The Witch is Confused!

The Witch who resides in the corner of the studio is very confused.  I think she is a little miffed to be quite frank.  Her rug hooker necklace gleams and sparkles while she watches the stuffing, red and green hand dyed wool and tiny beads fly around the studio.  "Nothing orange and black my Dearie?" she cackles.    

With only a few short weeks before the Christmas Craft Show the studio looks more like Santa's Workshop.  So be silent silly Witch!  Monday evening you may fly back to the shadows in the corner of the Halloween box and not be forced any longer to watch the tiny hand stitched ornaments, hand hooked feather tree mats, little bird pin cushions, felted wool acorns and more taking shape on the worktable. 





I'll share more details soon.  I must go limber up my fingers and take a cup of Witches Brew to calm the nervous Witch in the corner!
Have a Spooky one my Dearies!!
Cathy G

Plan B

Thought you might enjoy seeing this photo of the big maple in our neighbors yard now that all the leaves  are gone!  It is still a beauty with or without its leaves.





It was another gorgeous day here in Northern WI!   I think mother nature is trying to lull us into thinking winter won't come this year! Ha! Fat chance of that!  LOL! This whole next week is supposed to be nice though! 
Makes it hard to stay indoors and concentrate on my projects in the studio.  


The last couple of weeks after finding out that my rug hooking class was not going to take place I had to shift gears and engage plan B.   All along I had a feeling ( intuition if you will Julia! )   that this time of year is not a good time for most people to take a class.  I will try again in Feb. to teach another class at the tech. school.  A much better time of year  for being indoors and when people are thinking of perhaps learning a new craft or hobby.  So what is my plan B?


I need to have some sort of way to raise some moolah to start paying for that Townsend cutter I bought a while back.  So I have decided to participate in a well established craft show that is held once a year  here in the parochial school.  The proceeds from show admittance and food goes to help the school and students.  It has been a very well attended show with lots of crafters and vendors.  It is held each year on the Sat. in Nov. when deer hunting season opens.  Deer hunting season in WI is celebrated like a Holiday! LOL!  When the menfolk  head for the woods ( although lot's of women hunt too) women go in droves to the sales, shops and shows held through out the area. 


So....... crafting it is for this rug hooker!  Oh yes, I plan to exhibit a rug or two and I am working on one right now that I will offer for sale! 




Here's a sneak peak of some of the things I am making!  Let me just say there is a lot of stitching and stuffing  going on! All the  fussy work gets a little tedious sometimes for this old gal! LOL!  But I crank up my rock and roll music and listen to the Dr. Laura Berman Show on XM radio..... ( all the sex talk  keeps me awake  LOL! ) and the time has been FLYING by!


Here is the rug I hope to sell.  It is a free pattern called Spirit Moose by Wanda Kerr on the Welcome Mat.  I changed the antlers a bit to resemble a deer more than a moose. This was a super fun pattern to hook and went rather quickly.  It measures 17 1/2 by 13 1/2 inches. 




Today I was looking at the rug thinking a braided border to finish it might be nice.  Do you like the looks of it?   I have never put a braided border on a rug before.  I thought why not try it on this one!  I have always admired them on rugs I have seen using this technique.  I did the braiding and am now trying to figure out how to attach it to the rug.  I'm usually pretty good at figuring things out but may have to see if there are some videos on You Tube showing how it's done.  Feel free to comment if you have done this technique and there are things I should be aware of. More to follow in the next few days as I create and stitch my way to the craft show!  Cathy G

Going Nuts!

I know I've been absent from the blogging scene lately.  You see things have been going a little nutty here in more ways than one!   I have been having thyroid issues again.   The good Doc is trying to get me straightened out and has set me up to go see an Endocrinologist.  I guess I knew this would be my ultimate fate.  The medication I'm on works for awhile and then my symptoms which are severe fatigue, severe aching in my legs, and general feelings of depression come back.

To make a long story short I have been feeling like crap. Some days it's a struggle to put one foot in front of the other.  As of last weekend the medication adjustment must be helping a little as I actually felt like doing something today!

So guess what I did! 

Well, Lauren over at Rugs and Pugs was kind enough to send me a box full of Black Walnuts. I've always been curious about them as it seems we don't have many Black Walnut trees growing around here. I've always wondered about making dye for wool out of them.   So sweet Lauren gathered up some nuts to send and while she was at it tucked in one of her awesome 'Rug Hooker' silver spoon necklaces she makes!  Now how's that for being sweet!?  The necklace is sweet as can be and is a permanent part of my studio decor when I'm not wearing it!  Thank-you Lauren!  

So those nuts sat around here for a few days with me looking at them and wondering how the heck do I make dye from them? 

Reading whatever I could get my eyes on about preparing them for dye I realized I had to get the hulls off first.


EWWEEEE!  Ugly little suckers aren't they!!  Wear gloves if you ever attempt to do this or your hands will be forever a bright yellow!  Good for Halloween maybe!


I'm using an old tin snips but a heavy pair of scissors would work too.





Judging by the brown color I see on the paper towels where the nuts are drying after hulling I think the dye should be a beautiful brown shade.


They look a lot better after the hulls are off!  Actually they are real pretty.


After hulling I decided to boil a few of them with some of that icky brown stuff still left on to see what would happen.  I threw in some vinegar and let it simmer.


Then I got the brainy idea to put the hulls in a crock pot and let them simmer with some salt and vinegar. Use an old crock pot that you don't intend to use for food again.   I use this one for dying wool and don't use it for food we are going to eat!






