On With The Jumper Saga...

I got myself over to Lois's house and had her try on the jumper. The bodice at least at the bust isn't too big... it's just the shoulders are a bit too long, so I need to take them up a little and then in the back.... I need to take it in just a smig at the top of the zipper area. But since I have to take out the zipper to do all this anyway, I'm going to replace it with a longer zipper to make it easier for her to get into. My friend Lois is going to be 91 this year... and what ever I can do to make life a tad bit easier for her, I'm going to try to do it! The front has a little bit of a sagginess in it... not a lot so I may try to do a little gather stitch.... to see if this will do what it needs to take care of the problem. It's not much, but since the neck is rounded it draws attention to it not being nice and crisp! If you know what I mean.... basically it also needs to be taken in a little bit... only like 1/2 inch at the very top down to like a 1/2 inch in length. Hard to explain... guess I should have taken pictures. But then, I'm not too sure she would have wanted me to post pic's of her on my blog.
Ooops.... I need to let the dog into the house!
Hope your Saturday night is enjoyable... and your Sunday is very nice too!

Sooo I Made A Little Mistake Or Two

Yeahhh.... so much for just trying to use two patterns to pull off the jumper for my friend! I must say... I don't usually have these types of problems... but, you know things go wrong sometimes! So Lois called and we played phone tag all day yesterday and this a.m. and finally she got a hold of me. Apparently the jumper is too big in the bust! Yep... and she will be busy for a few days so I can't get at it until next week some time! I feel bad... I wanted to have it all done and out of the way! But, then this is what happens when we don't have a fitting! I'm sure we can work it out... I will just have to take in the side seams and possibly take out the zipper and re-do the back. She said that the shoulder straps fall down! So this tells me that the shoulder measurements are too wide. Say la veee! I'll let you know how it goes! Oh.... and it has snowed all day yesterday and most of today! Spring Shming!!! Spring is definitely not here!

Is It Spring Yet?

Although the calendar says it's Spring, you surely can't tell from looking out the window!

It was as they say.... It was a dark and cloudy day...... and then all of a sudden, BOOM, BOOM...... and the Hail came down and the winds came up and BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.... the thunder raged and the Hail came down again..... and then it tapered down to a hard pounding rain and then a sprinkle... til now... a little lightening and next to nothing moisture wise....

If you look hard enough... these were taken while it was coming down and you can see the hail before it lands! Hard to believe it was a beautiful Spring day yesterday and "we", Missy and her kids and I all went to SLC for the day!

No pictures... what was I thinking! The flowers in Temple Square were wonderful and so bright and pretty. But, with 3 kids 5 1/2 and under... yes... we had enough to do... Missy took pic's... maybe I will have to try to get some from her!

Alright... onto another project that I did for my DIL's sister! DDIL's sister just had a baby girl 3 months after our dear little Kate was born! Sooo,

If you take this,

+Plus this;

add some of this....

=And you get this! Have you made these before? They are called

"Ragg Quilts".... they are all made of flannel (the better to ragg with.....) and the seams are sewn up facing the outside and not enclosed! You can make it with either 2 or 3 layers of flannel and no batting. I almost always have some sort of flannel around! This is a great way to use up odds and ends. And super simple too!

The hardest and most time consuming part of the entire quilt... is that after you have sewn it all together.... you snip the seam allowances... and I mean alllll of the seam allowances! Your hand can get a bit tired but it works! ( You will snip almost to the seam stitching.... get the quilt wet and then dry it to fluff it up! ) You do need to make sure that when you make these, #1 if you have flannel that you are afraid will bleed (the dye may run) set the dye with either a soaking of vinegar or salt with water for a while before you start to cut out the blocks. This way it won't run all over your other fabrics. Of course if you do this step; then you must do a quick wash before you dry it.... (don't want your quilt smelling of vinegar!)

#2 When you wet and then dry your finished quilt for the first couple of times.... there will be a mass of lint; (it's important to clean out your lint trap several times before it's finished drying; believe me..... you will notice a difference! And the quilt will dry faster too!) Also... you may want to wash/dry it by it's self the first times. If after you are using the quilt it still seems to drop a lot of threads.... toss it into the dryer a few times with either an old towel and this will help get rid of the excess threads. If you look at this picture closely you may notice that it seems some of the white printed blocks are show thru as different colors. This is because I made this as a 3 layer quilt, I used odd blocks on the inside layers. Oh, and just like any other quilt.... the back can be any color or pattern that you want. I forgot to take a pic of the back side. I have seem Ragg Quilts done in all sorts of patterns.... Log Cabin, Around the World.... etc... and any size and shape! They are really soft and cozy. Make one from your scraps today!

Oh, I also forgot to take a picture of a jumper that I made for a friend of mine.... Lois. She is a sweetie... wanted me to make her a new dress for Church. I finished it the other day and delivered it. She was quite pleased. All in a few days work!

Ooops.... it's Raining again.... so much for letting the ground dry out a bit so we can till the garden! Can't say I mind too much though... it sure does "Green" things up around here!

On to other sewing projects.... my sewing room is calling me!!!

After you make these Ragg Quilts.... make sure and take time to clean out the underside of your sewing machine; these create lots of lint!