That Time Again

Time for another rug show since I'd like to get a little more accomplished on the Sheep & Daffodil Challenge piece before showing it again.  Have also been planning what my next rug project will be and working it in my  head.  As  my grandson Zach was so impressed and excited about the Man Cave rug I hooked for his dad last Christmas would like to hook something for my grandson.

So on with the show.  Cute cat rug with brick center and checkered border.

 Below is a vintage sewn rug.  Am hoping if you click on the picture you will see the rows of stitching which makes the rug.  This design is yet another in my stash to be hooked at some time.

The piece below I've been trying to decipher.  At first I thought the guy on the left was a doctor but then decided they are drinking a toast to something ~ or maybe it is 5 o'clock there,  lol.

A soft floral below; nice soft colors with the primitive dark.  But must admit I'd probably get very bored with all that blue background.

A hexagon rug with hearts.

I've always loved this deer rug and am sure you've seen it numerous times on the internet.  There's just something about the dirty muddy neutrals that speak to me.

Cute dog rug with clouds, fence and flowers.

Time for a horse rug since we've had a cat, dog, deer and chickens

There are a few other antique rug photos I could show you but need to save something for the next time.  

So I'll try to pull as many loops as I can on the challenge piece and maybe have something more to show tomorrow.  Happy Monday everyone and hope Ellie is doing better this afternoon after her bad night last night.

Saundra

Building Houses

Guess that should be worded more....."hooking houses".  And just as in real life there might be a date set for the finish of construction but it seems to go on longer than planned.  

Am planning on some tweaking as I go along BUT am trying to stay as true to the delightful design that Kelley Belfast designed for this challenge.  If you would like to join in this challenge write to the Facebook open group known as Out Of Hand Rug Hooking and ask to join in the challenge.  First you'd need to join the Facebook group.  But if you wanted to join in the challenge you need to ask to be included in the challenge group which is a closed group to only those who get the free design.  Well, back to building houses.  

And thinking positive thoughts for Lauren's pup Ellie who was attacked in her driveway last evening as she was getting ready to take her pup Ellie for a walk.  Please all you animal lovers say a prayer for that little pup.

Hugs Lauren and hope you soon give us good news about Ellie.

Saundra

Oops, Another Sheep Rug

Totally forgot to include this rug in yesterdays 'sheep show'.  It is a design by Woolley Fox called "July Cabin" which I hooked in 2012.

Below is a photo of the free design in a booklet entitled "American Folk Art Rug Hooking" by Barb Carroll.  If you compare the graphics below to what I hooked you can see there was some creative license taken. Harhar, some might question my 'creative' part.

This is a picture of the front of the cover and there are some other great free Barb Carroll designs in there for you to enlarge as you wish.

Yesterday's weather and today was great.  Tomorrow will be a smidgen cooler but good in the lower 60's.  And then... and then...don't think I want to talk about the weekend.

Saundra

Spring Sheep Update

Today finally posted my update on the OOHRH Challenge rug on the closed group. The deadline isn't until May 1st so if you are interested in joining the challenge click on the link above and ask to be a part of the challenge group.  That link takes you to the 'open' group of hookers. And if you wish to become a part of the challenge  you would need to ask to participate.

At one time I'd not hooked even one sheep rug all tho it is their wool which gives me so much pleasure and entertainment.  So just went thru some photos to see what sheep rugs I've hooked.  Below is Flag Day Sheep (a Woolley Fox design) which I changed.  No disrespect for our American Flag as I've numerous Americana rugs and rugs with a hooked American Flag. My change was to remember a rug which Barb Carroll had just off her classroom and one I remember from my very first class there.

Naturally an E.S. Frost design has to be a part of the hooker's world.  No way I'd have tackled the scrolls without the expertise of Ms. Barb Carroll.  She is the one who guided me thru this process until I was ready to bring it home and finish it on my own with no problem.

Yet another E.S. Frost Sheep design I hooked and think this one was done in a class with Lucille Festa.

And just found this design of a Ram I hooked some time ago.