I decided to freeze some of the fresh hulls for use later on. Use jars as I read that the acid over time would eat through plastic.  Sounds scary so I just used glass jars.  Be sure and label them so hubby doesn't think it's beef jerky or something!  








I couldn't resist throwing a small piece of white wool in the pot simmering on the stove. Boy, it took up so fast that I didn't leave it in there long!  Remember.... this is only experimental on my part.  I'll have to let you know how it turns out after it simmers for awhile.  I think the brown color is quite attractive!   I just checked the crock pot which I put out in the garage to let it cook as I also heard they can be smelly.  Well the garage smells like boiling walnuts, a smell I haven't experienced until today.  Not bad at all!  Just kind of earthy. Like you would expect from some kind of nut I guess. 
More later...... oh and in case some of you are wondering about my beginning rug hooking class it didn't get off the ground this time for lack of students.  Probably just as well as I started feeling so poorly just as the class would have started.  There's always an upside to the downside!  Plan B is in full swing and I'll tell you more about that later too!
Cathy G

Hooked Rugs as Art Exhibit-Anderson Cntr. Redwing, MN

Smokey and me getting a close-up view of Wanda's Loon by Water!

 Yesterday on one of the finest fall days you will ever encounter in Northern WI  My Hubby, our two dogs, and myself journeyed two and a half hours by car ( not horses! LOL) to Redwing Minnesota.  The Anderson Art Center was hosting a spectacular Hooked Rugs as Art Exhibit put on by Mary Ann Wise and Friends from Wisconsin. Twenty Two rug artists from North and South America participated making this one of the largest exhibitions of hooked rugs to be shown in the region.


Mary Ann Wise is a nationally known hooked and woven rug artist and has been published in Fiber Arts, Country Home, American Craft and others. In 2009 she introduced the art form to the fair trade groups in Guatemala. 
 So without further spiel........ the rugs!   ( only a few of the many many on display) 




Yessica Calgua (Guatemala)   100% Recycled fabric on cotton ground cloth

Eric Sandberg (Georgia)Wedding Dance


Towers of Light-2010Molly Dye (Vermont)


Tool Box- Various threads( cotton,wool, silk, rayon etc.) on woven cottonAnne-Marie Littenberg (Vermont)

Soyla Calgua ( Guatemala) 100% recycled fabrics on cotton ground

One of the rooms at the center where the rugs were displayed

Tish Murphy's rugs ( Minnesota)

Race PointMolly Dye (Vermont)  Love this rug with all the different fibers she used ( notice the fringe around the roof top on the far left!  Lots of sparkly yarns too!)


Present Times- EarthboundTish Murphy ( Minnesota)100% wool on cotton backing


Canary's Lament-2011Mary Anne Wise (Wisconsin)In private collection



Light by WaterWanda Kerr (Ontario)Wool through Linen


Gee's Bend RecalledJan Mostrom (Minnesota)

ForrestJoan Lavine (Minnesota) 

End Times- ApocalypseTish Murphy ( Minnesota)

Big Boned Girls and Taking a BreakDeanne Fitzpatrick (Novia Scotia)


Carmen Maldonado ( Guatemala)100% Recycled fabrics on cotton ground cloth    Loon by WaterPeace by WaterBorn by WaterWanda Kerr ( Ontario)I have to say the favorite part of the exhibit was seeing Wanda Kerr's rugs up close and personal!  Oh yes Wanda, I looked at the backs and checked everything out!  I went back twice or more to see them again!  I think I even saw a Birdie( Wanda's kitty) hair on one! Just kidding!
Cathy G

A Mighty Maple

You could say we have a love affair going with trees here in Northern Wisconsin. Especially this time of year when the mighty maples turn the landscape into colors that dazzle and awe and call leaf peepers from everywhere to gaze upon the magic. 

This gorgeous maple in the above photo and my blog header is in my neighbors yard.   Dave and I hold this tree in special honor and cherish it for you see Dave planted it. Are you impressed?  I'll tell you it's hard for even us to believe how magnificent this tree has become.

In 1998 we sold the little house we lived in when we got married and bought the one directly across the street where we live now. I can look out my kitchen window and see our old house and this maple tree in the front yard everyday.      

Dave dug this tree when it was just a six foot sapling  from his parents farmland about thirty miles from here.  He transplanted it here in  1987 and we've been blessed to watch it grow daily to it's present height somewhere between forty or fifty feet tall!

We often marvel at how big and nicely formed it is. A gorgeous specimen of a sugar maple tree.  

It continues to baffle us how it grew so big in the twenty four years since it was planted. 

On Wednesday we took a  drive to the south shore of Lake Superior  on our annual trek to Bayfield WI.  A scenic drive to be sure. The leaves were spectacular but none really rivaled the ones we see each day out our own kitchen window. 

A leaf pillow I made from wool that was rolled up and simmered in a pot.  I've been saving the wool for when the right inspiration hit to make something.  Oak leaf cutouts are appliqued onto  black wool and stuffed with wool snippets and left over bits from rug hooking.





I also  made some pumpkins from my hand dyed wool. I've been creating and working on many many new things........ I will share soon!  Dave is on vacation, we're in the middle of many projects and helping my Mom with her basement project etc.  It's looking more and more like my plan B may have to go into effect.  No students have signed up yet for my beginning rug hooking class.  Monday is the deadline for signing up. We'll talk soon my friends!!
Cathy G