Home from Cape May

I don't think this brain or body could have stood one more day of fun.  It really is exhausting having fun at rug camp.  Rugs by the Sea camp is held at the Victorian hotel Chalfonte where the food is excellent and the organizers Norma and Linda are professionals who have this camp running like a well oiled machine. 

They bring in fantastic teachers; this first week was Kris Miller, Bev Conway, Judy Quitman and Cindi Gay.  I've had Bev Conway numerous times but last year and this year had Kris Miller.  Kris has a great color palate and prefers to teach nothing smaller than #6 and considers the #8.5 to be the new #8.  She is interesting, fun to be with, upbeat, very great at color planning rugs and tells great goat stories and soon will have great Alpaca stories to share I'm sure.

Since there are no TVs in each room (it's a Victorian hotel of course), there is a small TV room where guests can decide which show to watch from that room.  However, my roomie brings a flat-screen TV with DVD capabilities and three of us pals watch movies, eat snacks and sip on wine in the evenings in our room.  And of course we stay up too late, eat too much and drink more than we should (UH, I drink more than I should).  Unfortunately I put on 1 1/2 pounds in just 5 days since I ate much differently (indulging in things I normally don't eat at home) and my ways have changed since being home and will get that weight off within the week (uh.... I hope).  But the food there is so delicious who can pass up that cuisine?

For years I've wanted to hook a log cabin rug and I FINALLY put it on linen and started a project.  As mentioned in a previous blog, it is an adaptation of a rug titled "July Cabin" by Barb Carroll and offered in her book "American Folk Art Rug Hooking".  There are 18 patterns in the book which may be enlarged to hook.  I took some liberties with the design to make it mine but the essentials came from the book.  

A lot more progress could have been made on the rug if I wouldn't talk as much as I do or if I'd hook and not look at the person I'm talking to.  I should talk and keep my head down and look at my project and keep pulling loops.  So, suffice it to say that I could have had a lot more to show for my 4 1/2 days of hooking had I done that.

Here is an overview of my project and the right side will be quite similar to the left side but not a mirror image.  However, I'll have the same multi-colored leaves on the tree (don'tcha just luv it??).  The only thing I told Kris was that I wanted to do different colors for the leaves and showed her my selection of colors (the same ones which were in my Woodland Deer rug).

So, preparing for this rug, as soon as I saw Betsy Reed's MR ED wool it just shouted log cabin and I ordered it immediately.  Funny thing is, that when I opened up my container to show Kris the wool selection I brought (and many different browns for a cabin) she immediately picked up Mr. Ed as the log colors.  AH HA!!!!!!!  Maybe I really am capable of picking colors for a rug after all.

And the roof is Jinx by Heavens to Betsy.  However, I cannot remember which names the colors of the leaves are and the background is a piece of wool I purchased at a manufacturer in Baltimore.

The sheep is hooked using Icelandic Lopi and the ear is a piece of wool which was prodded in.  So this rug will be hung somewhere in the house so the ear doesn't get squashed.

Kris picked her choice for the border wool I took to camp but haven't started hooking that in yet.  So my project will just have to  wait for me as I've got to catch up here on yard work, laundry, and getting ready for my art/craft show October 1.  I've got 3 dolls to finish, one remaining pumpkin on a candlestick to finish and hopefully finish hooking the NFF cat in the shoe before the show.