Monday, July 1, 2013

Stamp on It blog hop day #4

The winner for the Moda charm pack is none other then...Pat:

The Chattanooga Choo-Choo ... adorable! I love it. Thanks for sharing and for the chance to win, too ... :) Pat

Pat please email me with your info and I will get it out to you.....I have left you a message on your blog.

Thanks for stopping in everyone and have a wonderful holiday.....






What a wonderful hop this has been.  I really struggled with what I wanted to do.  Since I love shoes and handbags I was going to do that but then thought differently.  So what I did decide on was taking something from my state of TN  that most people are aware of here in Chattanooga and see if I could put it on a stamp.  Here is a little history on the Chattanooga ChooChoo:

Thanks to Thearica for being a wonderful cheerleader and Madame Samm for such a wonderful fun filled blog hop and being a great hostess also to our sponsors. Please go and visit with my fellow stampers today and let them know you were there.


I am assuming we all know the song "Chattanooga Choo-Choo which actually was song by allot of people;
for one Glenn Miller  put it to music back in the 40's which was about a train trip from Pennsylvania Station New York City through to the terminal Station in Chattanooga.  But what I did not know is that it was also sung by  many, many people such as; Andrews Sisters, Ray Charles, Harry Connick, Jr., The Muppets  and Elvis Presley just to name a few.

Per Wikipedia It was  a former railroad station, once owned and operated by the Southern Railway, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original Chattanooga Union Station was built in 1858 but continually was too small with the expansion of passenger  use and had to be rebuilt a few times.
The station was re-opened in 1909 and was the latest and largest station in Chattanooga's history.  After the decline of the railroad traffic in the 50's and 60's the last train to leave the station happened in 1970.  Then it was bought by local business's and renamed Chattanooga Choo Choo.  Today the 24 acre complex is a convention center, hotel resort with restaurants and shops.  You can stay in a half of a restored passenger railway car; the restaurant is in the terminal station itself.  And the "Dinner in the Diner" is the complex's fine dining venue housed in a restored 1938 Class A dining car.  There is much more info out there if anyone is interested.  After all this ( and thank you for staying with me)here is my little art quilt depicting the Chattanooga Choo Choo:

There is many layers to this 15" x 15" stamp.  I started with duck and added a coat of modge podge then layered the fabric for the scenery, ink dyed  it  to take some of the starkness out of it and quilted it.  I appliqued the train and tracks down used buttons for the wheels, angelina for the smoke from the stack on the train then added the state and stamp markings all in jacquard pearlesence paint.
If you stayed with me this long then you certainly deserve to be in a drawing of some kind .. Since the 4th of July is in a few days I will make this the prize for one lucky person at the end of the blog hop,..good luck and thanks for visiting..





Sunday, June 30, 2013

Secret Sister Tote


I hope my secret sister likes this....it was fun to do and I am going to make myself one just a different color chevron.  As much as yellow is my favorite color I want her to have a one of a kind....In her description she said Modern and bright so I hope I captured that.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

STamp on IT bloghop starts on Wednesday!

Hello out there..just wanted to post a note about the new bloghop that is starting tomorrow.  Thearica who blogs at Pig Tales and Quilts is our head cheerleader for this blog hop and the Queen of all of our hops who is Madame Samm is the lovely lady who came up with this idea and I think it is going to be a fun and exciting one.  Sew please start your visiting with us tomorrow and the schedule is as follows, now please be sure to come back and see me on July 1st as mine will be a tribute to...well I guess you will have to come back and see...



June 26

Marjorie'sBusyCorner

Life in the Scrapatch

Pig Tales and Quilts

littlemushroomcap

sosewgreen

The Thimblemouse

Just Let Me Quilt

Words & Stitches

In Stitches And Seams


June 27

Life @ Ruffhaven 

Englating

Charlottes Creations

Moments



Feathered Nest Studio 

Moose Stash Quilting

Jane's Quilting

Hillvalleyquilter




June 28

Robin's Fabric Nest

In The Sewing Basket

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Just Quilt It

AnnieOak Designs

Buzzing and Bumbling

krislovesfabric

CherrysPrairiePrimitives

Hanging On By A Thread



July 1

Quilt Matters

Scrapbook-ChickADoodle 

Patchouli Moon

The Slow Quilter

A Loose Thread

Janes Fabrics and Quilts

Selina Quilts

Debby Kratovil Quilts


Sew Many Yarns

Dancing Thru Threads




July 2

Sew and Sow Farm  

fishkopp

Scraps of Life

Meadowbrook

Katie and Kwilts  

Em's Scrap Bag   

GrammieQ's

How ART you?

