Welcome 2021

Happy New Year, at least I hope it is a happier year than 2020 was. This rug is called New Years Eve but wanted to save it for the post today since I'm showing the projects hooked during 2020.  Believe it or not I hooked 15 projects during the hibernation ~ quarantine ~ shut-down ~ or whatever name you wish to give it.

The first rug hooked in the beginning of 2020 Was Winter Sled, a Cushing design which was kindly given away to me by Cathy of Acorn Hollow.

In preparation for February's Valentines Day my next project was Heart Butter Mold by Primitive Heartstrings. 

I had Lori Brechlin's Lancaster Barnyard pattern for a couple years and finally it moved to the top of my list.

Posies and Stars is an antique adaptation I hooked and offer in pattern form and still love it.  Was attracted to this antique because of the blotchy background as well as the neutral hit and miss border.  It still makes my heart skip a beat.

After a few days of harsh winds the rug on my frame next was  a pattern I saw on Cushing's web site and purchased it immediately.  It is aptly called Windy Day and will be my March display again this year.

By this time I wanted something which didn't need much concentration and decided to use up some neutral but various value wool and drew Cat's Paw.  

With spring near it was time to hook Lori Brechlin's Early bird, a pattern offered by Spruce Ridge Studios.  Confession is that I did do a little change by making the border all the way around instead of the top and bottom.

Was time for me to get back to my love of antique adaptations so chose one I named Bespectacled Lion.  Again it is the blotchy background but also the quirky naïve appearance of the lion.  Would love to know about the person who drew and hooked this many years ago.

Was comfortable to be working on antique adaptations again and what luck to find an antique patriotic themed rug, right up my alley.  The original was hooked around 1830 and I named it Pride, Honor, Freedom.

Saw Lauren (Rugs and Pugs) hooking this adorable pattern called Jack's Crow and had to have one for myself. It's a design by Terri Leamer of Winter Cottage Studio.  I couldn't wait to hook those pants with the left over wool strips from a Polly Minick pattern and think one day I'll hook it again with different colors since it was a PDF pattern.

The months are moving right along with me in the cocoon and time to finally hook Old Tom, a Lori Brechlin design.

Good heavens, my fingers are getting tired and getting vertigo from flipping from PC to flash drive, finding the pictures, yada yada.  But am almost..uh, almost done.  

Then on Facebook Lori posts a photo of a design called Merrie October 31st and a couple of us went nuts.  Kris accommodated us with a smaller version to our liking and this is what mine looks like.

Another PDF pattern I'd had for years was a Karen Kahle pattern named Woolly Santa.  Each year I'd tell myself to hook it but years flew by and decided it was time!!!!!  Again I made a change to the design to suit me and didn't hook the top sheep sticking out of Santa's sack.  Instead chose to hook Santa's mittens black to fool the eyes to see the sheep's legs.  I'm happy with my decision.

In chronological order New Years Eve would have been next but I placed it first since it is New Years Day.  But after that was Over the Moon, a pattern offered by Spruce Ridge Studio.  As you can see it still isn't' completely bound.  If I were one to make 'new years resolutions' it would be to be faster at binding my rugs; but then I DON'T make new years resolutions.

If you are interested in purchasing a pattern offered by me, you can look for them in the link below.  Wishing everyone a happy and healthy New Year.   My black eyed peas and salad are waiting for me as cooking them and doing this blog has taken longer than planned.

Saundra

www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com 

Finally Bound and Labels

Finally bound the last two rugs....Posies and Stars plus Lancaster Barnyard.  The stems of the posies are really a light mint green and the left star is a light blue so not as washed out as the photo indicates .  This rug has a wool whipped edge.

Lancaster Barnyard was bound using the traditional cotton binding tape.

Since I don't make my labels until there is a full sheet of 6 labels here are the labels recently made out of fabric print sheets.  

OOPS.... as I'm looking now notice my arrangement of description may be a little deceptive.  My apologies to Primitive Heartstrings as your name should have been first as the designer and mine second since I'm the one who hooked it and is located in Seaford, DE.

Second apology goes to Lori Brechlin as her name should appear before mine as the designer and me as the one who hooked the rug.  I'll have to be more diligent when typing up and printing labels in the future.

