Horses and Hearts

Upon coming home from Ocean City rug camp thought it best to finish the rug started before attending camp ~ Horses and Hearts.  It is a design by Marion Hamm and understand it was in a crafts magazine free to use.  I purchased mine drawn on linen at Cape May rug camp 2017.  It measures 20 x 36.

You'd think I'd be back hooking my Star Geometric right now, but that would be wrong.  Someone ordered a design by Kelley Belfast and I'm so enamored with it that I've drawn one out for me to hook as well.  

Guess you'll just have to come back for a visit to see what that cute design is.

Yet another nor'easter headed this way and because of the March 2018 storm which brought down two healthy trees I'm fearful of wind and rain combinations.  Guess I should be thankful it isn't snow......yet.

Saundra

Have You Any Wool?

Thought I'd give you an update on progress of the rug on my frame.  It took a while for me to find leaf colors for the border which were to my liking but am now happy.  That green had to go.

For those new to my blog, this is a rug design offered by Woolley Fox called Have you Any Wool....the title of my post.  I reshaped the body of the sheep to give an appearance of a skein of yarn and am quite pleased how it turned out.  

I've been asked what the background and border wool is ~ here is a photo.  For the life of me cannot remember the name of either wool or where it was purchased.  But was either  purchased from Betsy or Rebecca.

The background is the lightest section of the plaid wool mixed with some of the lighter textured wool of the same color.  The border was hooked using the darkest section of the plaid.  And thank goodness I have enough to finish the border.

I'm looking forward to finishing this rug, getting it bound then finishing up an adorable design by Kelley.  If you haven't purchased her New-Old Designs pattern book please contact her.  You can check out her blog on the previous link to view some of her designs.

My heart goes out to all those folks living in Texas.

Saundra

Get'n Ready

The sheep rug isn't finished but having received Kelley Belfast's latest "New Old Designs" pattern booklet am planning to start another small project.

When Kelly posted her piece on her BLOG my heart was set to hook a sunflower too.  But after thumbing thru the templates and designs of her new booklet had other ideas.  One design just grabbed me. 

So picking some templates have drawn out a nice easy size of a pattern I'm calling "A Little Birdie Told Me".  It is from the art work and doodles of Kelley Belfast but not a sunflower.  At least not this time.

Huh?  You can't see the design?  Dang.... The wool I began pulling has covered it up.  But even the wool choices might change since that blue NEEDS to be put in a pot of dye and mottled.  Plus, there is a choice between the orange which needs a soaking with khaki drab or using the piece to the right which I mottled using a Karen Kahle method. 

So stick around and see what is on my frame next.  Which means I will now have two project floating around.

Have a great evening and hope you are safe from the crazy weather, happy and healthy.

Saundra

WOE IS ME

Today decided to soak some wool to attempt getting a better blue wool from a 'fresh' dye recipe.  Below is the wool soaked for hours in synthropol to ensure good coverage.  

The larger piece of wool measured 30" x 32" and the two smaller pieces were parts of a upcycled jacket section.

Previously I'd attempted to 'revive' this same recipe (Warm Sky) which had crystallized but wasn't happy with the results at the time.  You can check out that post HERE, about my misadventures of that dye job. However, now I'm not so sure it was so bad; you'll see in a few minutes why.

Above and to the right side are the results of today's dye job.  Was attempting to get a wool to match the light wool already hooked in the right side of the rug since the left side was becoming increasingly dark using the rest of my blue stash.

However, as you can see from the pictures above and below, this turned out too light...dang it.  Uh, that's not the wording I used when you weren't around. 

Interesting how much lighter this dye job turned out and appears to be much lighter than would work.  Since there were a few, very few lighter wool strips left to hook decided to place them on top of what was dyed today.  

First, they have a green hue to them since I was resorting to pulling out all sorta similar wool to fill the background.  So THEN.... decided to go to my blue wool section and pull out some of the wool that was from the 'Misadventures of a Rug Hooker'.  

The two wool pieces to the right are from that task and might just be what I'll use to fill in for the remaining part of the background for Zach's Favorite Sports Rug.  

I've so much blue wool now that I'll be  hooking blue hearts like Kelley all this winter when I get those 'winter blues'.

Last evening and today chose to hook on the gold border of Ned but think I'll switch and work on my grandson's rug.  There will be so much ripping and switching wool strips throughout the rug that I may as well bite the bullet and start now.  Besides, that dang rug needs to be done within the next 5 months and Gran is getting tired tweaking it.

Have a great evening everyone.

Saundra