Upcycled Lawn Chair

I was inspired by a fiber friend's lawn chairs, redone in brightly colored macrame' cord. That looks fun, maybe I could try something new...

Example from the Internet

I spent time going to all the second-hand and thrift stores in three towns, looking for aluminum lawn chairs. Nothing. Then I went to a  handful of rummage sales and flea markets. I think the style is passe', all I found were collapsible canvas camp chairs.

Not to be deterred, I posted a request for used aluminum lawn chairs on Freecycle.org. After months without a reply, a woman offered me hers. Well they looked like they were one stop away from the dump, but that didn't put me off. This is an upcycling project after all.

I hosed them down, removed the old webbing and worked away at cleaning the aluminum frame.

It was going along fine until I discovered the rivet that held the leg to the body was snapped. Project stalled.

I continued to spend time on Google searching macrame' lawn chair DIYs and videos. It just looks so cool. But if I can't find a frame to start with, it's all moot. I did discover you can buy new aluminum chair frames, but they're nearly 30.00. That sort of defeats the purpose for me. It's really about making something old, new again. I'm still intrigued by the idea, but I haven't had the heart to check out the second frame yet.

Slipper Socks for Anybody

I love this pattern! That's becoming obvious to me as I make it again and again. This time I thought I'd create a pair to keep by the front door for visitors. We have a no-shoe house in an effort to keep the forest debris from coming inside.

I wanted them for Thanksgiving week, but after three days of knitting, I had to quit. My hands were too unhappy working the two strands of wool. I know I need to pace my knitting, but I was just too excited to be making these again.

ETA: That was over three weeks ago and my hand still hurts, though it's getting better. 😕 Maybe it's time to turn to all that reading I say I never have time for.

Four Patch and Friends

When I was on quilt retreat in October, one of the ladies was making a Four Patch and Friends quilt.
I got all excited by how easy it looked and got the pattern information from her for "Someday".  It's made from Four patches and Snowball blocks, simple.

The day I couldn't deal with the Boston Common quilt anymore, these are the fabrics I pulled from my collection, thinking to start something new. When I get the urge to 'start something new', it's a good tip off that I need a break from the current project. The fact that the color palette was the opposite of the blue-green of the Split Nine Patch blocks was also clear to me.

I like to create a layout in Electric Quilt so I have a game plan as I work. But once I created the layout, I wasn't inspired anymore. Huh, well that saved me a lot of work. I shelved it.

Charming Boston Common

I checked my blog archive and it appears I've never written about this quilt project. Oddly enough I can't even find a start date for it, that's not like me.

I think it must've been sometime before 2010, because it uses the same gridded fusible interfacing method used in my Valentine mini. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I love the Boston Common quilt pattern and decided to try one on a postage stamp scale, where the pieces finish at 1". I wanted to use the then, popular gridded fusible method that made watercolor quilts so much easier to piece. I collected lots of individual prints, to make it a charm quilt, and created the center panel.

It was fun, my idea to use the gridded fusible interfacing worked great  and I loved the color play! But that's as far as I got and I got stuck. I couldn't decide how to take the next step. Should the muslin path that comes next be unpieced, pieced in the usual manner or fused to interfacing and sewn so it has the same thickness and lack of drape? It sat in the closet for many years, while I continued to collect additional individual prints for the day when I pieced the outer border.

I've been piecing the blue-green split nine patch blocks for so long, I knew I needed a break, so I pulled this out of storage and started crunching numbers. I found some printable graph paper on point and hunkered down.

How big did I want the final wall hanging, how wide did I want the muslin path before I began the final pieced border and of course, how many one and a half inch cut squares did I still need?

Once I had the proposed finished size, it was relatively easy to work backwards from there. I also decided to create the muslin path the same way I created the center so when the top is complete, the entire thing will have the same heft.

Then I had a light bulb idea. I didn't need to cut 1-1/2" squares of muslin, fuse and sew, I could cut muslin the size of the gridded fusible. That would save a lot of fussy-ness.

I'd shopped off and on through the years for 1-1/2" gridded fusible, but it seems they stopped making it. That had been one of the things holding me back from making headway on this project. I have found it in 1" and 2", but not 1-1/2". So what to do? Buy 1" and draw your own lines.

It worked great, just like I'd hoped. I should've been encouraged.

But the muslin path turned out to be just a prototype, the method worked, but the math was wrong.

 

The next time I was in the sewing room, I started stash diving and pulling together a palette of fabrics for another quilt. I knew I was done working on this for now. It's still percolating in my mind though...

Quick Community Quilts

Show and Tell at quilt guild is so inspiring! The ladies showed a lovely collection of simple and complex quilts destined for gifts or donating to the community. I came home and jumped on some community quilts of my own.

Here are four of seven that I made. Some are flannel front and back and some are dress weight cotton on the front, with flannel on the back. Made from a yard of each, by width of fabric, each one takes a little more than an hour. So satisfying!

