HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

                                Happy (Rainy) Mother's day to all you Mommies out there!!

                                        I hope you get to talk to or see your children today....

                                                Missing my Mom on this, the 1st Mother's day
                                                     since she has been gone....;-((((

But, we had a whole lot of them together and I cherish many good memories...

I am sitting and sipping my morning cup of java and slowly entering the world of the wide "awakers.".lol

Still no sewing to show you..but here are a few pix of my mystery book shelf for your bibliophiles out there...
{.I used to bring a book (we both loved a good mystery) when I visited Mom, and read to her--she loved that and would doze off and dream......}

These are my "keepers" that i have read a few times and will most likely read again.....
I hope you will have a relaxing day --i know I'll be reading:the Carolyn Graham 
Barnaby series: "Faithful unto Death" (2nd in the series...) 

hugs to you all

Julierose, La Blageuse (bookworm-euse)

MY POMEGRANATE JOURNEY BEGINS

                             
                                         My first little appliqued Pomegranate flower


Certainly not perfect, but this was my slow (V E R Y    S L O W   LOL) stitchery 
this Sunday.  Moi--doing applique in layers?? Bien sur....

My good and intuitive friend MaryAnn came over at the last moment and sat and stitched and talked with me; we sipped some white wine and she finished the binding on her daughter's  table topper.  We took a tour of my sewing room and she did me a world of good. I gave her one of my bleeding heart plants and she promises me some astilbes....


Merci beaucoup mon amie....It has been a difficult time this week ....Mom is extremely weak
 and very tired....sleeping more than not.

AND SO IT GOES...

Hugs to all
Julierose, La blageuse (attend-euse)

GOOD NEWS.......BAAAAD NEWS

Good News:  La Belle Dame Tristesse is ready to be embellished and see what I got at Joanne's this morning :

A whole gamut of purples and a new gold and orange--I had a 40% and a 15% off coupon and got 55% off --such a deal!! I am anxious to begin.....

And now how did this happen??  
(aka Baaaad News!!)

See there...the backing doesn't go all the way past my front quilt piece--I have no idea how this one slipped by me (brain games again!!). So I untied just the last row of hand ties and am going to add a long piece of yellow fabric (that pearl bracelet stuff) to the edge and just pretend that I meant to sew it boro-style--who knows it may turn out to be a new way to do backings (LOL).

Here's the hand woven front--do you remember the YEAR it took me to do this all by hand??? From beginning to end--pre-washing all those torn strips so that they would ravel nicely.   I am NOT--repeat--NOT going to totally undo the whole blankety blank thing!!

I worked so hard--but enjoyed thoroughly-- Jude Hill's class online to learn to do this.... I appliqued those flower headpieces as my own twist on those hand stamped images of ladies. 
I seem to be making hats, headpieces etc on my quilt ladies.....

And so goes my week...a mixture of good and bad, and I am thankful that my visit to my Mom's went well --we laughed over her great grandgirls' playing in tubs and at the beach and over the cutest card that Fiona sent her with a picture she drew of her Great Grand'mere---so precious.  And therefore, it went well, she laughed.....gotta love that.....difficult and trying times, but happy for the "little things" .

Hugs from Julierose, La blageuse (upeuse and downeuse)

HEX-IN-A-BOX & MOM

They are jumping out of the box!












I am in hex-a-gonia once again..........................

THIRTY-SIX OF THESE.....

TWENTY-FOUR OF THESE (So far....)

JUST THREE OF THESE HYBRIDS ......AND............................

IN THE BOX--These few ready to be sewn.....(there's been a lot of playoff games on tv!!!LOL)

I pretty much only work these at night; hubster is intent on his DX-ing (shortwave radio stuff vocabulary!)
and we both are watching the playoff baseball games with great interest.  We are both avid Red Sox fans and want to see which team they will play Friday night!

As far as my "Monet's City" hexagon piece, I am looking through my stash (so un-organized am I) for
a similar landscape piece to surround these babies.

On a personal note: I went for my weekly visit to see Mom @ nursing home yesterday and found her needing a haircut; as she is unable to tell the resident visiting hairdresser just what she wants, I took her down and explained ---[she wants a weight line in the back (tapered through to the neckline), cut up over her ears in front and bangs.  She just always wore her hair very short and people don't believe that at 94 she still shuns any kind of "product" in her hair--comb n' go!]

  I felt it was a good visit--a lot of her abilities are waning, but her feistiness isn't one of them! (ROTFLOL) She is still a "pistol"--as the family always called her....I won't go into detail here, but it is very difficult to see your Mom fading....

And so, the hubster had vacuumed, dusted, done laundry by the time I came home---Phew!  What an absolute sweetheart.....I sat on our deck and looked at the view for quite a bit...thinking......

As always, Je suis: Julierose, La Blageuse

AU REVOIR, MA CHERE TANTE MILDRED

1921 - Labor Day-2013
MA TANTE MILDRED
IN MEMORIAM

My darling Godmother, my mother's baby sister, passed away on this Labor Day evening in her Assisted Living Home with her family surrounding her.  We are so sad at her passing; but, it was a blessing as she was very ill and in a lot of pain.

