She tried to help!

My sister Michelle is an EMT who lives in Tempe, AZ.   She tried to help a woman who crashed her car into a house yesterday.   Michelle lives near where the accident happened.  The woman died while Michelle was holding her head.  There was an 18 month old baby in the car who survived.  Here is a news video of the event.   I'll tell you my sister is one strong woman.   Her son Terry served two tours in Iraq.  Nerves of steel I'll tell you!   Hugs to you Michelle if you read this.  You are my hero.   
                                       

Crazy

The Original Antique Rug

My Version

I've  made quite a lot of progress on my antique rug adaptation.  All the crazy elements in this rug are making me a little crazy.  As you can see by  looking at the photo of the original antique version above, the hooker from olden days did a lovely job making everything pleasing to the eye.  

My version is being hooked within a 10 1/2 by 21 inch space.  My elements don't have much breathing room.  If I were to hook this rug again I'd reduce the elements down a notch with more background space.  So you can see that I've eliminated a couple of those doo hicky things at the bottom and filled in with background colors instead hoping to gain a little more space and make the overall  design less busy.

If you"ll notice around the blue bird on the left I did a little technique know as tunneling. This is the practice of carefully hooking in a much narrower strip of contrasting wool between two standard size rows of hooking. Tunneling gives definition to a motif within a design. This technique is especially helpful in creating subtle definition for primitive faces, flowers, animal features and lettering.  I will be redoing that in a different lighter value wool cut a little narrower. 


There will be more reverse hooking and tweaking on this rug before I am finished.  Tomorrow it's back to the taxes covering my dining room table.  Knowing I have "antique crazy rug" waiting for me to come play is making the taxing chore of income tax reporting a little more bearable.  What I can't figure out is why the little bit of income I have to report is taking me so long to prepare!  It's just plain crazy!
                                                                    
                                                                    Cathy G

A Spark Ignites!

Life brings pleasant surprises every once in awhile.  They are especially welcome this time of year when the days are a little bleak, cold and sometimes frustrating.  The frustrating part of that includes the daily chores  which are  tackled with a kind of  forced gumption  or completely ignored like the "broccoli breath" that I noticed wafting from the throat-like drain of the real orange sink in my kitchen yesterday. The usual treatment of vinegar mixed with baking soda and poured down the fowl smelling pipe has  been neglected recently due to more pressing issues like taxes, pattern preparations, hours on the computer (working and Pinterest),  mother duties, wool fondling and sleeping.

So the pleasant surprise?  Yes indeed.  An email from Kelley Belfast of With Hook and Needle blog inviting me to join their group of talented ladies on Ebay called An American Primitive Gathering. You can find their  offerings on Ebay by clicking this link or typing in USAPRIM  in the search box on Ebay. There are some awesome punch needle pieces on there right now!

One of the things this group does is work together on a chosen pattern to keep each other inspired and motivated to keep hooking through dry spells. 

Dry spells, as in need new ideas, encouragement or possibly a new challenge to light the spark of creativity.  

The pattern Kelley brought forth is inspired by a neat antique rug that has inspired many rug hookers already to hook a version of it.

Some in the group are needle punching the design and some are hooking.

I chose to hook a smaller mat measuring 10 by 21 inches.

The photo above is the pattern I made by altering a photo of the rug in photoshop. By using the "find edges" tool and removing the color it leaves you with an outline of the main elements in the rug.

So here is my humble start.  I chose some plaid wools and lighter value textures to begin with. Of course there has been a little reverse hooking and I'm sure more as I progress. I have come to actually enjoy ripping out a line or two of something that isn't working.  I don't enjoy reverse hooking whole sections however and try to avoid that by really analyzing the way things look before I get too far along with one color.  

Our group would like to invite you to follow along with us by creating your own version either punching or hooking. You are welcome to drag or download the pattern of the photo above if you like.

I hear dogs whining for supper in the background..... or is that the sink burping again!

Cathy G

My First Rug Hooking Pattern For Sale!

I am celebrating my first paper rug hooking pattern for sale on my new selling blog today! 

You would think it a simple thing to get a paper pattern printed and ready to go.

NOT!

Living in a small town it took me five attempts at local businesses here to finally find an establishment to print one this size.  It is 17 by 19 inches.  He did a remarkable job with this as his business usually prints signs and decals and such.

I am very happy with the results!

So head on over to my selling blog Red House Wool Studio and take a look! 

More patterns will be offered as soon as I get them ready!

( maybe I'm getting too old for this!) 

Cathy G

Hooking a Log Cabin Square

Thank-you to everyone who commented on my last post about hooking a log cabin square. I threw out the question as to whether you like to start the hooking at the red square in the center or prefer starting at the outside edge and hooking the "border" first.

A few answered that you felt hooking the center first keeps your mat going on the square.  Then a few of you preferred hooking the outside border first stating you felt this kept the hooking more square.

Well, my thoughts  of course are there are no "written in stone" rules.  However ( I will exercise my "teacher rights" here a little) and say there might be a few "teensy tiny tips" that one could follow if you're after that nice, neat, clean looking square that we so often associate with hooking geometrics. 

I decided to go into my science lab mode and do a test hooking.  Here  are the Orange Sink lab results.

A. The first method started with hooking the red square in the middle first which kept the red square nice and even and I was able to control the shape and size of the red square a little better.

B. The second method starting at the outside edge actually seemed to frame the rug and gave me a straighter outside border than method A.  However when getting to the center I found the red square more difficult to fill and keep a nice square shape.  I might suggest starting at the outside edge and hooking about half of the mat that way then stop and hook your red square while you still have plenty of room to make it nice and square and even.  Then go back and continue filling in from where you left off. 

I hope you followed that.

You could of course hook the red square first. Then go to your outside border and begin hooking.

Start hooking with your dark value wool in the middle of one edge. Never start your hooking at a corner because you want the wool to form a nice solid corner and you don't want tails to deal with at a corner.  This is a RULE you must follow on all of your rugs because I'm the teacher and I said so.

With your darker value wool turn that corner nice and square then hook a couple of loops then start hooking with your light value wool.

Follow your pattern around the outside edge filling in in this manner.

See how nice and straight your little steps are where the dark and light values meet. 

The one on the left was hooked from the center going outward.  The one on the right was hooked beginning with the outside edge hooking to the center.  

I think they both look okay but the one on the right looks a little more square and even to me.

If you haven't tried hooking a log cabin square yet get out your linen and draw the pattern.  I know this can be hooked easily for seasoned hookers without drawing a pattern but for first time or newbie hookers it really helps to have some lines to follow.  These mats are 6 inches square.  The red square in the middle ends up being 1 inch square.  I used a number 8 ( 1/4 inch) cut strip.

For not much effort and a good learning experience you can have a little mat that looks like a million bucks!!

Enjoy Each Loop!!

Cathy G

p.s.  I have FIVE students signed up for class now!  If you are local and are interested in taking my beginning rug hooking class starting Feb. 23rd call WITC Rice Lake Campus and they will help you get registered.  Class size is limited to 10 students!  We're half-way there!  Yay!!