Borders and Hoarders

I'll explain the title of this post in a few minutes.  But first I want to bring you up to speed on how the Maggie B. rug is coming along.  In particular the decision I made on the border treatment.  

As you can see the border I am adding around the original pattern is quite wide (about 4 inches). I am adding the border because I want the rug to be more of a statement in the space for which it is destined. 

I have to thank Margaret Z. one of my dear blog readers for helping me with the decision to add the squiggly line you see on the very outside edge of the rug.  If you have the Maggie Bonanomi book from which this pattern is taken ( A Day at Sunny Brook) you can see a rug on page 46 that has a double squiggly line around the outside. Margaret was so kind to bring that rug to my attention suggesting that I might try something like that on my Tulip and Peony rug. Well...my brain lit up with excitement!  I had this vision of a hit-n-miss treatment in a wavy shape but I also felt I needed to bring the white of the peonies and white line ( actually a dirty cream) of the inside border to the edge of the rug.  I loved the idea of another line and had hooked a straight line for a few inches until Margaret brought my attention to the wavy lines.  Thank you Margaret! I do think it's what the rug would approve of!

What do you think of the wavy hit-n-miss thing I'm doing?!!  It is a little different that's  for sure! I hope I made the right choice there as I really don't want to reverse-hook  all of that area now! Oh mercy!  That would irritate me to shreds!!

So unless I hear different from anyone .... :-O  I am going to hook on doing the wavy hit-n-miss on the border!  

Now to explain the hoarders part of the title.

As some of you know from reading a few posts back,  Mr. O Sink and myself have been trying to downsize our collections this year and clean out the basement. In the midst of our own trials with this process we had to clean out his mother's apartment this summer as well.  I've come to the conclusion that we are all just hoarders by nature.  But I am bound and determined to beat the odds that we will die with a house full of junk  that someone else will have the job of disposing of.

Hubby has been doing pretty good on his end of the disposing.  Nearly 2000 Sports Illustrated magazines ( of which I am convinced would have reached to the moon if put end to end) have since been recycled and some of the more valuable ones sold.  That is just one of the collections.

This coming week-end there is a Flea Market at our local fair grounds.  It is only about a quarter of a mile from our house.  This is I think the third year they have held it and it looks to be a very popular event.  The booths are a bit pricey at 100 bucks each. But we talked it over and have decided to haul some of our "stuff" to this Flea. 

The weather forecast is for rain on Sat. The market is on Sat. and Sunday with set-up Friday afternoon.  We rented an indoor space  in one of the large commercial buildings so we should be okay unless the rain keeps the shoppers away.  But we're hoping for a crowd.  And in particular a crowd that hasn't seen the hoarders episodes on tv.

Cathy G. 

The Wool and Easy Beef Stew in the Crock Pot

So here is a photo of the wools before I cut them all up and hook them into my Maggie B. "Tulip and Peony" rug!  Man this rug is taking a lot of wool!  I'm hooking mostly in a 8.5 cut so it is hooking up quite quickly!  The difference between the 8 and 8.5 cut strip for speeding up the hooking is quite remarkable!  Anyone else notice this?

The progress so far.  I'm hooking on the very outside edge to see if it will help me to determine how I want to hook this border.  I'm leaning towards a simple wavy line and using all the wools in a hit-n-miss fashion.  Any ideas out there for me?  Mz. rug hasn't voiced any ideas as of yet.

Now for that easy Beef Stew in the Crock pot....

I took an arm chuck roast that was on sale this week at the market and browned the heck out of it using olive oil in a dutch oven on my little hot plate ( no stovetop yet).

While it was browning I chopped some onion, celery,  peeled a few ( 4-5) potatoes and cut in cubes, got out a package of baby carrots and washed them.

Then I tossed all the vegetables into the crock pot.  Added a little Wylers Beef Granules (about 1 heaping tsp.) Added about 1/4 cup of water and a  Tbsp. of Minute Tapioca.

Now take that browned Roast and plop it on top of the veggies in the crock pot and snuggle it down a little by scooping a few of the veggies up around the sides of the meat.

Now pour about half a can of Campbell's HomeStyle Zesty Tomatoe Bisque soup on top of the roast.

Turn on high an let cook for 4 hours.  If you want  it to cook all day (perhaps you need to go to work)  just put the crock pot on med.  

It was crazy delicious and I did not add any salt or other seasoning!  The soup has enough salt in it as far I'm concerned to warrant drinking a bottle of wine to cure the thirst!  LOL!

The wine of choice was this Gnarly Head Authentic Red from California. 

Feeling gnarly headed in Wisconsin. So I think I'll go hook on my rug!

Cathy G

The Anatomy of a Rug

I love looking at other people's rugs.  Getting close up to the hooking.  Looking at the back of the rug... examining each loop.   What intrigues me the most  is looking at the colors of the wool they used. 

When I'm hooking on my own rugs I often wonder what someone, perhaps a hundred years from now will think of my color choices.  Not that it makes one iota  of a difference what colors I choose now because I use what I like. 

