Sorry for the brief detours now I'm back to bore you with more rugs and other items I've hooked.
There are two rugs where the date had been lost in time. One is a kit purchased from ebay and a design by Pat Cross. Not sure of the timeline but it must have been between 2002 and 2003 while still dipping my toes in the water of rug hooking and not having much wool stash.
The person had hooked a couple circles, started a star and hooked a little background. Guess she decided rug hooking was not for her. Some great wide cut wool and a great design was received...me thinks it may have been a kit from Pat Cross herself. Although it is a basic two color rug I find it enjoyable to see when walking into the sewing room and wool room.
This a pattern in one of Pat's books Called Purely Primitive. Just pulled mine off the shelf and there is a host of wonderful designs to draw on your own and hook.
The other rug in question NOW has a birth date. I was determined to research to find out when this was hooked. Knowing that I'd kept the wool from the kit thought that might lead me to the date.
Here is the catalog from which the pattern was ordered. AH HA! 2003.
So now I plan to enjoy and use those colors stashed for what reason?? Why not use them? I've been guilty of saving favorite wool colors, aromatic soaps..for a special occasion?. Will definitely use them NOW.
I'd planned much more for my blog post but got carried away with research. PLUS cleaning the porch in this heat and humidity used up a lot of my time.
Chat with ya tomorrow and hope you enjoy the post more than today.
Saundra
Does this look familiar? It should because the right side was a piece of wool purchased years ago (what was I thinking)? It was on a recent blog post the results of this unsuccessful 'marrying' of wool happened.
Since this rug hooker never surrenders to ugly wool today decided come hell or HOT water I'd remedy the situation to make it hookable.
The piece in the pot today was the one on the left and only semi acceptable so chose it as the victim. Eventually the other piece of wool will be a target, but not today.
When I dye wool if there is some formula left I'll save the remainder of the dye in a small jar. I keep it in the garage so it could go thru two seasons and the recipe could crystalize. Of course it will make changes to the chemistry of the dye and results even after water is added but I went for it anyway.
In one jar which crystalized was a recipe called "Old Christmas Red". Sorry, but cannot remember which dye book it came from. So added hot water and put it in the pot with the wool. Some of the color did absorb but it was murkey (as one would expect after crystalizing).
Did I submit? Hell no....a more recent collection of left over dye was my favorite Olde Patina recipe from the Beautiful Wool dye book by Fredericksburg Rugs.
Above are the results and it really doesn't show the delicious old dirty color which I like putting in my antique adaptations.
Some of this wool WILL be hooked into the Magdalena Goat that I'm presently hooking and can't wait to get back to hooking on it.
An addition to the post:..... Jennie asked me how many times a piece of wool could be over dyed before it would felt.
My reply to her was that I do NOT boil my wool (I get it very hot and close to boil) nor do I take hot wool and rince in cold water shocking the wool. Also, don't aggitate the wool in the washer. Those three factors would be how you could end up with felted wool.
Ever see those pretty 'boiled wool' jackets? How do you think they got that way?
Saundra
When I posted a picture of the pattern I'll hook at rug camp next week (you can see the post HERE) Jennie commented that ..."it was nice and looked quite different from what I've been hooking lately".
My interests have an ebb and flow and have been known to take a hard right hand turn at times. So here are a few other rugs I've hooked which may also be out of my norm. One such is called "Flying Trio" by Red Salt Box but didn't find a link.
Am sure I shocked everyone when deciding to hook Ali Katz since it is so colorful and out of my normal comfort zone. Ali Streble was my teacher at Cape May and was hooking the cats so thought it was a cute play on the words of 'alley cats'. Besides I'd done a silk painting at Mexico Club Med which hangs in my bath area and wanted a rug to match.
Another one is a design by Brenda Gervais named Herb Angel. The reason there are two photos of it is because the top one with a flash is too bright and the one without a flash too dark. So the real colors are somewhere between the two.
FYI, her hair is a red and orange thick and thin yarn of which I have a humongous cone of. I purchased it from Sunset Designs in California when working for the company and they were getting rid of old inventory.
Below is a rug by Fredericksburg Rugs that I hooked on monks cloth.
OMG, lesson learned and will never hook another sizeable rug on monks cloth ever again. Well, I don't hook on monks cloth period. It stretches so badly and then when loops loosend and had to be rehooked it weakened some of the fibers of the foundation.
After teaching myself to hook decided to take a camp ~ it was one hour away from my house and the same one I'm going to Sunday. Wanted to break bad habits and learn how to hook properly.
At that time it was strickly a McGowan camp and no ousider patterns could be used. So patterns had to be chosen either from McGowan patterns or from Charco designs.
