Author: jmn

Testing The Lounge Chair

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I have an amusing story to share. Last week I happened to visit the new Structube furniture store that opened not far from where I live. I bought some furniture from the Dartmouth Crossing shop when I moved into the apartment and I’ve been happy with it.

I wasn’t looking for anything, just schmoozing, really, when I spotted this lounge chair. I hate the lazy boy chair in my bedroom – my legs aren’t comfortable, the seat is just a wee bit too high, my neck wakes me if I choose to snooze, my head is in the wrong position to see out of the distance portion of my multifocal glasses when looking over my knitting to watch TV….

So I sat in the lounger, and thought “This might work!” But no point in buying without REALLY testing it out. I need a comfortable chair for knitting, reading, watching TV, and snoozing. I have to be comfortable doing all four before it’s worth thinking about buying.

Lounge Chair For My Bedroom

I went back two days ago ready to give this chair a serious workout – I brought my knitting, my book was on my phone, there was a TV on a wall at an appropriate height near the chair, and I had a pillow for under my neck. I settled in for a couple of hours of try-out. The store manager thought it was a good idea when I explained what I was doing, “We’re open until 9” she told me; so no rush to cut this testing session short.

I knit for an hour finishing the heel turn on a sock and beginning the gusset, glancing from time to time at the TV nearby – that worked fine. My arms were comfortable, my head position good. I tried reading – that was comfortable, too, with my pillow in the small of my back. Snoozing I found was best done without any support behind my head and neck; the shape of the lounger was just right.

As I was knitting away, eyes on the TV, didn’t a friend of mine come by with a huge grin on her face. She said she’d come into the store and thought – what a good idea to have a mannequin to display the furniture – when she looked more closely and saw me knitting. We had a good laugh about what I was doing. But no point, I told her, in investing in the lounger without knowing it was better than the lazy boy I owned.

After another twenty minutes I packed up and headed to chat with the store manager about buying the chair. I’m expecting it to arrive in town in about a week. Looking forward to knitting and reading and watching TV and snoozing in comfort, finally!

Couldn’t Resist These Faces

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A friend just sent me this photo. She also finds faces (pareidolia) everywhere as I do! I loved this one!

Suspicious Pants

This one is pretty good, too. I bet if I look at the banana sitting on my kitchen counter I will find an unhappy face (it’s been sitting out too long – gotta eat it today or else).

Unhappy Face

Find out if you’re prone to seeing faces.

“Women seem to be more prone to seeing faces where there are none. This may be linked to the fact that they have a better ability to recognise emotions through deciphering facial expressions.”

“Whoever you are, whatever you’re doing, you can experience pareidolia. Don’t let it shock you, it’s just your ancient survival instincts kicking in.”

Once faces are drawn to your attention you may find yourself starting to see them, too. So keep your eyes open.

Another Quilt To A New Home

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I gave away another quilt this morning. It’s going to a new home and I’m happy for it. I know it will be used well and appreciated.

Quilt Top – Convergence Quilt

I need to draw up a list of friends who would appreciate receiving a quilt and give more away. I have three which I’ve put out to use myself and some of the rest in that closet need to move on.

I’ve given away about half of the quilts I’ve produced since I began quilting 15 years ago. If I have them hanging around too long I grow attached to them and it becomes harder to send them on their way. I like keeping particular ones on hand as examples for classes but I have photos of every quilt I have made (front and back) and, you know what, that will have to be enough.

 

Moved On

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My sister and niece were here from Toronto last weekend to visit the boys attending summer camp not far from the city. I was able to spend time with each of them at the apartment and to my delight two quilts have found a new home.

My niece fell in love with this “Double Vision” quilt which I completed in 2017. She has new light furniture in her family room and this quilt will be a bright addition to the room.

Finished Quilt Top

My sister came over a few days later – I showed her the quilt I wanted her to take back to Toronto for my niece. She loved the red. I mentioned there were more red quilts in my closet. In the end she chose the Shadow Quilt I made in 2016 to complement her new grey furniture. I love how the red blocks seem to float above the background – that, of course, is the effect of having a drop shadow on an image, it creates the illusion of depth.

