and MORE NORTH BAY PIX…

Oh yesterday we had such fun – Wendy came over and she and I and Sandi and Diane created all day. Wendy is one of the most creative people I know – give her a piece of junk and she turns it into a piece of beauty! Today it is back to the junk man to pick up the bedframe for the garden – but hmmm guess we should have thought this one through a bit more as I don’t think it WILL FIT ANY OF THE CARS! So we are bringing the trailer along – could that possibly mean –  MORE ROOM !!! for more junk!!! Was this PLANNED!!!

Here are a few more cleaned up (somehow my photos always come out cockeyed – I wonder if I have one leg shorter than the other!!!) photos of rugs from this past weekend:

anndddd MORE PICTURES…

Well first I thought I would tell you about our trip to the junk man yesterday – I am sure we lost a few pounds!  33 degrees and humid and hmmm stuck in a barn with no air! Then stuck in the house suffering from heat prostration and claustrophobia but we found wonderful items. I found an old round grater – have been looking for one for ages to use as a punched tin candle surround and love it!!! unfortunately it was the only one or I would have bought more! Also found a piece that used to be attached to a bureau – it has a nice reddish colour which will show up even better once it is CLEAN. I have a tiny antique rug I want to hang from it and then either set it on a table or hang it on the wall. Diane and I split on a head and footboard from an old metal bed – have not picked that up as darn it would not fit in the car around Gord’s golf clubs! It is painted white with some wonderful rust! and dinged up tarnished brass balls on the corner posts. I will take one end and Diane the other and this will go into the garden for climbing flowers. Diane found a beautiful flower frog for her hooks etc. and an old chair with no seat to go in her garden with a pot of flowers in it and some wonderful legs (table legs!!!). So on the way home because we were SO dehydrated and hungry we stopped in Westport for the best darned icecream in Ontario – Kawartha! Death by Chocolate! ahhhhh what a great day! Today it is hooking and crafting items for centerpieces… another great day… More pictures tomorrow of the rugs from the annual…

MORE PIX FROM THE ANNUAL RUG SHOW IN NORTH BAY…

Well off today to the junk man but before I go I thought I would post a few more pictures.

LONG TIME SINCE MY LAST POST…

But I do have an excuse – getting ready for the OHCG Annual in North Bay. Now North Bay is a 5 hour drive from where I live – have not been there in hmmmmm 30+ years! Back then it was a smaller town! of course back then everything was smaller! I was a vendor for the first time at an annual – panicccccc big time as I had no idea what to expect as a vendor. I have  only ever attended as a buyer! a BIG buyer! So off we trotted on Friday morning with an SUV so packed that we could not see out the back window – hmmmm might have overdone it a bit! I think there were about 16+ vendors!!! I realised I was a very little fish in a very big pond 🙂 So in between sales what did I do – yup you guessed it – I went and bought from most of the other vendors! But I had a wonderful weekend. Reconnected with so many people I had not seen in years, got to talk rughooking allllll day long with people who know this is not the “traditional” hooking i.e. latchhooking (yup I get that comment so often!). Got to spend an evening with the girls eating way too much and hooking and the drive was wonderful although we did not spot any moose (my neck on the way home last night was getting rather sore from peering into every swampy wetland area we drove by looking for the elusive moose!)

The theme of this show was All about Bugs and let me tell you – NORTH BAY HAS ITS SHARE! The blackflies are the size of swallows and swarm! I had forgotten how bad they can be – big hunks of flesh removed, blood flowing freely. But the bug rug display was fabulous and fun. So I am going to post a few pix every day for the next few days – a feast for the eyes. Enjoy!

