Zach's Favorite Sports Rug and I'm Still Learning

Oh so close to being finished yet still too far away.  I've faced the narrow cuts on the dreaded Redskins logo and it is now hooked.  All that remains is the background and border.  For sure the rug will be done before December.

Now my only concern is .... will there be enough blue background wool for the rest of the rug.  If not I'll just do another fresh recipe.  Which means there might be some tweaking to replace darker wool with lighter wool to more evenly spread the color.  Am sure you can see the difference in value in the background.  

Oh well ~ Making sure you have enough background wool isn't the only lesson I've learned.  The other is the wonderful technique of "beading" along the border.

That black and white check fabric is for the binding.  But also chose to do a black and white beading technique as the inside border line to carry over the checkered flag.  

WHAT I DID:  With this rug my beading and border went first and then hooked the inside area along the way.  

Problem is that beading, because of the twist of the two wool strips, makes that the first place which gets ripped out on the grippers.  Even tho I have a wonderful Snapdragon frame it still rips out and is more troublesome to re-hook than plain, regular hooking.  Therefore, when I do beading again ....

WHAT I WILL DO:  I'll hook the main rug inside and hold off hooking the border until that inside design is all hooked.  

That said, it just could be that IF I'd made myself a larger excess of linen at the edge the beading wouldn't have been caught in the grippers.  Yeah, I know.  But I HATE wasting foundation fabric just to be cut off and tossed.  I'm from the 'make do, make it work' generation.

Have a great evening.

Saundra