Okay, so now I feel better and don't feel like I've cheated my followers. You've had some eye candy and have seen my slow progress on the Sheep Challenge rug.

Tomorrow since the weather is going to be good I  just MUST pick up more pine cones and sticks to get ready to cut some weeds.  The yard looks yucky since it is the onion stems which makes the yard look bad. Plus must trim my lirope so the new growth is good.  

Just too much yard work for me now and when it used to be such fun ~ not fun for me any longer.

Enjoy your evening and especially your tomorrow warmer weather.

Saundra

Confetti Dyeing

The other day while perusing my favorite blogs I came upon Gayle's blog post at The Middle Sister.  Among the eye candy of projects being worked on saw someone's confetti dye job.  So that made me want to share with my readers how they too can do it.

Actually the last time I dyed with snippets was back in 2011 (just checked my blog archives) but I've gained some new followers so maybe this will be new to some of you. Here were those results on a pink piece of wool and a white piece of wool.  Picture doesn't look right so maybe I didn't use a flash.

This time decided to use a piece of beige wool skirt.  You can sprinkle the snippets on a damp or wet piece of wool. But starting with wet wool is always best to be sure the wool is completely saturated with water. You can squeeze out the bulk but at least the core of the wool would be wet.  My snippet jar was in need of emptying anyway so thought it a great time for a tutorial.

While spreading the snippets it was fun to see the ends which were snipped off the end of a loop for various rugs I'd hooked.  Some wool in there were back to last September when I was hooking Nantucket Broom Ride.

Next you would roll up the piece or pieces of wool and tie it together.  I used the selvage of some cotton fabric which I keep in the laundry room for such things.

Then into a pot of water with a mild detergent (without bleach) to bleed out the dye in the snippets.  I simmered this for maybe 15 minutes, then put a glug of white vinegar in the pot and continued simmering another 15 minutes.

The pot then went from kitchen stove to laundry room wash tub for the heat to drop then hand squeezed the water from the roll.  The roll was then taken outside, untie and free the snippets to be available for any birds who needed fill in a nest.

This is the inside roll result.  There's a little color and the dark browns added a nice touch since I do primitives.

And below is the outside of the roll.  You can tell because the left edge is rather bland since there were no snippets on the outside of the rolled wool.

This was fun to do again and think this tan wool may be used in something in the future.  Thanks Gayle, and your friend for inspiring me to do this again.

So if there are any of you wanna-be-a-dyers out there, this would be a good fun experiment.  This and always the marrying of wool to get a primitive dark or other colors.  

Hope you had a good Monday everyone.  Now I'm going back to hooking daffodils.

Saundra  

My Sheep Show

A tad more has been hooked on the Sheep and Daffodil challenge piece generously designed by Kelley Belfast of Kankerdoodleblogspot.  Not a whole lot of hooking, but at least have made some progress.

Today I started my wavy border and was so happy to read we could add a border.  From the beginning it was known that changing the flowers was okay but wondered about the border.  Since daffodils were what inspired Kelley for this Spring Challenge and the same flowers blooming in my yard... decided to keep the daffodils.

House colors are floating in my head but haven't cut any wool for them yet.  There's a lot of border and grass to hook so thought I'd do that part of hooking first then worry about sky and houses.

Again, if anyone is interested in joining this challenge you can get the free pattern on a Facebook group known as Out of Hand Rug Hookers. That is this group link which is an open group, and if you ask to join the challenge you will be allowed to be in the closed group for this challenge.  

Have a great Sunday night everyone.

Saundra

Making Rug Labels

It was just time to print out rug labels since I had one page of information.  Of course that means that it will take another few rugs to be hooked before another sheet of 8 labels can be produced.  Well, that is since I'm cheap (thrifty).

I tried to attach a photo of the Microsoft Word document but that didn't seem to work.  Therefore I printed out my labels, trimmed them and took a photo after.  Some of the rugs for which I made a label are older rugs hooked but didn't have a date hooked in it nor another form of documentation and felt they needed one.   Some are fairly newly hooked rugs you would recognize.  If you touch the photo it will enlarge for you to see my info.