AND MORE PIX TO TEMPT…

Today our tour starts – 10 – 5. These are pix of a few of my other artists – Wendo our felter (check out the grinning sheep!!!), Cindy our mosaic artist and Janet our weaver. Oh will I make it through the weekend without buying – hmmm not sure I will make it through the DAY!!!… Oh and just a little update on the mouse explosion – we drove the little mouse to Australia yesterday (well for him it probably was like going to the other end of the world) and!!! NO MOUSE THIS MORNING OR LAST NIGHT OR DURING THE NIGHT! sooooo that little guy was heading right back into the house everytime we let him(her) go! So hopefully this is the end – well at least for the week or 2 it takes for him to make it back…

SOME PIX TO TEMPT YOU…

I thought I would start posting pix of the artist’s who have already set up their work for the weekend. Here you can see some of the work of Debbie Gilmer our potter, Steve and Karen Henderson our salvage artists and my own work. Tomorrow I will post pix of the work of Cindy Laneville, Wendo Van Essen and Janet Whittam.

HOLY COW…

Can it really be almost a week since I last posted? But it has been a busy busy week!!! 2 day fun Red Trillium Studio Tour in Carp last weekend and then this week emptying the living room in anticipation of my 5 guest artists arriving, setting up my own rugs and cleaning (ugh!!!) the studio and house and reorganizing, dyeing wool, making up ordered kits and CHASING MICE!!!

Don’t mice realise that at this time of year they are much better off outside in the warm temperatures nibbling on my gardens rather than inside a trap surrounded by 4 cats!!!! I know there is a mouse in the trap when in the middle of the night my cat Peanut whines outside the bedroom door. Got up at 1 the other night and sure enough she ran right for the empty cupboard that houses the trap and there was the little mouse – off he went to the garden; 1 1/2 hour later rattle rattle rattle – another mouse in the trap – off to the garden! then at 4 a.m. rattle rattle rattle – ANOTHER MOUSE!  In 24 hours we caught 7 mice in the trap – ORRRR the same mouse 7 times! This mornings mouse is going walkabout! off to the end of the driveway – almost a km away – where hopefully he will not find his way back and maybe!!!! we will be mouse free. Although last night as I was responding to emails I heard scurrying in the ceiling of the basement and all 4 cats almost ended up with whiplash as their heads whipped from side to side and eyeballs rolled trying to track the noises in the ceiling!

So enough with the mice! Today my guest artists arrive for our 3 day studio tour – Saturday to Monday. I have amazing artists here – Steve and Karen Henderson who recycle old farm equipment into funky garden ornaments and furniture, Janet Whittam who is a master weaver of clothing and home dec items and baskets, Cindy Laneville who recycles old windows and tables etc. into beautiful mosaic glass pieces, Debbie Gilmer who makes wonderful celtic inspired pottery and new this year Wendo Van Essen with her fun felted items. Check out our tour at www.artatwork.ca/westport_studiotours for pictures of our work and info on the rest of our tour and how to get here. During the weekend I will try to post some pictures of everyones work.

Have not hooked much lately but last weekend I did finish off a pattern I have had for a few years. I hooked it up in mostly recycled wools and I think it looks very old and muted which is the look I was trying to achieve. Most of this week I have been trying to get the show binding finished on Apothecary Rose! and working on my project for my fish packing box/soon to be tray (found some recycled handles which I will try to either tarnish more (rust is good!) or paint black. Gord is very happy that as he says FINALLY THE JUNK IS BEING USED FOR SOMETHING! He actually loves the chicken rug on the egg box and hopes it does not sell!!!

ANOTHER ALANA RUG DONE…

but not by me!!!! by Alana. It is such fun!!!  Hmmm do I dare hook this one now?

