RUG SHOW TYME

A colorful rug of a cottage with 2 chimneys, no date or dimensions provided.  Think I know someone who will like this, right Elaine?

This next one takes time to decipher ~ it's a deer and rabbit.  Too much going on for me with the elaborate border and elements inside.  It measures a whopping 68 x 94.  

 

It definitely was hooked and not manufactured as here is a close up of deer face.

A more calming rug is bowl of flowers.

A chair pad hooked on burlap, 15.5 x 15.5.

Another Eagle rug but this one with a rattlesnake.  The rattlesnake has been used in the "don't tread on me" or Gadsden flag.  You can read about the Gadsden flag HERE.

Another big rug of a cat which could be given a name of Whiskers, measures 42 x 52.  The border is rather busy.  It was hooked early 20th century.

Here's another busy background with kittens.  It was hooked early 20th century and measures 29 x 42.

With limited colors this rooster and hen rug looks great.  Size is 33 x 38.

Think this post needs a dog and a horse to make it complete.  Here's a prancing red horse hooked early 20th century.    

A hooked and shirred rug, no date provided but measures 26 x 49.5.

Am going to venture outside this chilly day, pick up pinecones and cut the weeds in the very front yard.  Not sure how it will go in the backyard as the overgrown lake still resides back there with this low elevation property.  But in the afternoon I'll be hooking and binding.  Oh, and doing some sketching for a future pattern or two.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

One Winged Eagle

Nowhere near finished but at least the eagle has one full wing.

Not much hooking going on today as I had a pattern to draw and a dental appointment for the drilling and temporary crown work.  It is now after 8 p.m. and the left side of my mouth is finally feeling normal vs. numb.  I had the novocain at 1:30 this afternoon.  Was under the impression the nerve was dead but nope; and the doctor numbed me up good. 

Received an order for two more patterns but THEN crap happened.  The HP 8022e printer is holding me hostage and will have to buy ink from Walmart tomorrow.  It's a long convoluted story so won't give the details or I'll probably bust a blood vessel.  Let me say this is the last HP printer I will ever own.  A few years ago I stopped buying HP desk top computers.

Think I need to go chill a little before going to bed so hope there is something interesting to watch on TV.  

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

Old Fashioned Rug Show

Yeah, time for another one; rug show that is.  This landscape measures 22.5 x 34.5 and said to be hooked between 1910-1919.

An oval floral in a rectangle shaped rug for those who like to hook flowers.

A horse named lucky but have no other information.

I really like this farmyard scene.  Was hooked by Florence Williams from drawing by grandson Jovan Nicholson according to the documentation.

An 8 point star rug (20 x 46) with no date provided.

For the feline folks here are 2 cats by a fire given a date of 1923.  

A deer rug dated between 1920-30,measuring 19 x 33.

Mother and colt hooked early 19th century.

Wish the photo below had been taken at a better angle.  Has lots of critters, cats dog, butterflies, birds and measures 24 x 48.  No date.

One more rug for good measure.  I love this runner with diamond shapes with flowers.  Dimensions are 24 x 65 and given a date of early 1900's.

It has been raining non-stop since Thursday afternoon so have no idea how much water will be in the yard when it stops.  And, cannot imagine how high the weeds will be afterwards.  And it will probably be too soggy to cut the grass.  Oh gee, isn't that too bad, guess I'll just have to hook a bit longer.😊

Happy hooking.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

The Eagle

I've started the eagle and think I've reverse hooked 25% of the loops hooked in.  Either the color didn't seemed right, thought it needed more color variation or something.  The arrow feathers at the bottom I tried hooking in a narrow cut with two rows of each color but didn't like that.  So decided to go for the 8.5 with one row instead.  Took the pattern off the frame for the photo before the tail feathers were completed

The binding process of the Deer Torso rug has begun while watching The Five and the drudgery of the task doesn't seem quite as bad.  Will take a few more shows before it is complete.

Spring was stalled here as this area had below freezing temps recently.  But at least there was no snow.  

It's a slim picking post but at least it's something.  Happy hooking, knitting or stitching.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

Dandelion / Daffodil Dyeing Results

As stated in the previous post, the blooms needed to soak overnight in a mesh bag.  A few years ago I purchased a package of 2 mesh bags at a local Dollar Tree store, perhaps they still carry them.

