MY READING LIST, et al

 

Here's my stack of books to be read...

Being an avid reader, I like to have

a nice stack ahead...

{click to enlarge if you wish}

And...

right now I am reading:

I think that this "44 Scotland Street" series

is so much fun...I will be ordering

the next two when my stack gets

too low...😊😂

*****************************

Here is the finished 5th page 

of my 60th Anniversary Fabric Journal:

[I am going to have find a good 

title for this:  perhaps--- 

"Through The Years?"]

The crocheted lacey bit across the bottom

is a piece left over from 

my Grand-mere's

work that I coffee dyed...

I am finally happy with 

how this

came out..

representing our home 

in the Berkshires;)))

***********************

A N D...

This is what's going into the oven

this morning:

All the leftover bread crusts and stale

hot dog/hamburg rolls all chopped up,

[I hate food waste of any kind!!]

sprinkled with olive oil and spices.

These will go into a 250 degree 

oven for one hour to crisp up;

 then cool completely

before I store them in jars to be

used on our salads...

Y  U  M  !!!!!

*************************

We do have a little bit of color

from our one little maple tree

in the back off our deck:

I really just love that reddish-pinky color and would love to find

fabric in those variegated colors..... 

****************************

This morning after my 25 minute treadmill

walk, I sat down and finished Kantha 

stitching the 9 patches on my

"Dark Days" piece....

Now for the yo-yo's and little florets...

It is coming along....

We are enjoying a beautiful Autumn day here

with a 60 degree temp and sunny skies...

💛I do love Fall...💛

😎😍

Hugs, Julierose,

La Blageuse

(hand-stitching-&-reading-away-euse)

"DARK DAYS" FINAL SIDE, et al

Above right is that side's piece first plan...

nine patches and suffolk puffs..

Now that side has become...

↧↧↧↧

I added little florets all along the

way to fill in those larger spaces and

I have stitched them all down...

And begun my Kantha stitching for quilting on this piece...

I am using light lavender and  pale beige threads

to go all along the whole piece...so that they

blend quietly into that background piece...

Here I am set up on my dining table--

which these days has become another

work station for me --using my old sweater

blocking board to protect the table...

.

I love how the Kantha stitches puff up

those vintage yo-yos a bit 

for some more 

texture on this piece...

This stitching will take a while at the

slow rate I am working--

😪

Well...after all, it is

SLOW STITCHING.

isn't it  😇😉.

And...FYI

Below is a picture of K3N's 

most recent prompt for which

I have substituted my 

suffolk puffs and little florets...

I love this series of prompts as Kathrine 

(at K3N Cloth Tales on Youtube)

always has wonderful explanations 

of how and also why she chooses them.

There is always so much information

to take in about stitchery in general...

very inspiring...

I had an enforced break from following 

 these prompts in her SAL

when I contracted Lyme and

 Anaplasma diseases and 

went into hospital..

So, I am picking up this project

 now that

the leftover symptoms have

mostly disappeared--

but every once in a while .....

like yesterday as an example......

😕😷

they return and I am laid low once again...

Thankfully that recurrence 

 has gone down in 

both frequency and length...

*************************

It is one beautiful, warmish day here

at the House on the Hill.

I hope you are enjoying your

Sunday day of rest...

Hugs, Julierose

La Blageuse

(stitching-away-euse)

 

SUNDAY SEWING, et al

 

It is  a "dark and stormy day" here.....

So....

"Dark Days" project came out of its closet of shame

where it has been hanging with all the other

UFO's for quite a while.....

And

I decided it definitely needed

 another panel on

the right hand side.

And, as I so often do, decided

to "go my own way" with it...

I have not been enamored 

of many of the K3N prompts for

my own piece idea...so....

I added this 41" by 8" strip

on the right hand side:

The suffolk puffs ( yo-yos) are some

vintage ones I got on Etsy

 quite a while back..

they are purples and blues...

