If I were more blessed......

I'd be TWINS!

 

I am blessed with a beautiful and sweet grandaughter.

Love seeing the world thru her eyes.

Grandpa and I enjoy the simple pleasure of just watching her sleep.

My kiddos indulge me and come and color the Easter Eggs.....Still!

I love those kids!

I gave my kids their Easter baskets to them last year and told them that

the Easter bunny would probably not fill them any more (me!)

However I couldn't help myself and got them a few little things including

these foam dart guns. 

I loved watching my grown-up "kids" playing like they were children.

A precious gift for me!

I always hope that they remember to be young at heart!

I love cooking!

This morning I made 9 mini loaves of banana bread,

peanut butter fudge, sugar cookies and

roasted butternut squash, onions, and apple to make

butternut squash soup. 

I have a great recipe that was given to me by my friend Sharon.

Tonight we celebrated Easter with my family.

My heart sings with thanksgiving for all of the blessings that I have been given.

Tomorrow will be another celebration.

A celebration of the life that Jesus sacrificed for us

Jesus is Alive!

God Bless,

tammy

Design Wall Monday

On my design wall today is this very old

and very fragile quilt top that was brought

to be to be finished.

So I thought that perhaps I'd post it here

to get some feedback.

I'm a little afraid to put it on the longarm.

Not sure that the fabric would handle it.

The top does not lay flat so it will be challenging.

My customer wants this quilt to be finished so

she can display it.

My initial thought is to envelope  the top

and simply tack the batting and backing  together.

Does anyone have any tips for working with antique quilts they could share?

Quilty Blessing,

tammy 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I am not sure why, but I just love St. Patrick's Day!

Maybe it is because everyone wears green and

hat symbolizes the coming of spring.

Maybe it is because of all of the

old Irish blessings that sound

so uplifting and charming.

Or maybe it is because you just have to

have a drink to celebrate!

One of the ways my family has always celebrated

St. Patrick's day is by having a green breakfast.

I make green pancakes, green butter and usually green milk.

(today we had orange juice.....whoops)

Usually I make green scrambled eggs,

today we just had regular ole' white fried eggs.

It was a lovely morning to have breakfast outside.

The birds were singing

and sun was just peeking into the garden.

Then there is the traditional dog washing.

It is rumored that if you wash your dog on St. Patty's day

you'll have good luck in the coming year!

Nahhhh, I just made that up!

Mike is returning from a business trip tomorrow

and Jenny thought it would be nice to wash his dog!

Shamrock cookies to take over to a friends house.

Check out the cool tablerunner!

Great story.....great memory!

I made this at a quilting retreat and

it was the first time I had

made up this particular pattern.

Let's just say that I had had a glass or two of wine and

the runner came out a little cattywampus.

PERFECT for St. Patty's day!

Later tonight I'll have to watch "The Quiet man"

Mike and I love this old movie and it is great anytime

of the year, but especially nice around St. Pat's day.

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara.

If you have never seen it......

You really should check it out!

This little Irish lass is the greatest gift of all!

Irish Blessing to you!

tammy

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

Amazing, Awesome day

So today was my birthday and I was given so many gifts that my heart is nearly bursting.

It was a pretty ordinary day.  I spent alot of it with my precious granddaughter.  She wasn't feeling too hot or actually she WAS feeling hot and really under the weather.  But when she looked at me with her trusting eyes and laughed at my simple attempts to keep her distracted.....just filled my heart with love.

Jenny and Mia took me out to breakfast this morning.  I just LOVE breakfast out!  Eggs and hashbrowns and toast.......Love it!  Why?  I don't know, but I really do love it!

I loved getting the many birthday wishes from friends on Facebook.
I REALLY loved the pictures that my mom uploaded of me when I was little.

I have the most awesome kids in the world.  They all planned this elaborate surprise for my birthday.  We were supposed to be going to Brian and Jen's for dinner tonight, but the surprise party was actually held at Caramba's....one of my favorite places to celebrate practically ANY occasion.  Jen contacted a BUNCH of my friends, Jen and Jenny concocted great stories to get me there and surprise me.  Overwhelmed.  Loved.  Special.  Words to describe how I felt when I walked into Caramba's.