That gives me room to make two new quilts. I have to go through what I have in the collection and see if I can find homes for a few more of them.

Wandering Geese Quilt

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Just finished pinning this quilt together. The quilt started with a “Jolly Bar” of “Fragile” fabrics by Zen Chic (Moda). Turns out this 5″ x 10″ size is practically useless. In order to construct flying geese I had to trim down the size, and trim away triangles from the corners – a wasteful way of doing this quilt block. However, I saved the triangles and created half-square triangles from the remains and used about half of them on the back.

Quilt Top

The original collection of fabrics had hints of turquoise in several of the colour ways but no predominantly turquoise fabrics. I decided to add several to brighten the overall appearance of the finished quilt. I had enough turquoise fabrics in my stash (dark and light) that I didn’t have to go looking for more. I also added in some light fabric since I didn’t have enough lights from the jolly bar to complete the flying geese blocks. I’m pleased with the modern layout and the overall feel of the top.

The quilt is pinned ready for quilting. I’ve set up an 8″x8″ embroidery design which will fill each block and give me an overall quilting that should work reasonably well with the flying geese. Just trying to decide what colour thread to use for the machine quilting.

Quilt Back

I plan on binding the quilt with the dark grey I’ve used on the back, with a small amount of contrast inserted in one side.

On Show in Parrsboro 2018

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Last Saturday I travelled to Parrsboro for my 4th Annual exhibition of “Quilts As Art” show at the Art Labs Gallery.

Sign on the Sidewalk

It took about an hour and a half to hang the 8 quilts and 11 smaller wall art pieces. That’s my complete production for 2017/2018 – new since last year’s showing.

Quilts Hung

Hard to believe I manage to get so much sewing/quilting/machine embroidery done. That’s not everything I did make – there were a variety of garments: pants, jackets, tops that I constructed in that same time period – from end of August to mid-July of this year.

Two Wall Art Pieces On Display

There was an “Opening” later in the afternoon – a small attendance because the weather was so hot I’m guessing people in Parrsboro spent the day at the beach. Those who did come to see and talk about the textile art with me were interested and  appreciative of my work. Always fun to see how people react to it. The show lasts for two more weeks until August 17. Then I’ll head back on the 18th to bring it all home. I think I’m going to hang Federer somewhere in my place, the rest will be put away in my “quilt” closet (which is getting full).

I’ve already got work for next year under way. I pinned a new quilt this morning – ready to start quilting it. When that’s done I’ve got fabric for some summer pants (almost too late to bother making them this season). I’ll get those cut out and maybe one or two pairs stitched up.

Reconstruction #3

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This is the last of the “legs only” reconstructions. The heels and underfeet were so worn they were unsalvageable. I saved the legs and knit new feet.

Reconstruction #3

Who will notice? The feet are inside shoes/sneakers anyway. And the socks are, for all intents and purposes, new. My friend will be happy to get them back in her sock drawer.

That leaves two pairs needing new heels – those are put aside for now. I’m knitting new socks with new yarn at the moment.

An Adaptation of “Twisted Geese”

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Several months ago I bought a “Jolly Bar” of Moda Fabrics (Zen Chic – “Fragile”) – that’s fabric cut into 5″ x 10″ rectangles containing one (sometimes two) strips of the collection’s fabrics. I realized the half-squares were too large for a lap quilt, and the rectangular shape required a wasteful method of creating flying geese. Nevertheless, I decided to go ahead but I needed more fabric. I added some turquoise (which is hinted at in the printed fabric collection but not used as a background colour in any). There were also nowhere near enough light coloured rectangles to construct the flying geese so I went through my fabrics to find white, pale grey, & pale turquoise cuts.

Because I wanted to end up with a lap quilt size, I scaled down the darker rectangles – 4.5″ x 8.5″ (for the “geese” portion), trimmed the remaining light ones to 9″ then cut them in half for  4.5″ squares to construct the flying geese – 48 rectangles / 96 squares.

