Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin.....

Can you believe that it is almost the END OF JULY!?!?!

Do you remember those days, ( back when you were a kid), that time seemed to move at a snail's pace?  The school year lasted FOREVER, when you were anxiously awaiting summer vacation.  Summer vacation dragged on and on when you couldn't wait to get back to school to see your friends again.  Sunday drives with the family seemed an eternity when you were stuck in a car with your 3 brothers, mom and dad and it was raining outside and stuffy in the car.  (Had to add that one in there for YOU mom!)

Welcome to adulthood.  Where time moves at lightening speed.  You blink your eyes and 1/2 of the year is GONE already.  Where. O. Where does the time go?

July has been a super busy month starting off with the happy occasion of a wedding.  Our family has known Oliver since he was just a little guy.  We were honored to be included in the celebration of his marriage to Kim who is beautiful both inside and out.  Here they are taking their very first steps together as husband and wife.  Don't they look happy?

The other major event in our busy month was the

1st birthday of our precious granddaughter Mia.

Mia and mommy were so excited for the party!

We were so blessed to have 53 people in attendance to

celebrate Mia's 1st birthday.

Rafael and Jenny decorated their house so nicely.

Jenny made delicious pulled pork sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad

and a tasty watermelon punch. 

This is a picture of the Watermelon cake (s)

that Jenny and Rafael made. 

Pretty clever!

Mia polished off her little watermelon cake in a matter of minutes.

She looks like she is watching out for someone to come

and take her little cake away.

She truly enjoyed her first taste of SUGAR!

Must take after her grandma!

Another notable July event was the big Haboob

that hit Phoenix!

We get dust storms all the time, but this wall of dust measured

one mile high and about 5 miles wide.  

It was a monster.

This photo is a picture of our back yard and

 a baby haboob that hit

a few days later. 

My picture is not as dramatic as the ones shown on tv!

Time to end this little story for today.

Tomorrow I'll catch up on all of the crafty things

that have been happening in July.

Here's a picture of my favorite little "blogger in training".

Is it any wonder that the kids nowadays know more

about computers than we do?

Love, Piece and TIME,

tammy

Strolling down memory lane........

It is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL morning here today in Phoenix.
I walked outside and it actually felt cool instead of the usual furnace blast.
What a great opportunity for a refreshing morning bike ride.  I soaked it up since we won't see many more cool mornings until about October!

Ages and ages ago I sat in an excelerated summer school accounting class.
I didn't know too many people in Phoenix having just moved here from San Diego, and I'm a friendly sort of person, so I started a conversation with the nice looking girl that was sitting in front of me.  Marla and I became fast friends.  Lifelong friends too it seems!
It was a "blast from the past" when I opened the email from Marla saying that she was in town and wanted to know if I wanted to meet up with her.........

 Don't we look like two young 20 something's here in this picture!?!

It was great to see Marla and catch up on the last 20 years......
(guess that might make us in our 40's....right?)
We started so many conversations last night and this morning I realized that we didn't finish alot of them.  So I'm looking forward to renewing our friendship.  Marla reminded me last night of a trip we took to San Diego together.....we talked the entire 6 hour ride there, 6 hours ride home and then called each other to talk on the phone after we got home!  Guess we just like to talk!

Seems like just yesterday I shared a very special day in her life.......

 

We were honored to have Marla join us last night as we had a small celebration for Miss Mia's first birthday!

Here is Mia with mom and dad

with her "practice" cake.

Mia is "practicing" blowing out the candle

and mom and dad were "practicing"  making

her real cake for the party on Saturday.

Jenny really wanted to make a cake using fondant icing.

She found a recipe for a watermelon cake and fondant icing

that was made from marshmellows.

I have to admit that the fondant tasted pretty good.

Mia sure liked her first taste of sugar!

She cleaned her plate.

A girl after my own heart..........

Jenny and I have been busy plotting and planning for Mia's birthday party this coming Saturday.

Pictured here are the cookies was have made.

Can you guess the theme of the party?

Quilts, Quilts, Quilts

Last time I posted I mentioned what a fun job I had.
Thankfully my longarm has been cooperating lately. 
I think it may have something to do with the moister weather
I finished up quite a few quilts last week including these two:

Judy brought this to me and wanted the black fabric to fade into the background abit, so she asked if I could use a varigated blue thread to bring a little color to the black.
Sometimes it is scary to use a high contrast thread.....ANY little blips or mistakes show up BIG TIME!  Plus, in the past I've had problem using this particular brand of polyester varigated thread.  The static electricity tends to build up and cause all sorts of problems including thread breakage every time you turn around.  One of the things that was suggested to me by Mark at APQS was to run a dryer static sheet over my rails and thread path to help with the build up.  I did that, but I also cut a little piece of the dryer sheet and attached it to the first thread guide on my machine.  Worked like a charm!
The varigated thread looked awesome on the  black sashing and borders.  Love the way this quilt turned out.