It's late, I'm tired.  I'll probably sleep really well after having such a wonderful day.  Thanks to all who have made me feel so special today.

The last two monday nights have found me at Great Skate.

What great fun!

It's been about 10 years since I last skated and I was AFRAID....very afraid to go now.

The last time I was at the rink I fell and fell hard!

Took about 6 months to heal so I quit skating after that, but I

LOVE TO SKATE!

So I'm skating again, but I will admit that I am very cautious!

Now I started skating many, many years ago and I've got

to tell you......ALOT of things have changed!

Like the picture below......texting while skating!

 And I have NEVER seen a stroller with a baby inside on the skating rink!
There were not too many people on the floor tonight, but LAST week it was packed and they had a stroller out there.

They have also come up with these PVC pipe contraptions to help beginning skaters.  They are pretty cool.........EXCEPT when those beginning skaters decide they want to leave the middle and cross straight across in front of a ton of skaters.  Kinda like crossing the freeway during rush hour!

 Hi Kathy!

You look great!

Back in the day, I used to be able to backskate.

Made it 1/2 way around the rink tonight before I ran into a wall

so I decided that going forward was good enough for me!

 Close up of the beginning skater helper.

I learned to skate in my basement back in Ohio

using those metal key skates

(remember those?  they tightened onto your shoes?)

and two brooms to hold me up!

Hey....it worked!

Next week I will be celebrating a birthday

and I've decided that I want a roller skating party!

So next Monday night if you are in the area

make sure and join me at Great Skate!

6-9PM

Do you think they would play a special song for me?

When I used to go roller skating back at

Dow Roller skating rink in Nelsonville, Ohio

they ALWAYS played

Tammy Wynette   "Stand by your Man"

Now THAT was a few years ago!

They probably wouldn't even have the song available.

AND if they played it all of the other skaters would groan!

Here is a pic of my sweet granddaughter taken today.

She is such a precious child and

never ceases to amaze me!

I'm going to start bragging now...just wanted to let you know.

She does all the usual fun baby things........smile, laugh, sit up.....

But today I realized that she understands when I talk

to her and can perform simple tasks when I ask her!

One of the things I did today was ask her to grab my finger

and pointed to the hand I wanted her to use.

Then I asked her to use the other hand

and then both hands!

She is so amazing and smart.

Yep....I'm a pretty proud grandma!

Lots of love!

tammy

Margarita Cupcake recipe

I'm reposting the recipe link for the Margarita cupcakes AND below you will find the recipe I use to make my Never Fail Buttercream frosting.

Here is the link again for Recipe Girl's Margarita Cupcakes:

http://www.recipegirl.com/2009/05/02/margarita-cupcakes-2/

Just look at all the yummy ingrediants in these cupcakes!

Many years ago, and I mean MANY years ago!  I took a Wilton Cake decorating class down at what was Christown Mall.  It was a 6 or eight week class and each week we had to make a cake and then take it to the class to learn a decorating technique.  Mike and I used to just leave a fork by the cake and have a bite when we walked by.  Oh.....to have the metabolism of a person in their 20's again!!!!

At the last class the instructor gave us this recipe for buttercream frosting.
I didn't even have a piece of paper to write it on!  I tore off a piece of cardboard from a box and wrote down this recipe:

Never Fail Buttercream frosting

1 lb powdered sugar   (that is one box or 4 cups)
1/4 c. milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp butter extract  (omit this if you use butter shortning)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter or shortning  ( I ALWAYS use Crisco shortning)

Place all of the ingrediants in a bowl and mix until smooth
This will make a stiff icing suitable for piping.
Add milk a little at a time to desired consistancy.

I still have this recipe written on the cardboard!
Maybe I should write it on a proper recipe card!

So here are the changes I made for making the frosting for the
Margarita cupcakes:

Instead of using the 1/4 cup milk I added 2 T. fresh lime juice.
The icing was VERY stiff and since I didn't think Milk would go very
well with the lime juice and I really needed to thin this down abit AND
I still had some margarita mix......I added the margarita mix in small amounts
until I reached the desired consistancy!

I hope that you make these cupcakes and ENJOY them!