My Adaptation of Zen Chic’s “Twisted Geese”

The quilt top in the Zen Chic version of “Twisted Geese” also uses solid blocks – once I’d finished assembling the flying geese (forty-eight in all) I added eighteen 8.5″ x 8.5″ squares from some fabrics in my stash (a few of which were yardage from the Zen Chic “Fragile” collection I bought a couple of months ago) to complete the arrangement.

So here is my tentative layout – definitely a non-traditional distribution for a flying geese array.

I plan to use the 4″ equilateral triangle off-cuts to create half-square triangles for the back – I have 96 already cut and laying in pairs – it’s just a matter of sewing them together along the bottom edge (being careful not to stretch the fabric).

Tomorrow I will sew the forty-eight blocks together. I am planning on a 1″ narrow border to extend the quilt top just enough so the binding won’t disrupt the side points of the geese.

Resurrecting Socks

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I’m back at regenerating socks from the pile in my “Fix” sock basket. I started with somewhere like eight pairs of socks to restore – some needed just heels, others needed full feet. I repaired (replaced heels on) three pairs a number of months ago but there were still five pairs in the basket. I started working on those where I was able to salvage legs only a couple of weeks ago. It’s still worth repairing these socks – the legs are fine and that saves me about a week’s work. The challenge is to come up with variegated yarn that kind of fits in with the original pattern. So far, I’ve done rather well.

Here’s the first pair I completed ten days ago. They were delivered back to the owner who thought they looked familiar but didn’t remember giving them to me for repairs.

Resurrected Socks 1

This is the second pair I finished last evening. It took six days to reknit the feet and the yarn I used works quite well.

Resurrected Socks 2

I’ve started on the third pair of legs – that will leave me two pairs that need just heels – they won’t take a lot of time. I’m probably not going to work on those immediately, however. I want to continue building up the stash of new socks – Christmas is coming and I’ll want to give some socks as gifts.

Crazy Quilt – Finished

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When in Parrsboro last August (2017) I stopped off to visit my friend Ruth. She’d been working on this crazy quilt (heavily embroidered, with beads and buttons). She had a large surface completed, but there were still corners and spaces at the sides that needed additional fabric as well as embroidery. She’d lost interest and the quilt was in a bag at the back of a closet in an unused room. I persuaded her to get it out. I offered to take it home, complete the top, and back the quilt for her. But I had a lot of other quilting, sewing, knitting I wanted to get done and didn’t get around to it for months.

During the winter I took it out of my closet. I assessed what needed to be done, trimmed the top to a reasonable queen size and put the quilt back in the bag – not hidden in a closet now, but in plain sight along with another project I had agreed to do for a friend. I walked past it every day but didn’t get to it until I’d finished all the work I wanted to get done for Parrsboro this year, and finished hemming the multiple skirts on a prom dress which had been hanging around for the past six months (the prom was a year ago, the dress was now just a wardrobe addition so no urgency about completing it).

Five days ago I pulled out the crazy quilt and said to myself “This is it”. My goal was to get it completed in time to take it to Parrsboro when I go on July 28 to hang the show.

Ruth’s Crazy Quilt – Finished!

I added fabric to the bare spots, quilted the edges on my embroidery machine, set up backing fabric (which I’d bought last week), took the whole thing to the Friday knitting group to help me pin back to front. I laid out the backing fabric on the large table surface in our common room (I’d pressed the backing to remove folds and creases then trimmed it to the approximate size of the top), placed the crazy quilt top face down on the backing. Collectively we pulled the backing taut, smoothed out the quilt top, and pinned the edges.

Yesterday, I stitched around the outside (leaving an opening to turn the quilt right-side out), then pinned top to back and began to tie the two together using a variegated sock yarn. A big tedious job.

I’ve just finished all the tying – the knots are on the back (the ties are barely noticeable on the quilt top which was my intention). I’ve even added a label.

It’s done! I’ve put Ruth’s quilt with my quilts and wall art headed to Parrsboro. I’m not going to call ahead to let Ruth know her crazy quilt is coming home. If she’s not at home when I get there, I know the front door will be open and I will lay it on her sofa. She’ll know where it came from. It will be a nice surprise for her and I’m glad finally to get it out of my house.

That’s it for projects I’ve taken on for other people. Now back to quilting for myself.