The above is a scrapbook page I made a few years ago of her with a little story on the sidebar about her life.  She never met a person she didn't like and befriended all.  I can still see her sitting at the piano with my father playing four-handed piano and singing those old songs they so loved.  We were blessed to have her as part of our family.

Here are a few more of my scrapbook pages:  One of my Dad who passed away in 1997:

And here is an oldie of my Mom as a young girl on the brink of marrying Dad:

This year has held four deaths of close family members for both my husband and I.....
How did we become the OLDER GENERATION?

And here is a picture of Mom quite a few years ago:

I went and visited her this morning to tell her our sad news; we shed some tears together, but mostly recalled all the good times we all had together.

(I have been a scrapbooker for years now and have just not figured out how to scan them onto my computer to share with you.  Hopefully in the future I can share some "Happy Times" pictures.)
Je me Souviens toujours, Ma Tante...(I will remember you always Ma Tante)

Julierose, La Blageuse

"MARY MANDALA" for MOM's CHRISTMAS

Here's the start of my Christmas present for Mom.  It is my FIRST (! don't look too closely LOL!) attempt at beading --and I am loving it!!

I got this idea from my latest book purchase: "Beading For the Soul" by Deborah Cannarella.  The triangle's points are images that are meaningful to the person. The apex is a Holy Card  (laminated) from a close friend's death, the lower right are hands that symbolize all that both of us do with them (music, golf, housewifery things, soothing children etc.), and the lower left is an old button from my mother's mother's (my Grand'mere's) dress....I thought that would be a nice touch.

She resting on a modern mugrug I made with my "almost-blooming: Christmas Cactus-- with my little angel watching over her.  A very sentimental present, I know.

That is how I am feeling after my last visit in the wake of "Sandy"--we talked over old times together and cried a little at how fast time flies by us--without our even realizing it.  At 93, I don't know how many Holiday Seasons I will have with her...but this helps me to remember the "good times".  As ever, Julierose, La Blageuse

Big Stitch--Sore Hands--Any Hints???

Short post today...am attempting to "Big Stitch" my Wonky C's quilt by hand using DMC Perle 5 cotton in a lovely pale aqua color: 

Using straight lines, except when I meet those dancin' crows I  am outlining them...

The only problem I find is:   it is really hard to pull this thread through all the layers --especially the knots--any suggestions out there???  I had a nice comment from  Mary .  I love to hear from anyone out there in our quilting world.  Thank you....

On a non-quilting note:  my Mom, has finished her Rehab after hip surgery in only 2 weeks!!  At 92--Phew--she is a really determined trooper.  Also, had houseguests, all musicians that both my husband and I knew and he worked with when we were dating--in the "Ice Age"--hahha....great fun, super talk...so now back to my projects....

Bonjour, Julierose, La Blageuse

A Tisket, A Tasket....I've Got These Weird-Sized Baskets....

Well, as you can see, my "liberated baskets"  really flew into many shapes and sizes...

I do like the way they turned out and I like this method of free cutting and piecing (Gwen Marston style)  B U T ..now I have to puzzle out how to fit them together.  Last night I measured them all

FUN:  11 1/2 x 5 1/8 , 6 1/4 x 5 1/8  etc etc... and labeled them in 3 rows of five each....

I only have a limited amount of the toile left--soooo, I guess it will be "cutting and pasting" fabric style--if only I could learn to do that on my blog I could get some buttons onto my blog, too--

I think the F O G  here on the CT shore has invaded my brain...
I HAVE actually finished a lot of projects in past years and
Here are a few shots of a wallhanging I made in honor of my cat "Clara Schumann--aka Schumee" who passed into kitty heaven a few hears ago.

 

Thank you for coming to ma maison-- P.S.  Mom is bearing up pretty well, I figure if she is irritated, she must be feeling a bit better anyway....

Julierose, La Blageuse

Back to What Passes For Normal

My Mom came through her hip replacement operation really well and is back at the Nursing Home. (Three day turnaround!)  At 92 that is really amazing....don't you think???  I am thankful she is doing so well.

I did purchase "The New Applique Sampler: Learn To Applique the Piece O'Cake Way" by Becky Goldsmith and Linda Jenkins--am spending my waiting time reading through it.  After which, although right now, I don't really need aNOther project, I am DEFinitely going to try to set up a block to work on.....

More about my learning adventures in the next blog--w/pix....

 Julierose, La Blageuse

File Under: You Never Know....

Today was going to be a quiet quilting day:  instead I received a call at 9 am from my 92 yr-old mother's nursing home that she had fallen and broken her hip.  I won't go into all the details, but we waited at a clinic for 5 hours with her :
UNTIL:
the fire alarm went off and they evacuated the whole place out onto the helipad to await ambulances.  It was a scene from "Mash" for sure....
Needless to say, I may not be posting for a few days until I get my breath back  (and have a little glass of wine tonight)  and see how Mom does.... do plan on bringing my hand quilting for the time I will be waiting and visiting....
Amities,
Julierose, La Blageuse