Per the previous post on this topic, I needed to purchase some alum as I had none in my spice cabinet.  Really didn't want to leave the house as it was pouring buckets of rain.  But since the blooms had soaked all night decided to venture out.

As my luck would have it, neither Walmart nor the Food Lion had alum on their shelves.  So figured the local health food store surely would have it.  Pulled into the parking lot to see they have gone out of business.

What now??  I googled "substitute for alum as mordant".  Would you believe that instead of alum I could use aluminum foil??  To see what other mordant substitutes can be used in natural dyeing click HERE.

What did I have to lose for this mad scientist to put some tin foil in the pot since there was no alum?  But didn't know just how much it would require to replace the alum called for.  Oh well, oh hell....here goes.

Stirred the tinfoil around a bit while heating the water then put in the wool.  Below is the selection chosen for the experiment and was hoping for the dye to produce a chartreuse color.  

For hours it seemed the color was not being absorbed by the wool.  So turned on the heat under the pot for half an hour longer and let it sit overnight as the instructions said (further down the post).  Next morning these were my results.

Perhaps not the chartreuse I was looking for but it is better than having the stark white.  Here is the recipe as provided by Marie Sugar in her "Complete Natural Dyeing Guide".

Recipe ingredients:

   4 cups dandelions

   1 teaspoon alum

    1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

   over one-half yard of wet wool 

Directions:

• Soak 4 cups blooms in a mesh bag in water overnight.
• Add additional water to solution to fill a large pot and heat to simmer for 1 hour.  Add mordant before putting in the wet wool.
• Add wet wool and simmer for 1 hour.  Turn off heat and let wool cool in pot overnight.
• Remove wool, rinse in water w 1 tsp shampoo and rinse until water runs clear.
• Squeeze out water and hang to dry or put in dryer.

You're probably wondering if I'll ever do dandelion dying again.  Uh, don't think so.  But will do onion skin dyeing again.

Happy Hooking.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

GOT DANDELIONS ?

If so, follow the saying "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade".  

I'm not making lemonade, instead will make a dye recipe.  I've never done this before so this is a maiden voyage for me.  To dye half yard of wool it requires 4 cups dandelions.  All I could conjure up from my big yard was 2 1/2 cups.

I put those in a mesh bag you see in the photo just above and under the dandelions, which I've used when doing onion skin dyeing.  Then went back outside to deadhead some daffodils to make up the difference.

The dandelions and daffodils are to soak overnight, will dye tomorrow and show you the results after that.  But tomorrow morning must purchase some alum which is the mordant.  Actually it requires alum and cream of tartar.  I have the latter.  

Hope this isn't a disappointment for both of us and if so I'll not waste my time snapping off dandelion blooms and instead will leave them for the bees.  However, there are still many more buds which will bloom for them.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

FRIDAY FINISH

Finally it's all hooked.  Guess I'll have to get back to my binding ritual watching The Five.  Actually it took me a couple days under a month to hook this rug which I drew 25.5 x 35.

Now my focus will be on hooking an eagle for a spot on the wall along with my step-father's military memorabilia.  Plans are, right now, to hook it in the mix of gold-like colors similar to the original antique seen below.

As usual I'll start by pulling out similar colors from my wool worms to see what works before cutting anything else.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  It's cloudy with a chance of rain today but temps in the mid 70's.  More rain predicted for tomorrow to join what's already in my nature-made lake out back.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

 

RUG SHOW

A hen with her chicks and basket of eggs.  No date but measures 23 x 41.

This pony hooked late 19th century has an interesting background.  If you look closely you can see 4 scrolls hidden in the randomly hooked hit and miss colors.  (34 x 41)  

A soft floral antique with many hearts hooked in the border.

Hooked between 1890-1920 is this red dog rug from Jordan, Ontario.  That looks like a crochet edge.  Oh, the rug's dimensions are 34 x 40.

Rabbits and horse in excellent shape and nice colors.  As much as I love both animals this isn't a rug I'd be interested in replicating.

Another interesting background which I pondered ~ I wondered if the hooker had this background design in mind from the start.  Because IF those were the limited colors she had did she make a conscious decision to do this vs. a hit and miss background?    Rug measures 25 x 38 and advertised in an old issue of Maine digest.