Since I'd never dyed wool and no clue about color planning chose two Charco designs and had Mary Lou color plan them and I purchased the wool.
Plans were to take ONLY one rug camp so told her I WOULD hook in #8 cut and was hoping she could teach me about shading a leaf with wide strips. Bless her heart, Mary Lou Bleakley was my teacher and this was the design hooked with her. She did an awesome job preparing a novice hooker and teaching I think. When we meet we still banter back and forth about narrow cut vs. wide cut.
Humble Beginnings was the other Charco pattern I chose and Mary Lou also color planned this for me. It was hooked with another teacher the following year in Ocean City, MD.
Okay kids, I've run out of steam and still much to do. Plus I'm exhausted from lack of sleep overnight, headache since last night and just not feeling right.
Stop back again. Hope everyone enjoyed that summer weather today as it was probably the last.... and in NOVEMBER yet!!!
Saundra
Recently someone wrote me saying her hooked circle on a rug pattern she purchased and hooked curled and made a hump. Yup, been there done that. This is not a problem with design of the pattern but with the hooking (sorry).
I've hooked lots of circles. The rug below is a design by Fredricksburg Rugs. I loved it, still love the design and didn't have a problem with hooking the circles. The problem was using MONKS CLOTH. I hate monks cloth as it stretches too much for my liking and it is too easy to pack the wool strips because it does stretch. Now I use only linen as my backing of choice. And it is the regular, natural primitive linen and NOT the hairless stuff.
If you crochet or knit you know what happens if you don't increase stitches as you go around ~ you end up with one long tube. Same thing with hooking a circle. You must increase the outside loops so that it doesn't become a hump but a gentle flattened out circle.
Okay, in full disclosure, I am NOT an accredited teacher, NOT McGowan trained but rather self-taught and trying to help others thru their struggle like I did but without blog help. However I've attended numerous rug camps and have had some magnificent teachers in the past several years. Therefore I've learned something from them as well as the students who attend the camps.
Okay, that said...the FIRST RULE is: there are NO rules or right or wrong. Do what works for you.
Some people/teachers may say to start in the middle of a circle. But then what about the primitive style of "outline and fill"? In the picture below I did an outline of the center circle, joined the wool and snipped it off at the join. The circle on the right was started in the middle as you can see, and snipped off.
Continuing in the middle circle with the light texture I hooked all the way around but didn't cut off at the join (you'll see why in next photo). The circle to the right I hooked all around and cut off the second row at the join.
For the center circle I just continued in a spiral and ended up with one tail up in the middle. For me, this way I can control the circle better. And, if I should decide to pull out loops to change to another color... my wool strip will be longer to use again.
For the circle on the left I did the same spiral thing. This outline and fill works best for me.
In the photo below I did the continuous spiral on the circle to the left.
For me personally I like doing the outline and fill. That way I can not only control the size and shape of my circle, but have already constructed the outside circumference. Which means that there's limited space inside the remaining circle and no way I could pack my loops to make a dome.
Hope you all have a great evening. OH!!!!!! And I've lost my ability to receive comments into my personal e-mail. Does anyone know what is up with Blogger why this function would be disabled??
Saundra
The other day I commented about keeping records of rugs we hook by hooking date and initials in the rug, making labels, taking photos, etc. One of my followers (thank you Kat) said she also kept a paper trail of her rugs and was surprised to learn she had hooked 70. Oh boy did that give me the incentive to find out just how many I'd hooked.
Unfortunately there were rugs I hooked which were never photographed. And then there were some pictures put of a diskette which I can no longer use on my computer. Some older hooked pieces were on a CD which I was able to transfer to a flash drive today. Sadly it still remains there are no pictures of some.
So, did the next best think and looked thru my house, the ones I have for sale, as well as the ones I display. But then went thru my records of what I sold and struggled to remember those which I'd given as gifts.
Now, what constitutes a RUG? Does a mat classify as a rug? If so, those were included in my numbers. Much to my surprise I came up with a total of 84 rugs and mats that I've hooked since 2001. In addition I've hooked 35 purses and most of those have sold. I still have a few left but still think that is a remarkable amount of hooking.
While searching thru photos it was also fun to see the rugs I'd forgotten that I'd hooked or penny rugs made since they sold. And while looking thru the Cd's found this Penny Rug I made and sold. It was a design by Fredericksburg Rugs and think it was called Circles and Stars.
And also hooked a Penny Rug Purse which sold; wow, this was early in my beginning hooking years too so surprised I found the photo and had forgotten I'd hooked it. It was fun thumbing thru photo history of my hooking and will continue logging the information forward. I'd expect there are still projects made but the visual info lost.
Perhaps this will inspire each of you to keep a paper or photo trail of your pieces. Thanks for dropping by.
Saundra