Here is a detail pic of the quilt:

The next quilt that I worked on was this very manly quilt made for Nolan by his Winky Katrina!

Nolan loves cars and Yellow!

So Katrina asked me if I could quilt cars all the was around the perimeter of this quilt. 

I started the top with racing flags and cars with the number 3.

Nolan will be getting this quilt for his 3rd birthday.

Little roadster.

Milk Truck

Fire Truck

Semi Truck

School bus

Race cars

These cars and trucks were designs from

Anne Bright's Quilting pattern books

and transferred to the quilt top using a laser light following the pattern.

Continuous curve quilting on center blocks.

Back of quilt!

Cute huh?

Finished up another large quilt top tonight, but still need to

go thru and check for threads and remove the chalk markings.

Will post a picture soon!

Gotta close with a picture of my sweet baby girl.

Piecefully yours,

tammy

One of the really cool things about my job

as a longarm quilter is that I get to be part of

some really cool quilts!

This quilt was made by Linda and will be given to her son.

The quilt was very geometric with alot of straight lines,

so I tried to bring some curves into the quilting.

This is a close-up of some of the quilting details.

We celebrated the 4th with a BBQ at our friends Bob and Jenni.

Mike and Rafael are enjoying some homemade ice cream in this picture.

Poor Mia only got to watch!

No sweet stuff til her 1st birthday!

The Gibbs can clearly see fireworks from their driveway

so we all sat outside and watched the display.

Last Saturday we all donned our finest and

attended the wedding of Oliver.

Oliver has been a family friend since he was just a little lad....

What joy it was to see him marry a really wonderful

young lady. 

The icing on the cake is that they clearly adore each other.

I wish them a lifetime of happiness.

tammy

Finally Finished

Whoo Hoo! 

I put the final stitches on this sweet summertime Watermelon quilt last night just before midnight and I just love the way it turned out.

This quilt started with fabric purchased at Rosie's Calico Cupboard in San Diego.  I found the watermelon seed fabric, then chose the green while I was there.  I knew I had white fabric at home in my stash. 

My next job was to find a pattern. 

I have a bunch of 3 yard patterns from Fabric Cafe.

http://www.fabriccafe.com/

These are quick to cut and easy to sew patterns.

The Wind Mill quilt pattern looked really interesting because when I altered the dimensions of each strip each square could look like a watermelon slice.

My first plan was to find a watermelon print at my local quilt shop, but alas, there was no watermelon print fabric that matched the fabric I already had.  The watermelon seed fabric I had was pinkish

and all the print fabric was more red.

So I was back to the drawing board............

I've always wanted to do an applique border so I figured that this was my opportunity to create one.

Awhile back I remembered seeing an applique on the Moda Bake Shop website

so off I went to find it.

Maria Wallin's quilt "Sun Kissed Squares" inspired my watermelon applique border treatment.  I really liked the vines she created and the little flowers she used throughout the quilt.  I just made a watermelon to match my theme and used the flowers in a different way.

You can find a picture of Maria's quilt here:

http://www.modabakeshop.com/search?updated-max=2011-06-07T00%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=12

This is the label I made for the back of the quilt.

When I saw this swag banner made by Kerri over at the Lovely Little Handmades blog I knew I wanted to make one.

Mia's party gave me an excuse to try it out.

You can see the banner Kerry made for her daughter's Polly Pinwheel party here:

http://lovelylittlehandmades.blogspot.com/2011/06/pinwheel-party.html

I changed it up a little by using felt instead of fabric.  I also made the appliqued letters on my embroidery machine.  Pretty fast and fun!

Here are some other fun watermelon things that I have made or found.

The cool watermelon border fabric came from Joann's and made terrific tablerunners.  I used some of the scrap border fabric to line the bottom of some plain kitchen towels that I found at the 99cent store.  Micro Mitts were also made from some scraps.  I found a watermelon candle at Walmart and the watermelon drink jar came from Fry's.  Our dear friend Jo loaned us the watermelon bowl and shakers. 

All that is left to do is plop Mia down on the quilt wearing her little pink bathing suit with the watermelon applique and take some pictures........

when she gets up from her nap I just might do that!