Bowl of red flowers with no date or size.

I love horses but this one isn't attractive to me.  Actually it is the unappealing bold directional hooked background.  Yet, the first hooked rug of hen and chicks with directional hooking I did find appealing.  If I was to hook this one I'd definitely do a different background.

Last is a cat rug measuring 21.5 x 36 and hooked 20th century but don't know if that is early, mid or late 20th.  

That's the end of this show.  Gonna run the vacuum in the living room and kitchen, prepare lunch of steamed zucchini with pasta sauce then hook some on the deer rug.  Wanna get that dang thing done!

Saundra

www.woodlandjunction primitives.weebly.com

ISOMETRIC EXERCISE

My isometric exercises have been using my lopper.  On Friday there was nice weather, the trash container had been emptied of the previous load of Wisteria vine so was time to fill it up again.  Think this is my 6th container fill  and many more to go unfortunately.  Some twinned vine is too thick for me to cut up with the lopper and will ask a neighbor to cut those.  But first want to remove what I can manage so there's no need to ask him back again.

Was surprised at the thickness of the runners underground.  And wonder how many more runners there are which I don't see?

In the picture below I tried to pull the threadlike roots from the earth so this section of the main root could be cut out.  Didn't happen Friday so will try again.  Could have snipped the little roots off but they would have just propagated again.

These small trunks protruding from the ground are more wisteria.  

The wisteria didn't reside here before me.  It wasn't from a tree I purchased, but rather a small section I snapped off along the road somewhere because I thought the hanging blooms were beautiful.  

By the way, the photo below is not the clump of gorgeous blooms from my wisteria but one I found on line and what I saw along the road that inspired me to take a clipping.  My wisteria had a couple blooms over the years but it was the twinning vine that became more established.

That clipping would have easily fit in a 4" pot.  But look at the havoc it created for me in what seemed a short time yet it has been a very slow process trying to remove it.  Gardener Beware.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

DEER UPDATE

It has been a few days since I posted an update on the deer rug which is  slowly making it's way toward the finish line.  Keeping me motivated to complete it, instead of setting it aside, is the eagle rug waiting in the wings.

Yesterday was my dental appointment but all the Dr. did was take photos and x-ray said tooth.  He was fully booked so scheduled the crown work to begin in 2 weeks.  Since the nerve is dead there is no pain.  But if I'm not careful that old tooth with a huge filling could crack more.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

JUST A RUG SHOW

As I've mentioned, my next project is planned and drawn.  But my viewing of old rugs continues and I like to share.  Just discovered this morning is this beautiful rug and the wording tells the story.   Was hooked for Mrs. Aulenbach by Mrs. Hughes and hooked 1888.  According to the auction house some repairs had been made to preserve it and must say they did an outstanding job.  It measures 32 x 66.

Pembroke 1937 and 2 locations are hooked in the rug ~ the RR number 5, and their home on McGee Street.  If this jewel was hooked by my mother, aunt or other family member I'd still have it.  I think this is also a Canadian hooked rug and measures a whopping 58 x 64.

This primitive floral is definitely safe to copy as it is said to be hooked in the 1920's.  If the center is too boring you could always put something in the center, like your last name, Welcome, a bird or bees  just a thought.

Below is a Shaker rug.  Sadly the whole view wasn't available but I like it and could always just duplicate what is on the left to the right side.

Another Shaker rug but this has a horse and think it would be a fun 'plus one' in a couple months.  It was hooked around the 1840's according to the auction house.

Not a hooked rug but would make a very nice one, is this "Sunset" art work by Charles Pendergast made between 1914-1916.

Someone wanted a rug and drew a weathervane style horse, and with limited available colors hooked it in what she had.  Hooked 19th century and measures 28 x 42.

Weatherman said there might be frost on the windshields tomorrow morning for those who leave cars out.  But is supposed to get sunny later in the day.  Guess no tree work will be for me tomorrow as I've a dental appointment to have this cracked tooth looked at.  

AHHH, Lauren, that's what I meant about something else being cracked 😂.  Hope your binding tutorial went well today and you can cross another task off your to do list.

Happy hooking.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com