Two of the rugs were hooked in 2019 but at least now all finished rugs are labeled .

Even if I weren't self-distancing I wouldn't venture out of the house today as there are high winds of 60 mph, heavy rain, flooding, trees down across some roads with live wires down and potential for tornadoes in the afternoon.

Stay safe folks.

Saundra
www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com

In Case You're Wondering.....

...I'm not sick, I'm okay.  Just didn't have anything new to blog about and wanted to get Posies and Stars finished to show you.  It was just taken off the frame so hasn't been steamed yet.  As mentioned previously, this antique adaptation was drawn out measuring 21½  x 21½.  

Now comes the clean up of mess on the sofa, floor and sofa arm rest before I can even begin to think about wool for my next project.  Also a good vacuuming of the wool dust is a must.  The other rug (Lancaster Barnyard) still isn't completely bound so will work on that a bit tonight since there are now two rugs to bind.

As was expected, next month's April rug camp has been cancelled due to the Covid 19 scare so my deposit will be rolled over to the April 2021 camp.

On a previous blog post I wrote about growing my own sprouts.  I used them all up for salads so started another jar ~ this is day two.  The jar is laying on its side and you can see the little tails developing.  

So in about another 4 days I should have a jar which will look like this.

If you would like to do grow your sprouts click on the link HERE.  Matter of fact I have ordered the same jars and tilted framing you see on the web site instead of the makeshift jar and screen I made.

FYI, since I'm the only one who eats the sprouts I only put 1 tablespoon of broccoli seeds in this regular canning jar and it gave me enough sprouts for 3 salads.  If I ate sandwiches I'd have made more since sprouts are fantastic on them too.  I believe those canning jars are bigger so just might grow more next time.

Hope all are well and keeping themselves sane with their favorite activity; mine is rug hooking.

Saundra

LANCASTER BARNYARD all Hooked

..with the emphasis on 'all hooked'.  The rug still needs to be steamed and bound but hooking is complete.    Happy I finally hooked this design by Lori Brechlin since it has been on my 'to do' list for a couple years.  

Kudo's to Lori's designing of the chickens' feathers and leaf encroaching the border and beauty line ~ I loved hooking it the entire time and watching the rug develop.

That said, there's also something exciting about preparing to start a new rug.  This one will be another antique adaptation.  Yeah I know it's not very artistically creative but antique rugs were the reason my journey to learn how to hook is what put me here.  So stay tuned to see wazup.

Saundra
www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.weebly.com 

LANCASTER BARNYARD Update

Thought I'd show what progress has been made to the Lori Brechlin design known as "Lancaster Barnyard".  You can purchase this PDF design from Lori by clicking the link and purchasing from her etsy site.

Had the pattern for a couple years and finally working on it.  Am hooking mostly #8.5 with some #8.  The leaves are a mixture of bright and dull/dark herringbone and another dull plaid.  Figured that if hooked in the 1880s it would have been hooked with whatever they had anyway.  The dark/dull herringbone is a rescued man's suit coat.

Saundra

Lancaster Barnyard

With all the recent Murphy's Law happenings here there hasn't been a lot of hooking done but will show what has been done.  Knowing there is a primitive black background I'm auditioning colors for the leaves and stem.

None of my wool choices I own suited me.  I'm sure Kris or Barb would have had just the perfect color.  Mine seemed either too bright or too dark.  Or the color of green didn't go with the turquoise.  The two green pieces above the rug in the first photo is what was used in the photo below.

Another choice of wool is what I placed on top of the hooked stem.  But it doesn't really look much different than what is hooked....or at least in the photo.

In the photo below is a herringbone placed on top and a tad different look.

And the picture below is the over dyed light green which might be too light unless it is used only for highlights of a leaf.  

Okay....will try to condense my troubles since last week.....

~~Washer died and as the dryer was also 25 years old bought a new one also.  The purchase happened on Friday 1/31.

~~THEN my heat went out sometime Saturday night but didn't realize until a cold house on SUPER BOWL SUNDAY.  Oh great!  Call an HVAC man on Super Bowl Sunday????