Below is the product I used.  It was purchased from Hancock Fabrics near me.  It is sold in both white and cream fabric sheets; I purchased the cream.  As you can see I wrote on the front of the package how my printer accepts this product.  To find out that info I made a mark on a sheet of paper and ran it through my printer to find out which side would be printed on.

It is not a rubbery product but a muslin.  Here is what I did to design my sheet of information.

~ Open a new document in WORD
~ Make margins the most narrow so more room for label information
~ INSERT "table" and use 2 across and start with 4 down per sheet
~ TYPE your information using your favorite font
~ COPY and PASTE a photo of the rug you choose.

Depending on the amount of information you want to give will determine how many labels you will get per page.  

After a whole page is set up and printed I save the document so the hard work and basic information is there.  All that is needed for the next round of labels is to change the information and change out the photo. That is IF you choose to put a photo on your label.  If you don't put a photo you will have more room for information.  

Sometimes I've wanted to put a picture of the original antique from which I've adapted the rug.  And then it got to be kinda nice to have a photo on the back in case sometime the rug gets damaged the person can see how it was originally.

Spring Daffodils and Sheep Rug

Guess you won't let me slide with another 'sneak peak' huh?  Okay, it's time to fess up and show what progress has been made on the challenge rug.  I already showed you the wool used to hook the sheep's body.  Also showed only a corner of a part of yellow of the flower until I felt comfortable continuing with my plan.

Thanks to Kelley for the great design and her inspiration for the spring challenge using daffodils.  I've loads of daffodils planted in my yard too and so enjoy looking at their spring blooms too.  They are a symbol of warmth, freshness and puts a spring to my step.   That is why I needed to figure out a way to capture a likeness of the flower she drew.  Okay, ready for the unveiling??

As narrow cuts are not my favorite thing, knew the flowers would have to be hooked in nothing less than an #8 cut.  One or two may be #8, but also have #8.5, a #9 and even a #10 to see which flute I liked best. Sometimes I used different strips in the one flute.  The one in the bottom far right think was one strip in 1" which may not work as well as the others.  However, will make adjustments later.

I've scribbled a curved border and haven't chosen house colors yet.  My color planning is in my head using a couple pieces of wool I'd like to use but not sure it they will work.

Unfortunately haven't accomplished much hooking today since I was sitting at a car repair to have my automatic window motor replaced. However, it was a wonderful time to continue work on binding a couple mats which I hate doing.  That was better than watching those game shows they have on the TV.

Have a great evening everyone.

Saundra

To Glue or Not To Glue?

Or could use the word 'rubber coating or adhesive' rather than glue. This is a question which most all newbie hookers wonder, since rugs slip on a slick floor. My answer is absolutely not.  Using a glue on a mug mat, a hot pad, flower pin backs and like is okay using and Eileen's Glue.  But a definite no for rugs on the floor.

If you want to have a more secure walking surface for a rug placed on the floor purchase a roll of a waffle weave rubber rug mat which may be purchased in different sizes.  Below is one such product which has been under a rug in my kitchen near the back door for years.

Below is more the waffle weave look I spoke about and is similar to the shelf liners used in kitchens.  They can be purchased in the linen department of most local department stores Walmart, Best Buy and even Amazon.

Ya know those rubber backings on bathroom mats which end up looking like this below?  Eventually your hard work on your precious rug would end up with the same cracking and peeling if you use it.  

So don't purchase that sealer.  As mentioned before, using glue to put a wool or felt backing on the bottom for hot pads, mug rugs, flower pins and small projects would be fine.  But please, not on your floor rugs.

Have a great evening.

Saundra

It's Show Time

At least it is SHEEP show time.  Part of the flowers were toyed with but color to still be determined for the final hooking.  The house colors haven't even been pulled or decided yet.  

Here is my sheep in progress.  I wanted so much for the lumpy natural sheep look so was hoping the wool chosen for this project would work.

The wool used for the sheep I've had for years.  It was something  Gail Dufresne  was selling at a rug camp and thought immediately of a sheep.  I believe I've had this wool for at least 9 years and happy to finally use it for a sheep.  