For the next addition I added

four little 9-patches that I made

up from fabrics I had already used 

in the piece.

So far, everything is just pinned in place with the long

beige strip basted onto the backing...

(see the white peeking out? that is

the backing which will not 

show when I sew this on...).

I plan to extend those central 

radiating lines over and around the

new elements to pull this new part

more into the whole piece...

And most likely some more 

embroidery will be added...

Not sure yet, but I won't

worry about that until I

get to that point...

So today's a dark day out there--

and

we are watching the winds ramp up

and the rains come down...

Hoping the winds do not 

get too high as we are surrounded

with big, old oaks and ashes and

cedars on three sides....

👿👹👺👽

***************************

My work in progress on our 

60th Anniversary fabric Journal project

now has the 5th page "base"

ready for embellishing:

This page represents our first year

of marriage when we lived in the 

Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts

where Tom got his first teaching job...

Grey Lock Mountain--is pictured here in

my old favorite batik from long ago.

We used to drive up to the top on what

was then just a dirt road to see the

three state view on sunny days...

At that time we lived in 

an apartment 

{pictured on the bottom right}.

My daughter, Candice, was

born there and I can recall, most

of all, taking her for long walks 

in the harsh Winter days and having 

to kick the snow out of in front of our 

Pram's wheels on our way to visit 

my mother-in-law's home which was

 about one mile from us...

I couldn't get over the fact that it

snowed EVERY night.

We had been fortunate enough to have been 

given this old English style, heavy sprung

Pram by the couple who were leaving the

apartment to live in their first house...

money was very tight in those days

and we felt so lucky.;)))

I will be starting to add the embellishments

this week a little at a time...

The moon is from part of the fabrics that

 Wanda so generously sent me...

I can foresee using a lot more in

these pages...(it will be so nice

to think of her when I look through

these pages....

thank you Wanda...

💜💙

Hugs to you all, stay safe if you are in

this storm's path...

Julierose, La Blageuse...

(hand-sewing-euse)

 

JACK IS BACK, et al

 

My one little Halloween quilt is

hanging out on my 

Grand-mere's old dresser

this year...

Lizzy and I 

both made these last year...

What fun:))))

I L💛VE  

my Jack!!

[Click on Lizzy and go see her

Jack--so cute, too!!]

👻👻👻

I think this year I'd like to make some 

kind of Spooky House--

I am looking around blogger

and Youtube to see what

catches my fancy--or

perhaps I'll just 

make my own...????

****************************

"Sunrise Sunset: is coming along

I did a few more 1/2 sq triangles this morning with my coffee....

This is really a fun hand quilting project...

A N D ......

I hope to get on with my Easter piece today as my

shoulder/neck connection seems a lot better...

This block is quilted and I will work on

finishing up this one below--

I have to go so slowly....

Evidently keeping my lines straight

is a real challenge for me...

A N D .....

I will TRY to keep my shoulders from

"kissing" my ears...👹👽👿!!!

***********************

FYI: for those of you interested

in my Winter Rye planting....

↴↴↴↴↴

As you can see, it is starting to come

up and seems to be flourishing...

😀😁😂😃😄

It will be turned over into the soil

next Spring to improve it;

and my understanding is 

that the rye will give 

the soil extra nitrogen.

My little parsley plant is still going strong

despite our temps falling to 42 degrees

this morning...

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Here is my latest and final

iteration of my "Ocean" page

(page 5) 

for my Anniversary Journal

book....

The landscape picture is almost exactly what our Town beach looks like:

"McCook Point Park"...

what a great find this was...;)))

Each Summer, our two children would go for swimming

lessons when they were young and in later years I and my

two close neighbor friends and their children would

go to the beach almost every day...

We even loved cloudy and/or foggy weathers...

for then we had the 

beach all to ourselves...

sitting and listening to the fog horns off shore

and hearing the waves...

SO RELAXING....

Ah, what fun times  we had

and what wonderful memories...