~~  Bless his heart, he did show up after his daughter's cheerleading event and got my emergency heat (propane) up and running.  Something had blown a fuse in the furnace and would come back on Monday to figure out the problem.  Which he said must have just been an electrical surge as there were no wires touching metal which would cause a short.  

~~Back to the washer/dryer......Ordered Friday and upon delivery of the washer Tuesday 2/4 the dryer had a huge dent in the front and side so refused it.  Delivery for a dryer replacement was to be Thursday 2/6 with a 4 hour window between 1:30 - 5:30 pm.  At 5 p.m. received a recorded message saying delivery now between 5- 9 p.m.

~~Immediately picked up the phone and called XPO (who our Lowes uses for delivery) and told them changed a 4 hour window into an 8 hour window and was NOT acceptable.  Continued by saying they would have to rearrange their truck because I would NOT accept anything after 7 p.m.

~~Later last night I received another recorded message saying delivery would be Monday.  Uh this was Thursday evening.  Still not acceptable.

~~ 7 a.m. this morning (Friday, 2/7) a call came in with delivery at 8:30 this morning.  

~~FYI, I haven't even spoken about the fact when the dryer was pulled away from the wall that the vent hose wasn't connected to the dryer.  No wonder it took several cycles for the clothes to finally dry.

~~and...when another contractor came in to replace the vent hose under the house (Lowes delivery doesn't do that) it was discovered a big hole in the vent hose under the house with a nest made of insulation made by...uh mice?

So I've many items needing to be addressed here at home.  This stress has caused havoc with my intestines and very tired.  Hope I get a good nights sleep as my body and brain needs a rest.

Saundra

Lancaster Barnyard

As expected there was no need to identify the design in my previous post because a few people knew exactly what I was working on.  The design is by Lori Brechlin and purchased a few years ago in PDF form.  After envying  all those others as they were hooking theirs, I'm finally hooking it.

Am sure all of you have heard of "Murphy's Law".  Well Murphy struck again.  I woke up to no heat and inside temp of 59*.  Thank goodness it was a mild night last night instead of below freezing.

Why couldn't the furnace or heat pump have gone bad on Friday?  Why on Super Bowl Sunday that I need to call my HVAC guy?  The furnace is newer than the heat pump so maybe it is the heat pump.  Guess I'll find out later today what the financial damages will be this time.

Am thinking there will be no heat tonight because even if I'm lucky enough for it to only need a part it will need to be ordered.  If I'm unlucky and need a whole new replacement that might take a couple days to get.  All I can say is thank you God for giving mild temperatures the next couple days.  

Hope your week has gone better than mine.  Oh, and you know things usually run in THREEs.  Hope this is not the case.

Saundra
www.woodlandjunctionprimitives.com 

Looking for Inspiration

Soon I'll be desperate for something to hook and none of the drawn patterns in my stash are sparking an interest at this time.  So thought I'd look thru some antique rug photos to see if something of interest is hidden there.

This struck a cord for me, Glazer antique hearts hooked between 1880-1910.

The Lancaster County Chain stitch rug caught my eye also.  Anyone know what that image is above the duck?  Maybe a bird or an angel?

The lonely flower would make a small project and use up more worms from my baggies ~ quick, easy peasy.

Rug at Seven Gates Farm has been on my 'to do list' for quite some time and has yet to be hooked by me but have drawn the design for others.

This whaling scene has also been on that same long list of 'to do'.

The House, Chickens & Geese rug was hooked early 20th century and comes from Boston.  The original measured 24 x 44 but I won't make  mine that big if I hook this one.

Of course I still have the paper pattern of Lori Brechlins's Lancaster Barnyard which has been on THAT list for years.

And the Indian Brave design by Tonya Robey and I was adamant about finding my pattern book with it.  But Tonya to the rescue....thanks gal pal.

I've even considered doing a Moroccan style rug to use up worms.  However I wouldn't have a fringe.  Of course I might get tired of the directional hooking but boredom would be offset by the change of color.

My oh my but what does one do with so many options and being so fickle?  Still have the Use it Up design to finish as well as remaining  binding of Great Grandaughter's Rug.  But I'll be needing a rug 'fix' soon after.

Saundra