of work!!!!
It made me pretty thankful for the wash and wear type fabrics
that I had when my kids were little.  I can't imagine having to iron
all of my kids clothing!
I think the dress on the right was my Christening dress.
Here is my baby girl at 41 weeks.
Hopefully I'll be a grandma very soon!


grammy tammy






Friday Night Quilters

Last night I enjoyed a very nice evening filled with
good friends, good food, and really good quilts!

Here are some pictures of my talented friends
and some of the projects they have been working on.



Joanne with a couple of Alzheimers quilts that
are ready to be sent in to be auctioned
to raise money for Alzheimer's.


Mary's quilt
This is the quilt that we made for
Linda after her bed-bug experience at quilt camp.
It is hanging on her wall.


Katrina's out of this world quilt.
It has another name, but I can't seem to remember what it is!
Cheryl recently returned from a trip to Bali!
While there she made this batik panel.
She drew the design on paper, then drew it with wax before
she applied the paint colors to this piece.

She also made the jewerly she is wearing while in Bali.
Sharon has been busy finishing Quilts!

Sharon again.
I think Mary might have gotten the prize for the most finished tops.


Mary was given a patchwork dog like this when her twin girls were born, so she decided to duplicate it!
More from Mary.

I didn't have anything to show last night so I have decided to spend the afternoon doing some sewing!!!!

til next time,
Happy Quilting!
tammy