@@@@@@@@@@@@

I hope you are enjoying these wonderfully

cool, sunny days

 before Winter sets in...

Hugs to all,

Julierose,

La Blageuse

(back-to-sewing-euse)

SATURDAY SEWING, et al

Helga is set up with her walking foot...

(finally!! I think I have

mentioned before 

how I don't like how 

you have to attach this...) 

And so I took out my last year's

Easter quiltlet and

began to machine quilt....

I did all the sashings first 

That took about 1  and 1/2 hours of slow 

stitching... (with breaks).

I used my machine's 

"Fix" button to begin and end each row--

so no back stitching needed;)))

I cannot believe it took me so many years

to even find this feature!! 

[And, yes, I did read and re-read 

my booklet....

But evidently missed this one!!]

Here is the back with the wonderful

Easter Eggs fabric and two leftover 

pieces of  KF fabrics 

that just seemed to

"go with" them...;)))

I hope tomorrow to quilt the squares 

diagonally...

I referred to my favorite machine

quilting book 

for those of us who

do not do free-motion quilting: I

could never get the hang of free motioning.

I can only do short stints as my shoulders

and shoulder blades complain mightily even

though I do  try to sit as close as I can--

Perhaps I tense up????

(that is the extent of my sewing for today....)

******************

On Hiwmhi (Home is where my heart is)

the first 4 pages are all basted and

mostly done--i may add a few more little

bits and bob though--ya think???;)))

😁😀😂😃😄

So now, I am thinking about an Ocean page

as we have always lived close to the Sea...

Thinking of some kind of little landscape

I am reviewing Magpie's Mumblings"

beautiful landscape art as well as 

searching throughout 

Youtube for inspiration..

I made one little landscape piece

"yonks" ago for a close friend who had

sent my a postcard from South Africa

to commemorate her trip...

this will be  quite the challenge...

**********************

Here for those of you who asked--

are the first little pieces of Winter Rye

poking up in my little planter box....

Can you spot them?????

↴↶↷↴

We've been watering each day to keep them moistened as 

S I G H --still no rain in sight here...

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend

Hugs, Julierose

La blageuse

(working-on-UFO's-euse)

 

"HOME IS WHERE MY HEART IS" UPDATE

 

I've had a change of 💖about how

to proceed with my four pieces

celebrating our 60 years together....

I am going to make, instead of a wall hanging

a  Fabric Book...

I love working in that medium and

I feel these would be better

displayed in that type of

format.

And I want to add 4 more pages

displaying various themes that have

run through our lives together.

Here is the cover I've made to house

these pieces:

This is the front cover using my usual

scrappy crumb pieces and

featuring a little rosy birdie

[can you find her?]

and

the blue silk shantung fabric border is

made from the leftovers from a dress

my Mom made me for a dance

when I was in high School...

(I thought that bit of nostalgia 

would be perfect for this booklet.)

The back is the same:

Just using different scraps of fabrics...

And here is the interior:

A lovely leftover from my "Dark Days" project.

I have quilted the whole thing after sewing it

together envelope style...

My 8.5 x 10" pieces will fit just right...after

I trim them up...

Now.....

I am working on finishing up the slow

stitching and additions to this page 

↴↴↴↴

I added this little doggie to represent all the

dogs we've owned through the years...

And...

I've begun Kantha stitching on this section...

and generally invisibly basting everything

down...

A lot of the stitches 

are meant 

to show---

as on the doggie above...

I felt she just would melt into

the background without them...

the pieces being so busy and all...

**************************

As Helga is set up now for quilting,

I may be pulling out older UFO's ready to

be quilted and work on them while

my quilting foot is on. 

[I think I've mentioned how difficult

it is to change this before so

will want to use it while in place.]

I've been resting my hands from quilting 

"Sunrise, Sunset" but hopefully this

weekend I will be able to resume 

that work...

Hugs, from windy SE CT,

Julierose,

La Blageuse

(busy-creating-euse)