Having a watermelon kind of day here.............

tammy

Bittersweet Blessings

Thirty some years ago I was living in South Africa with alot of time on my hands while my husband worked there.  I've never been a person to let my hands be idle, so when I found an ad for a quilting class I promptly signed up and learned the basics of quilting.  By hand no less.  It was love at first stitch!

 Back in the early 80's quilting was enjoying a revival of sorts, so when I returned to the States, at the urging of my friend Lyn,  I joined a local quilt guild.  The Night Owls.  Heaven.  Loved it.  However, at the tender age of 21, I kinda stuck out like a sore thumb as the very youngest member of the group.  I learned alot from the older ladies who graciously shared thier skills with me, and even taught them a few things as well. (although looking back on it now I think they may just have been encouraging me on my quilting path)

There was one lady in particular who scooped me up and tucked me under her wing.  Helen Relfe invited Lyn and I over to her house to show us a new project.  When we got there she had set up 2 sewing machines, had a pattern and her fabric stash wide open for us to choose from.  WOW!  Helen's generosity and gentle spirit just warmed my heart and made me feel really special.  Lyn and I each made a dimensional  Christmas tree wall hanging that day.  It still hangs in our houses every Christmas.  If it were not packed away in my Christmas boxes I would take a picture of it and post it here.

That day began a life-long friendship between Helen and I.  I so enjoyed visiting with Helen and her husband Walter.  Loved hearing about her journey to the valley from her home in Northwest.  Loved hearing about what Phoenix was like in the early 30's.  Helen and Walter showed me all the best places to get bargains on fabric and quilting supplies.  Helen and I were friends thru thick and thin......the birth of my children, the death of her husband. We shared the love of quilting, exchanged recipes, stories and hollyhock seeds.  One year for Christmas I made gingerbread cookie people and wrote "Helen" and "Walter" on the cookies and put them into bags.  The last time I visited Helen's home those cookie bags were still hanging on the wall.   

My family always say that my stories are too long and I tell too many details, and take too long to get to the point.  (gee, I'm becoming my mother after all! lol)  (love you mom!)

So here is the point to my ramblings......

Helen passed away earlier this month.  She would have been 93 this August.

I went to visit her this week and was told that she had passed.

No one called me.
I missed her funeral.
Sad. 

My heart hurts to have lost her,

but rejoices that she is no longer in pain and
is with her beloved Walter
sitting at the right hand of Jesus.

Bittersweet blessings.

I found this after an online search:

 Helen Strohmaier Relfe


92, of Phoenix, AZ passed away on June 10, 2011. A first generation American, Helen was born in Vida, Montana, August 18, 1918, and married Walter Relfe in Salem, Oregon, on September 11, 1938. Helen's life was characterized by hard work, including employment with the City of Phoenix and the Arizona State House of Representatives. She also gave much time, energy, and resources to serve others throughout her life. She is survived by daughters Carole Lowery and Dorothy Colvin, six grandchildren, and 16 great-grandchild ren. Graveside services will be held on Wednesday, June 15, 2011, at 9:30 AM at Greenwood Memory Lawn, 2300 W. Van Buren.

This is the last picture I took of Helen. 

She was always a lady and always had her lipstick on. 

Rest In Peace

Helen Relfe

August 1918 - June 2011

I miss you Helen, but I will always hold you in my heart.

One in a Melon

The first birthday of Miss Mia is fast approaching

and Jenny is planning a watermelon themed party for her.

So in the spirit of things I decided to create some watermelon themed accessories.

Can you see the little pink bathing suit pinned on the quilt?

I appliqued some watermelons on it!

I found this cool watermelon fabric when I was at Rosies Calico Cupboard

in San Diego.  I was hoping to find a coordinating watermelon print fabric

here in Phoenix.  Unfortunately I didn't find any and I didn't have enough

fabric to really complete this quilt.  So I decided to add a white border

and make some cornerstones out of the leftover piecing.

Here is the quilt top with white borders and leftover pieces for cornerstones.

Now the fun part begins............I'm going to add some applique.

Yesterday I loaded my longarm with this Nativity panel.

I've been having significant problems with my longarm lately.

A couple of months back I purchased new wheels to upgrade my longarm.

Unfortunately the new wheels have created a problem with static electricity.

The static electricity has arced and messed with the electronic with my machine.  Fortunately the folks at APQS have been really helpful providing a grounding kit and technical support.

I haven't wanted to load customer quilts until I have had this problem resolved, which I think I may have done yesterday. 

The Nativity panel came out pretty good.  Only one blip with the machine.

I'm hoping to quilt Mia's quilt tomorrow and that will be the final test.

She checked out the top today and told me that she likes it!

Blessed are the piecemakers,

tammy