BumbleberryStitches

A Stitch in Time




July 3

More Stars in Comanche

Dachsies With Moxie

NotionNanny





Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Sew We Quilt; Tammy Bag Finale is today!

Oh what a wonderful fun Hop this has been.  Thank you Madame Samm for such a wonderful pattern it has been such a pleasure doing my "Tammy's" as always you made it accessible,  you made it fun and the hardest part was deciding on fabric..Please visit the other ladies that I share this last day with:

Thanks to all the other ladies that participated they were all lovely and of course to our sponsors for always designing new fabrics, tools, threads, etc. to make our quilting more pleasurable!  Here we go:

This Tammy was made for a special friend of mine, Linda.  You see she will be leaving TN soon to move to another state and I wanted to gift her with something I know she can use.  Linda does beautiful applique' and lately has been doing some English paper piecing so her bag was filled with everything from needles to freezer paper and then a few kits for her epp projects and I was surprised myself what you can get into one.....Linda you are a dear friend and I will miss you....I hope you like it!
Can you tell I love to embellish sometimes it is hard to know when to stop...




My embellishments on this bag included some plus size inches that I made, lace, a tatted flower which I ink dyed, some wispy thread to border the bag out and a telephone charm since we will more than likely be talking on the phone allot more...

I also made one for myself, for a very special reason.  If there are any diabetics out there you know how we have to carry our supplies and insulin and all the pump devices in a little black (sometimes they are red) bags...well not any more!  This Tammy will hold all my supplies so now my supplies will be carried in style.  




I also used some plus size inches that I made, a ruffle on one side with some purple little flower trim to border one side and on the other side a plus size inchie some ink dyed lace to border it out and a little charm/bead trim
I "thank you" for stopping by to visit me today.  I know there were a bit of pictures but I was truly amazed at all they hold and wanted to show as much as I could.  Have a wonderful day!


Sunday, June 16, 2013

Happy Father's Day celebration

I wanted to take a minute and share our Father's Day celebration with you all.  We had a BBq and it turned out to be a really wonderful day for all.  My husband said after everyone left and all was cleaned up, "Thank you for making this day so special" and that made it all so wonderful.  Here are a few pics to share with you:

My other half




All the men in my life from l to r
My son Gene, my husband Gene, My son-in-law Jeremy and
my grandson Dayton


My brother Carl who is another special man in my life, his girlfriend Angela, my sister
Debbie and Dayton

My daughter Leigh-Anne



My daughter-in-law, Samantha and
my grand baby girl, Phalynn
I truly think a great day was had by all and I wanted to share it with you.

Happy Father's Day, Dad a testimony to you!

Dad, although you left us way to soon (1991) there is hardly a day that goes by that I do not think of you!  When I was a little girl you were everything to me; I loved your laugh,  I loved your attention and I loved how you made your children feel like they were the most important thing in your life.  Then I watched things change and I didn't like the changes because I didn't understand, why!  Now I have put the pieces together..the changes occurred when you found out about things that were happening with your little girls that were out of your control and yes you did stop them but it cost you allot and I am so sorry.  I now know that you had to take care of your children, and you did but it ate you up inside and that is why you turned to alcohol and lost interest in life..I wished I could have helped you through it but I was too little to understand what it did to you inside.  I blamed you for all the changes that you created and all the hurt I felt because you drank and became bitter.  But I do not blame you anymore for now I understand, why... It does not ease the pain that you let alcohol take you from us way too soon but it helps me understand that the burdens you had to face where far greater then what you could comprehend.  So in saying this I want to let you know that you are missed by all your children very much...we hear a certain laugh and turn to see who it is because it reminds us of you...You have given us all the gift of life, you taught us to always stand by our children and do right by them, to right a wrong at any cost, to be faithful to our family  and although you had to take refuge in a bottle because you stood by your girls and lost relationships with some of your family members, through that we have gained the power of survival.  I am no longer bitter Daddy that you chose the bottle over us for now I understand it was way too much for you to bear.  So on this Father's Day please know that I love you, I miss you and you are forever in my heart!

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

FloorQuilts

I would like to introduce you to (2) friends of mine.  We get together once a month and for the last 2 months we have been working from a book on making FloorQuilts.  There is quite a bit of steps in preparing these for the floor but I have to say I think we all had allot of fun working on them.  Here is Sandi; Linda and myself with our new floorquilts.  I call mine the lefty floor quilt because it was all done with only my left hand since we started it when I had surgery on my right but for being a lefty I think it came out ok...Now Linda is the one holding the very pretty floorquilt with all the circles and this design is similar to the one on the front cover of the book; Sandie's is a version of a rail fence and of course she improv the rest of it and it came out just gorgeous.