 This wool would rip at wide widths but I hand cut every two rows over.  And THEN, if I needed a thinner strip would cut that piece in half.  

Here is a close up of the sheep and the hand cut strips used for the majority of the sheep.  

Was so hoping to leave some length to the strips so it would appear as a shaggy sheep but the ends wanted to stick out straight like a sore thumb rather than hanging downward.  For now will leave those few ends and see if that provides the look.  If not then I'll trim them down like we do most ends.

If anyone would like to join in the Facebook Out of Hand Rug Hookers Challenge click on the link and ask to be part of the event.  

Out of My Hooking Slump!!!

Yippee, glad to be out of that slump.  So now the Sheep and Daffodil Challenge is on my frame with some loops pulled.  Hey, not many are pulled but at least I've finally chosen grass and flower stem colors.  

What caused my slump was the drive to pick colors for the flower stems from my worm bags ~ that is what caused the derailment and hooking slump.

The sheep colors were always a known factor.  Okay, here is a SNEAK PEAK of a flower and sheep.  Har har har....just want to give you a bit of a tease here.  

Seems there is a photo of the challenge piece done in needlepunch by Betty Dekat which is on Facebook.  Think others are giving sneak peaks like me there too.  But none revealing too much.

Am hoping tomorrow I might give you a better picture if loops can be pulled.  Since this is now fun perhaps the hooking will go a little faster. Sure hope so. 

Have a great evening everyone.

Saundra

A Rug Show

As I'm not quite ready to show my little bit of progress on the OOHRH Sheep challenge piece yet thought you needed some sort of blog fix. Yes, I did finally decide on the grass and stem color of the daffodils and am presently out of my slump.  But it has been two days since I posted and figured you needed to see a little something here.

First is a yarn sewn rug on a footstool hooked approximately 1830, according to the auction site.  It is mounted on a madder base footstool, hooked with cotton and wool.  The legs of the foot stool are visible and I chose to not crop those out of the photo.

Below is a hooked deer with a scroll edge.  Sorry, don't have any other facts.

Below is a landscape with animals and birds.  No other information other than my visual observations, lol.

A very faded floral center and geometric border hooked rug, don't know the date but has seen some use in it's time.

Not sure if I've shown you this antique horse rug below before or not. But in looking at it closely (tap on the photo is you want to enlarge it), notice the frightened look in the horse's eye.  I'm thinking this is a race horse or show horse who was getting his legs bound (or unbound), got spooked and darted off.  Those are wrapped legs not natural 'socks'. Not sure what the proper term was but as a kid when talking about our horse we referred to light colored hair near the hoof as a sock.

I love this whale rug which sold for $28,000 by 1stdibs.  One day I want to hook it.  Think Maria Barton did an adaptation of this design too, and was wonderful.

The rug with all the cats below is great and a good adaptation.  But if you look closely it appears the edge is whipped with wool which definitely wouldn't have been done years ago.  But whoever hooked it did a darn good job making it look old, dirty and worn.  If anyone knows who hooked it I'd love to give credit and know who I should be envious of for their talents.

This rug is quite colorful and question its antiquity with the colors and scallop edge.  Unfortunately I cannot read the information below the rug so don't know any other info.

For years I've wanted to hook the 3 Bears rug.  My grandson is into football, soccer, baseball and Nascar so no bears for him.  Maybe one day I'll tap into my inner child and hook it just for me.

Well chickadees, time for me to fix my salad, heat up the homemade soup and then hook.  Sadly I haven't made the artisan bread recipe that Kim of Millie's Mats spoke of but have purchased the yeast.  So now my plan is to make the bread the day I make some homemade chicken rice soup.

Have a great evening everyone and please be kind to one another.  

Saundra

Hooking Slump

I actually titled the blog post "Let the Journey Begin".  But that didn't really happen...yet.  Instead think the title should be what it is now.  

That soon to be journey would be the Out of Hand Rug Hookers Spring Sheep Challenge, otherwise known as OOHRH. You will have to join the group in order to participate in the challenge but that is the easy peasy part.