I use what makes sense to me... my eye.  

That being said...  I think there has to be some sense of what colors look good next to each other.  That may be what keeps me so passionate about rug hooking.  With each rug there are new discoveries. Being surprised, delighted and downright flabbergasted at how a certain wool looks hooked and how it can change the look and color of the wool next to it! 

So far I have used 17 different wools in this rug. I have to remember to stack them all up tomorrow and take a photo in the daylight. 

There are browns, solids, plaids, eggplant, corals, antique rose.  Dirty sheep, creams, taupes, silver gray.  A gorgeous rusty, orangey, pumpkin plaid that I wish I had a bolt of!!

( rug design by Maggie Bonanomi~ Tulips and Peonies)

All along I am thinking about the outside border that I've added to make this rug larger.  My  drawings,  of which you can see around the outside edge will probably not make the cut. I have a couple of different ideas brewing. One is a simple wavy line in the Dirty Sheep wool and filling in with all the wools I've used in the rug. Hmmmmm.... I'm waiting for the rug to speak.  I will hear it... no matter where I am.  Sometimes I hear them call to me when I am in the shower... "Hey you... I would like the horizontal stripes in corals, browns and rusts for my border!  Are you listening?"

Oh I hear you rug... just hold your peonies... time will tell.   Let me get the rest of those funky leaves and stems hooked tonight and we shall talk!

Cathy G.

Midnight Hooker

Sounds like the title to a raunchy novel doesn't it?!!  LOL!   I may just have to get on that.  My opening paragraph could be something like "It was a full moon. The old hooker had one on the frame and one on the floor she was keeping an eye on. A box of colorful wool was within reach and she wasted no time stripping..."     Then again maybe a novel isn't such a good idea right this moment! LOL!

Seriously I did do a little midnight hooking on my Maggie B. rug.  In fact it was after 2:00 am when I finally put down the hook and crawled under the covers.  

I do think I am loving the wool choices so far. My background wool is taken from a box that must have 30 different pieces of dark brown wool, some plaids, stripes, solids, over-dyed tweeds etc. I am planning on using all that I can from this box so this may be the craziest background you've ever seen on a rug in your life! 

In this photo you can see the extra border I drew around the original border and where I added the additional linen.  Jacqueline had a question in the comments on my last post about adding additional material around the border of a rug after it has been zig zagged and prepared for hooking.  This is what I emailed her:

Hi Jacqueline,

Having the zig zag stitches around the perimeter of the pattern might present a problem to add additional linen. I have never tried hooking through those zig zag stitches although one could remove them ( ugh!  Would be very tedious and you take a chance you are going to cut the threads in the linen which would not be a good thing…).  I hadn’t stitched around the pattern yet on this one but had zig zagged around the outside edge to keep the linen from fraying.  I had enough linen to add about 4 inches to my pattern.  Which was just enough.  So we shall see how binding goes as where I attached the extra piece is pretty close to where I will be sewing on the binding. Don’t you just love a good challenge?!!  LOL!!

Cathy

If any one has ever added additional material to a rug ( to make it larger)  after you already zig zagged around it we would love to hear from you!

Of course my tip for the day would be to never zig zag around the pattern until you are absolutely sure that is the size you want the rug to be.  I usually forget to zig zag stitch until after I have hooked the whole rug anyway!  That is always fun sewing on the machine especially a larger rug. 

I know some people like to sew the binding on too before they start to hook.   I never do. I am always afraid I may want to add a little more border to my rugs and very often do. 

More to come.... but just wanted to show you my progress so far.  

Cathy G

It's been too long....

That's right... way too long since I've posted!  I apologize and hope to get back into the swing of things here on the blog!

 I'm working on another commissioned rug which I almost have done so I've decided to start a new rug just for me!  Me and my bathroom! It is a Maggie Bonanomi pattern from her book "A Day At Sunny Brook". 

 I actually drew the pattern out some time ago and never got around to starting it.  I really didn't know for sure where I would display it but I recently took a shelf down in the bathroom which held towels and the big blank wall just begged for a rug!  I've decided too that I needed to make the rug a little bigger than what I originally drew it. Which meant that I had to sew some material around the entire rug to fit over my frame when working on the edges of the rug.  Yes you can do that! 

So here is the hooking I started today. I am using some wool that I hand-dyed called "Dirty Sheep"! In this case it is used to hook dirty ironstone.  Did you notice my collection of old ironstone pitchers on the shelf in the bathroom?  Well they are my inspiration for the color.  As well as the color of my hair.... which is white and kinda dirty sheep looking I guess!  

Here is a selfie.... It looks like I have a black eye... well I don't... can't figure out why the photo turned out that way!  Anyway... the hair color is natural.  My hair is getting thinner as I get older.  Too bad that doesn't apply to the old body as well.... LOL!

I've been doing some wool appliqué lately also.  Have a few nice finishes to share with you as well but will wait for the next post.  I have to ease back into this blogging thing.... 

Cathy G.