SNOWY BINDING 1st FINISH FOR 2015

AND HOW SAD LOOKING IS THIS????

Soooooo....I did this :

SLEIGH BELLS RING!! Bound in snowy March........................

I even did the little label  .............

Old World Santas galore.............(they look like they're saying.."and about time!! lol)

Too cold and windy and snow up to my "ying-yang"  yikes!! To take a full pix outside....
But you get the idea....all 2.5" squares. And quilted on Helga with red thread.....

And next time (oh, there will be another)--love, love love, postage squares--I will put a border  all around ---because catching all those seam endings in the binding was a NIGHTMARE!!  

Even my piano is impressed hahaha.........................

Here you can see the off white, low volume double row border that goes all around.....and 
my lovely spider plant--that likes my living room window a lot....

And so mesdames,  I have my first finish of 2015  YAY!!!!

hugs to all, from
Julierose, La Blageuse fini-euse!! 

ALMOST A FLIMSEY

Here's the bottom half AND.....

the TOP half...
ONE MORE ROW TO PIN AND SEW!!!!
My back from leaning over and pinning each and every row of blocks together 
exactly (ahhh..does the word fudging ring a bell??? lol) and then throwing the rows over my left shoulder (I also got a pin caught in my earring doing this and nearly pulled my ear lobe off!!  ACK...oh the trials and tribulations!!)
and trying to match the edge to the new little sewing sticky ridge that I added  (what I think is...;--)) a scant 1/4" from my needle..... and with the regular foot in place--guiding it through Helga.  She is a recalcitrant gal...BUT I think it went pretty well--I am not going to use that wobbly plastic foot anymore! (Did I tell you that I cancelled my 1/4" foot order after talking to the "Sewingpartsonline" company and their telling me they have NO IDEA when or IF they will get one???Enough of this AGITA!) I will make what I have WORK--
and I promise no more 1/4" whining!!  Honest--or I hope so!! 

hugs to all of you in this busy Holiday Season--I hope you are finding the time to get some (relaxing???? Huh, relax, who moi???) sewing in...Julierose, La Blaguese (almost done-euse)

IT'S A RAINY AFTERNOON

AND HERE IS LAST NIGHT'S SKY ON FIRE.....

JUST AS OUR SUN SET...

Here is Sleigh Bells Ring so far......coming along and I have three more of the red and green blocks set up here

this one is partially sewn into strips and these two are just set up for later on

You can see my little box of 2.5 " squares on the side there....

And I also took the time to work on my lozenges quilt that I have named : "Jouzai"

which translated means lozenges in Japanese...

I have this pile done

And working on these:

Helga is cooperating very well on these--the little 1/4" foot lifts up just enough to squeeze the next block underneath and is clear so I can sew to the right of the drawn line just a tad--(Thanks Bonnie Hunter for that tip!) .

And so,  my Thanksgiving Eve Day has been filled with packing to go to my daughter's tomorrow for our family get together, some reading, the ubiquitous laundry (boo hiss!!), some crossword puzzling and generally taking it easy.  

I am sending out my wishes to you and yours for a wonderful Thanksgiving Day 

Hugs, Julierose, 

La Blageuse

GEORGIE'S OFF THE WALL

And here he is all layered up and ready for pin basting--["And about time, too!" grumble grumble--] He was stretching this way and that and I had to smooth him out quite a few times--why doesn't that surprise me?  My back is done for the day after crawling around on the floor to lay this out.  Right now it is up on my dining table on my blocking mat (originally used to block my knitted sweaters) where I hope to begin pin basting tomorrow.  

And now, Pride of Place on my design wall is my Sleigh Bells Ring WIP.

It's coming along--I finished another block this morning after dealing with "the grumbler" [and you KNOW who that is!! lol]. 

 As I look at this, I am thinking that I will be making it a whole lot bigger than I first thought--I am really enjoying putting these together.

 (Dawn, you should be spotting some of your fabric in these blocks--they fit right in--merci beaucoup mon amie!)

 One thing I learned is that my feed dogs on Helga are Waaaay too far apart when the plastic 1/4" footsie is on; really, only one feed dog is pulling the material through and therefore: pulling to the left.  Aaaargh. 

 I have upped the presser foot pressure a bit to try to compensate for this, but it is still a battle of "feed dog vs. Julierose"!!  But am doing the best I can with what I have (meanwhile the metal 1/4" foot is somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean being rowed over by Viking longboat, I think--I ordered it Oct 6th!!  I hope they don't drop it overboard!  Seriously--how could it take this LONG??).

Anyone have any suggestions how to overcome this problem or dealt with it??

                                         H E L P!!

I may have to resurrect my old Pfaff Varimatic and give it another chance.  I had it overhauled at my LQS and it started jamming [something about the timing he said!]about one week after--and I was minus $85!!).
Maybe resting under my cutting table made Heidi (that's the Pfaff) re-think jamming on me??? Like DH says put it away for a while and then take it out again and see....a good weekend project for me. 

I also sewed up some more squares to make triple 9-patches this morning...
will try to get some cutting in tomorrow--but will have to do them a little at a time.... 
We have been invited to lunch with some musician friends of ours tomorrow, so hopefully DH will be feeling well enough to go.  

Hugs to you all --and come and see my latest work on Monet's City at Hexagon Alley .  
Julierose, La Blageuse 

SATURDAY MEMORIES & Updates on projects

Georgie came for a visit this morning; Next decision: what color border--or no border....(at least he's stopped that annoying muttering!).

Here are the 1st two blocks of Sleigh Bells Ring postage stamp up on my design wall:

The little white repeating blocks are snow drifts.....

AND

Here are the 1st two blocks of my Greylock Mts. piece.  When we were first married we lived in the Berkshires in Massachusetts at the foot of Greylock Mountain--- whose colors changed by the hour. 

 I thought that BH's Scrappy Mts. Majesty pattern would be a good vehicle for a memory quilt of when we lived in the mountains and when I had my first baby, a girl whom we named Candice.

 Something about this block just rang a recall bell in my head--and all those days came flooding back--

And so I have to make this one, too......  

I have never worked with long diagonals before and I find that they require a very delicate hand and slow sewing. .

I had two layer cakes in my stash-- one all grey dotted and spotted fabrics and the other flowers--(we often had huge thunderstorms and blackened skies--what wonderful storms--I used to find myself--- humming "Don't know why, there's no sun up in the sky, Stormy Weather..." as I was pushing Candice in her pram up North Street for her afternoon nap. She was safe and toasty deep in her big pram watching her little mobiles bounce along as I donned my rain slicker and floppy rain hat.  What wonderful days those were.  Ah, youth.....Happy Days...) 

I will leave you as we are going up to Candice's this evening to attend my Grandson Steven's (her first born) Jazz Band Concert in which he has TWO solos.  And so more memories are made....

Hugs to all--enjoy your weekends--happy sewing  Julierose, La blageuse