The pattern has been drawn on linen and chose to draw mine out at 18 x 25 so those dainty daffodils would be a bit bigger.

As this is a challenge among many of us hookers wanted to make it a personal challenge for me too.  That challenge would be to use as many leftover strips of wool as possible.

It is one thing when you take a class at a camp and you can't carry your suitcase full of worms with you.  BUT at home you have those baggies accessible.

Since daffodils are a spring flower that means there would be a spring green grass, right?  So I dumped out my huge collection of greens on the table.

Then began picking grass (the bright) and flower stems (the darker). The colors don't meld well to me.  Plus flat colors don't do it for me any longer.  Flat (non-textured) are great for certain things but as I'm color planning the challenge rug am not ready to start.

Tomorrow will be looking to see what wool yardage will be used for the grass and flower stems.  Meanwhile I'm doing what I hate to do.... that is BIND a rug.  Am now on my second horse mate.

Check back to see if I get out of my hooking slump.

Saundra

One Down Two to Go

After having now collected 3 hooked mats it was about dang time for me to start binding before starting yet another rug.  That next one is a spring sheep challenge offered by Out Of Hand Rug Hookers (OOHRH). If you would be interested in joining the group and participating, click on the link above.

Here is the antique adaptation.  Well, with the addition of a bunny. After planning on hooking just the horse old Brownie seemed lonely so added the bunny.  It appears there is a little farm yard gossip being shared between "Old Brownie and Bunny".

Below is the original horse shape I went for.  As you can see I took some creative liberties.  Some time would like to hook one like the original.  It was, after all, the old faded worn rugs which drew me to rug hooking.

Since my OOHRH challenge rug has been drawn on linen think a couple loops may be pulled tonight.  Am wanting to keep the daffodil idea on the rug and that may be what I tackle first to see if my idea works.  So stay tuned.  

Again, click on the OOHRH link early in the post if you've an interested in joining.  The deadline is May 1st and you can make it any size you want.  One person has chosen to do the design in needle punch.  Come on in......the water if fine!!!!

Have a good evening and please be kind to one another.

Saundra

The Rainbow Cabin Update

Happy to say that Rainbow Cabin is finally hooked.  Still needs to be steamed and bound but all hooked and can move on to the next project.

Now there are 3 mats needing to be bound.  Actually that isn't a problem since the two horse mats and this one are relatively small. Plus I'll have a couple appointments at which to bind during the wait in the office.

So now I am free to start the Out of Hand Rug Hookers Challenge.  I've printed the enlargement on paper to about 18 x 25.  But, it hasn't been drawn on linen yet.  Tomorrow I'll do that and pull some wool. 

I'm so happy to hear we can share our progress.  Part of me wondered what I'd have to blog about, plus I'd be so excited to share my progress and have no outlet.  Besides, that is how we all learn, right, by sharing?

If you are on Facebook and interested in joining the challenge you can read about joining the group.

Hope you have a great evening and know that I'm thinking of all my friends, family, whether cyber and personal.

Saundra

Wow... March 1st

Spring has shown its self thru the weekend and today with very mild temperatures.  We all wished for this mild temperature to pass the winter freeze and snow.  Soon we'll be complaining about the heat and humidity, such is life.

Below is a stitchery I did around 1997 and is Angel of March.  It was supposed to be a quilt block but never made it to the quilt part.  And doubt my sweet daughter-in-love will do that since she isn't a sewer. Sweet Cathy loves everything I make and loves the handmade gifts I give her but she doesn't know how to sew on a button.  UH, but my son does, lol.

Below is an applique which was done about the same time.  This was also a 12 month designed pattern of applique and stitched words which hasn't been made into a quilt either.  They are just used as a table decoration for entry of the new month.

Tonight my plans are to finish the background hooking of the Rainbow Cabin and hope to print the Out of Hand Spring Challenge pattern tomorrow.  

If any of you readers are interested in checking out the sheep design and considering joining please click HERE or that link above which is longer.  It is free.

Have a great evening.

Saundra