Australia and the Titanic

Well the title to this post may be somewhat misleading. I don't think there is a connection between Australia and the Titanic except here.........jigsaws.

"The Great Australian Jigsaw" is made up of 500 pieces and is obviously circular. This makes for some very interesting shapes in the pieces. It is 50 cm round when finished and I have now glued it to a board used for cake decorating. You can't see it here but there is actually one piece missing. I plan on getting creative with some textas or pencils to fill it in if I can't find it.

The artwork is by Australian artist Greg Gillespie.

This next jigsaw puzzle is only 250 pieces and the finished size is 41 x 28 cm. I bought this about 10 years ago when a travelling exhibition came to Bendigo. My daughter and I went to see it in the old town hall. It featured some actual memorabilia from the Titanic, stories about some of the people that sailed on it and costumes from the movie.

Talk again soon

Jeanette

An appetite for books

As you will remember from my post last week, on October 7, I started a 1000 piece puzzle called "An appetite for books". I thought I would share my progress with you since then.

sorting pieces by colour

upper section finished

 I sorted the pieces by colour so that I could work on a section at a time. There are so many different browns and the best time to work on these is when the sun is streaming into the room.

book shelf finished

rug finished

The window, curtain, books and rug were all fairly easy to do because their colours were different to the rest of the pieces. The books especially because of the writing.

lower door finished

part of quilt finished

 The first timber section I worked on was the doorway because the colour was "cherry" and stood our from the other pieces. As this was so boring I started working on the quilt section as well even though I had promised to work on this last as a reward.

cat finished

floor and book finished

 The cat section I worked separately and then dropped into place. The floor was next, all different tones of oak.

rocking chair finished

 The last timber section was the rocking chair and the floor underneath this. A darker timber, with some reflective surfaces and turned sections made this relatively easy.

complete

The completed piece, mounted on an oil canvas and hanging on the wall. I love waking up in the morning and looking across to see all of the colours. From the side you can hardly see that it is a jigsaw. My own piece of artwork.

Talk again soon

Jeanette

Miscellaneous Monday

Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.

Lewis Carroll

Well, because I finished my crochet rug last week I was rummaging around for something else to do. What I found was another thing that always takes me back to my childhood......a jigsaw puzzle. I bought this last year with the idea that I would make it up and glue it to a canvas to hang on the wall. This idea comes from when we visited relatives in Germany in 1980. They quite often had finished jigsaw puzzles decorating their homes. It is a great way to have some of the greatest artwork in the world in your home without the expense and with being able to look at it and say "I had a part in creating that piece", even if it was just to put it back together. This artwork is created by Australian artist Gordon Hanley and is called "An Appetite for Books".

Children today don't know what they are missing with all of their electronic gadgetry. There is nothing like starting with puzzle pieces and watching a picture appear before your eyes. I remember sitting on the bedroom floor with my sister on rainy days, spending hours putting puzzles together. I had four wooden style puzzles that had different dogs on them - I remember some Corgis and an Alsatian. She had puzzles with smaller pieces, I vaguely remember something fanciful, characters from nursery rhymes.

I think this is why I love cross stitch so much, a picture is created with thread one stitch at a time in the same way that a jigsaw puzzle is put together. 

Except with cross stitch you start from the centre working outwards and with a jigsaw I start with the outside edge and work inwards. How do you do a jigsaw puzzle?

I find a few minutes every morning now to put some pieces in and it is slowly coming together. It is wonderful at this time of the day. My children are still asleep, the sun is just coming up, the birds are twittering and I can hear the sounds of Bendigo coming to life.

This reminded me of a movie starring my favourite Aussie actor, William McInnes, called "Unfinished Sky". If you haven't seen it yet, take the time. It is a bit of a puzzle and the title comes from the fact that the main character is working on a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of sky in it. If you have ever done one like this you know how frustrating it can be to distinguish one piece of sky from the other.

That also got me thinking about recently buying the latest edition of Empire magazine which lists the "500 greatest movies of all time". I thought I would compile a list of my favourite movies, one from each year, or two if I really can't decide, and put them on my profile. I have started and it is interesting to see how many Alfred Hitchcock movies have cropped up. I really do love a puzzle!

Talk again soon

Jeanette