So what have I been doing all week that prevented me from hooking – I DID attach my chicken legs rug to the egg crate and it worked wonderfully and looks so good! And I painted a chippy peely white shelf that I had bought for 15.00 at Ballycanoe (well maybe 20.00). Had seen a beautiful yellow one in the shop that was a bit more than I wanted to spend. Then Gord found this wonderful one out in the barn that was so inexpensive. But it was white – and hmmm I am not a lover of white – in my house! My walls are dark and I use a lot of dirty autumn colours in my decorating so white hmmmm. I do have a wonderful yellow hutch that is a repro but looks OLD and grungy – wanted to match the look of that so I painted the shelf YELLOW!!! but the trim along the top is a mix of green and red. Then I sanded it down and some of the chippy stuff flaked off to the white under the yellow. Antiqued it with some burnt something oil paint which just filled in some of the cracks and holes and dirtied things up just enough to make it look like it had been painted long ago and then attached 3 wonderful hooks that already had yellow paint on them. Even had some left over rusty painted screws (although 2 were a bit long so we  had to grind off the tips!) et voila! My wonderful yellow shelf! Over my Maud rug in the pantry. However, now I realise my Maud rug is just a tad too short in width so I am rehanging it on a rod with probably finials at the end to make it look wider – well maybe no finials but just the rod. Anyway I am soooo happy with my shelf I may use the same technique on the big architectural piece I bought at Ballycanoe last visit that will be hung above my quilt in the stairwell. But that will happen AFTER this weekends studio tour in Ottawa and next weekends studio tour here. So not a bit of hooking all week!!

ST. HUBERT CHICKEN IS DONE…

I guess you need to have lived in Quebec to know St. Hubert Barbecue Chicken! Well my Chicken Legs (as I call it), Hen as Alana calls it or St. Hubert as Sharman called it is done! It was such a fun and fast pattern to hook – now I need to attach it to my egg box. Gord had a super idea this morning of actually mounting the box on legs so it could serve as an end table!!!!! Now he was thinking recycled stair rails (in keeping with the recycled egg box) and I was thinking hmmmmmmm wrought iron chicken legs (we do have a blacksmith on our upcoming studio tour! soooooo will see how far we get with that idea! So here is my finished (hooked at least) chicken rug…

This weekend I am part of the Red Trillium Tour in the west end of Ottawa (well way west!). You can visit the website at http://www.redtrilliumst.com. So busy busy busy getting ready for that. I realised there are some realllly wonderful artists on this tour so I am planning on doing my shopping before the tour even starts!!!

The following (long) weekend is our own Dandelion Gardens Studio Tour. I am so lucky – I have 5 other wonderful artists joining me at my home and studio for the weekend. Wonder if I will get away without buying – ha! not likely. On our tour this year we have 4  new studios and many new artists. You can find out all about our tour by visiting our website at www.artatwork.ca/westport_studiotours/dandelions/index.htm

OLDE FORGE HOOKIN AND MORE NEW PATTERNS…

Whew what a day yesterday – up at 4:30, left at 7 to drive up to Ottawa, set up started at 8:30 and done by 9 and hookin excitement until 3 then home by 6. I was so exhausted when I got home and could not understand why 🙂 until I realised I had not had anything to drink since 9 a.m.! So 3 bottles of water later I felt fine. Amazing the restorative powers of water!!! well and food! But what a fun day seeing old friends and meeting new hookers and ohhhhh the rug display at show and tell was fabulous. I have given up on my photographic (or lack thereof) skills and left that up to the official photographer Kathy. Photos of the hookin will be posted shortly on the Olde Forge website so check in in a few days to see the wonderful rugs that the over 70 hookers brought for show and tell.

So in addition to the Karla Gerard, Kapell, Karen Kahle, Woolen Memories, Not Forgotten Farm (and of course my own) patterns, I am now carrying a series by a wonderful designer from California – Kathy of Briarwood Folk Art. Kathy’s designs are inspired by antique rugs and those of Magdalena Briner Eby. These are the patterns I have in stock – please email me for size and price… (ooops numbers 2 and 4 are gone to a couple of ladies at the Olde Forge Hookin yesterday!):

ANDDDD for those of you who are in love with yarns hooked into your rugs Janie is having a big sale as show in the ad below:

STELLAR CELLAR YARN / YARD SALE SATURDAY MAY19  9AM to 4PMBIG NEWS:janie is discontinuing some great yarns,books, patterns & accessories to make way for new!Come early for great deals!