The year 2006 brought forth new experiences for me. Feeling a little more comfortable with a hook in my hand and my abilities did something I'd been insecure about trying ~ narrow cut hooking.
The intimidation was not just internal but also external. When starting to hook on the eastern shore the hobby/art/craft was consumed with McGowan narrow cut designs and rug hookers. As mentioned in a previous post, the McGowan school would only allow McGowan, Primco or Charco designs.
There appeared to be an atmosphere that wide cut hookers were not considered 'real' rug hookers; if your project wasn't a flower using dip dyed wool with fingering technique or an oriental rug you weren't up to snuff. Or at least that is what I felt.
So under the tutelage of Jon Ciemiewicz decided to hook my Rottie Memorial in #3. Hey, I was used to hooking in #8. Yes, I was able to get good detail with the #3. As soon as the dogs were hooked decided the background would be hooked in a wider cut so used #5 (or was it #6?) for the background.
As a side note, when the dogs were alive and would groom them would save each of their hair in a baggie. Later, a dear friend spun each of their hair on a narrow piece of wool roving. That wool was hooked at the nape of necks of each dog. And, the dog tags were added just recently when being found while cleaning out my shed. Below is the photo from which the design was hooked.
Just as soon as the Rottweiler narrow cut was hung on the wall I drew out a primitive design and hooked the pups in #8. That one is on the floor beside my bed and has been there since 2006. Many is the night that Ben will lay on it.
That same year at Cape May I took a class with Bev Conway where I hooked her design named Rufus. I had seen someone the previous year hooking it and loved the wild a crazy colors of the mane. Now remember, I'm not normally a wild and crazy color person but it was another 2006 challenge and experience. But hooked in #8 of course.
As I was doing artisan shows (primitive dolls and hooked items) thought hooking items to sell might be in order to help support my habit. So I hooked the following items which sold at shows. Some of the same design were hooked over again to replace the ones sold previous and purses were really popular, particularly the cat purses.
Decided to try a hooked penny or cat's paw purse and it even sold.
This same year I hooked Stars in Blocks and purchased the kit from ebay because someone didn't want to finish it.
My original way to document what I hooked was with photos on my computer's hard drive. Then the unthinkable happened ...my computer crashed and along with it many of my hooked rug photos were lost. When I could find photos of them most times I'd 'cropped' the photo so the date of the photo changed. Now, I have started a Word document with the rugs by year.
What makes it difficult tho is getting the timeline right. One such example is this 1880 Running Horse adaptation which has a last date of 2010. But I know it was hooked before that so will include it in 2006.
That horse rug has been sold but guess I had better pull out all my other rugs and check the dates before continuing with this 'my rugs' story. Also need to back track and make a label for those which have been neglected. Let this be a lesson to all of you, learn from my mistake.
Happy Sunday everyone.
Saundra