And when I didn't have a full yard, I mixed and matched. Isn't that how patchwork got its start? This was the first layout, but I thought it was a little uninspired.

I added white and liked it much better.

After adding two borders, it came together nicely. Backed with flannel, without batting in the middle, and lightly quilted, it finished at a nice car-seat size.

Cowl for Virginia for Virginia

When I was visiting Mom in July, she gave me a mohair/silk cardigan to reclaim. I didn't finish while I was there, so I brought it home. When it was done, she said she didn't know what to do with it, so I decided to make another Cowl for Virginia for her, to replace the one she lost. I'd originally created the pattern for her, so it only seems right that she have one of these cowls. She's coming in December for her 90th birthday, so I can surprise her with it then. Cool!

Once I got the right gauge for this lightweight yarn, it was a quick knit. I hope she likes it.

Tom Sauce

My tomatoes were so slow in ripening this year, I almost despaired of getting enough to sauce. Last year I was elbow deep in fresh slicers, sauce, paste and chutney in August. Ahh well... such is gardening.

This is the way it really looks.

This is the magazine picture. *grin*

I didn't bother canning, sometimes it's more work than it's worth.

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

Okay, so I hijacked the title from James Brown...

I've been carrying my knitting around in a boring book bag for months. I decided it was time for something a little classier.

Last year I got a short stack of upholstery samples from the free table at guild. It was time to pull them out and DO something with them.

Once the bag was made, I got the idea to add leather purse handles from a fiber friend who put some on her felted bag. It dressed it up a lot!

I finished the bag a month ago, but the handles had to come on a slow boat from China, literally. Five weeks after I placed the order, I was able to finish my bag. Woot! No more cotton canvas for me.

Tomato Harvest

It was going to rain, so time to harvest what was left on the tomato vines. Clockwise: tomatillos, Amish paste tomatoes, mixed heirloom slicers, Cherokee Purple and Midnight Beauty.

Today I made fresh packed salsa. Amish paste tomatoes, onion, tomatillos, cilantro, Serrano peppers, lime juice and salt.

 

Tomorrow I'll probably sauce the rest of the Amish paste and slicers, then chop the others and store them in the freezer for soups and stews. Love a good tomato!

Autumn Brings the Stag

We live in a redwood forest in Northern California. We see deer in our yard daily, morning and evening. But in the autumn we see the stag.

I was washing dishes at the sink and this was my view out the kitchen window. He just stood there and looked at me, so close I could see the whiskers on his nose twitch. No fear.

Ramie Cotton Hand Towel

I started this last summer as an alternative to the sock wool on size two, it seems to help hand fatigue if I vary fibers and needle sizes. So I tell myself.

The yarn was reclaimed from a thrifted vest, which I attempted to over dye with food coloring.

Right now it's waiting for me, while I work on the socks.

One Down, One to Go

The socks are taking a long time because I want knee-highs, but I don't mind. Working magic loop makes it mindless knitting as I go around and around, watching the self-patterning yarn unfold its magic. What was difficult has been made easy.

Wonky Stars Renamed

I pulled this out again and decided to turn it into a donation quilt. I was calling them Wonky Stars... but when I showed them to my quilting group they said they're also called Maverick Stars. I think I prefer that name.

I got the lattice strips on... with some help from Spunky, of course. I like it a whole lot better already!

It often amazes me how a collection of random blocks can come together into a nice quilt.

Pacific Coast Iris Quilt

I quilted this one on my domestic machine, working an iris blossom silhouette on the purple and green, and stippling the background areas.

It's too bad the quilting doesn't show more. 😏

Summer Flowers

These are all part of the Brooktrails Community Garden. Everyone plants and nurtures and we all get to enjoy the color and later, the harvest.

Artichokes

Black-eyed Susan

Cosmos

Ensign Royal morning glory

Dianthus

Zucchini blossom

Cosmos

Photos by my husband, Frank.

More of Those Split Nine Patch Blocks

I'm continuing to work on these. They're so quick and satisfying; I find myself popping into the sewing room and knocking out a couple each day. I love working with the array of prints, a wonderful mix from years of collecting.

I find myself thinking a bed-sized quilt for us would be lovely; how could I part with all these fabric friends? But with a finished measurement of four and a half inches, I would need a boat-load.

Two at a Time Toe-up Socks

Turning the heel. That step in sock knitting that so many find either intimidating or fascinating. After all you're taking a plain tube of knitting and creating a nifty bend in it.

Well I had a LOT of trouble figuring out how to work the heel extension using the magic loop. I searched the project page on Ravelry and wrote to Knitlynn, who has made these socks many times. She said the pattern wasn't originally written for the magic loop method. I ended up knitting the heel extension on dpns, then going back to the magic loop for the rest of the sock(s).

I'm sure I've said it before, but every knitter needs a mentor.

October BOM

 

I found a nice pictorial for this block here.