OHHHH CAMP IAWAH WATCH OUT…

This week is going to be bussssyyyy… Today Wendy and I start teaching a group of young girls how to become hookers 🙂 at our local Christian camp… our way of continuing the interest in rughooking but at a much younger age. Should be a fun week.

Thursday I will be vending at the Arts and Crafts show in Picton at the Fairgrounds on Main Street. I am located in the curling arena and ohhhhh noooooo I heard there is a vendor of antiques in the same arena! Sooooo…I fear I might be adding to my stash! For more info on the show check here:

http://prince-edward-county.com/annual-arts-craft-sale/

Weather has been wonderful lately so I have been spending a lot of time in the porch and on the dock hooking, finishing and reading about rugs (got a new old book on antique rugs that is wonderful – American Hooked and Sewn Rugs – Folk Art Underfoot). Mostly I have been working on finishing the placemats and hooking my Olde Crow  for a customer in Pennsylvania. Have not started anything new but ohhh the book has inspired so many rugs in my mind…

Heather visited the other day and I wanted to show you a picture of her fun fun rug – her old fashioned cutlery drawer:
and Laurie’s Poppy Purse – finished…

and Linda’s repurposed mirror bought for hmmm a couple of dollars at a yard sale:

KAREN’S HOOKIN…

Have not posted in a few days so I do have a few pictures to share. Ruby and the girls visited the other day. After oohing and ahhing over their rugs – completed and in progress – Cap’n Hiliner took us for a boat ride. It was a lovely day. Here are some pix of their rugs:

Ruby’s hooked up Winter’s Day – a pattern I carry by Fully Wooly Primitives…

Pearl’s scrappy squares – made up of – yes SCRAPS…

Jane’s Scrappy Rug – love the fact that you can really use up all those small pieces in rugs like these… 

Jane’s small mats – the oak leaf was her first ever hooking…

The little poppy will become a pillow on this beautiful green wool…

Jane’s hooked BAA BAA…

Ruby’s version of a Martina Lesar pattern… 

which she is making into a stool cover…

and finally – Ruby’s version of Sharon Smith’s Puppy Love

Yesterday was Karen’s hookin. What a beautiful beautiful day – not as hot and humid (although warmer than we were expecting) so a huge turnout of hookers working on so many different rugs it was overwhelming. And yup my camera was overwhelmed – tried to take pix of some of the rugs and the lens got stuck, shutter open, no blinking – must have been the darn batteries and yup it was. But this time I really do have to blame myself for NOT CHARGING THOSE RECHARGEABLES! I did get a few pix of Karen’s rugs in the house before the camera died (so  why did I not have a pocketful of recharged batteries – blame it on my own personal non charged battery!!!!)… But here are a few of Karen’s amazing rugs…

A huge floor rug in really wide cut (probably hand torn). I walked on it barefoot and ohhhhhhh it felt wonderful…

Another hand torn clipped and prodded big wall hanging…

And another… 

NOD TO JEWEL TONES COMPLETED…

Despite the heat, humidity, scary weather (tornado warnings Saturday and scary cloud formations and thunderstorms – downed tree on the hydro line that Gord decided to try to remove untilllll he felt the electricity coursing through his body!) etc. I have managed to do some hooking. Finished the fish rug using the jewel toned red, teal and gold and have it sitting in the fish packing box. It needs to be cleaned up a bit and then glued into the box. Then I want to find some really funky (or make) fish related handles and this will become a tray. To cover it with a piece of glass or not is now the question. It will be glued in with clear kitchen/bathroom silicone so that if need be it can be removed. I will have to decide on a name for this colourful fish – my quick nod to jewel tones before heading back to oh so dirty. But I am happy with the way the colours look on the creamy taupe background (the photo is once again much brighter than the actual real life colours). And I used one of my salvaged pieces of nostalgic junk!

Sandi’s husband Bill is making these wonderful cutter stands – clamp your cutter onto this stand – no matter what cutter you have and no more worrying about whether it will clamp onto a table or not. Comes with a little rubber no skid mat to stop the stand from moving while you are cutting and folds down for storage or toting. All for the low low price of 45.00. So if you need a stand for your cutter contact me and Bill will be happy to take your order.

ROSE HAVEN FARM STORE…

in Picton – my favourite store for textures to add to my hooking – has been sold!!! Linda (the current owner) is moving to Ecuador! The store has been bought by Lesley who will continue to provide us with fabulous yarns, sari silks, roving etc. that we can add to our hooked rugs. The next few months will be a transition period with hmmm LOTS OF SALES so if you want to see what is for sale currently check out  www.rosehavenfarm.net. The newsletter lists a ton of wonderful yarns that are 25% off. So if you are in the Picton area drop into Rose Haven on Main street and load up on those wonderful yarns etc. Remember the theme of 2014’s Annual – texture!

Next Thursday I will be at Karen Kaiser’s hookin as a vendor – check out Karen’s website for details – a wonderful day on the river (lets hope for slightly less hot and humid weather! but no rain!). Hope to see you there…

Had another fun day at Stitch by Stitch in Kingston – we had a number of rughookers dropping in to hook in NO HEAT AND HUMIDITY in the shop. I think we have have “hooked” another (one or 2). Next morning at SbyS is August 21 10 – noon (or thereabouts!)…

STITCH BY STITCH…

I will be there Wednesday from 10 – 12 so if you need wool or kits, cutters to cut your wool, help or just want to sit and hook in a lovely AIR CONDITIONED ENVIRONMENT why not drop in… Wednesday is supposed to be a reallllllly stinker of a hot humid day.

Recently, I was given the opportunity to buy some used wrought iron stands – I believe these had previously been used for studio tour signs but they were being sold of at 10.00 each. WEEEEELLLL I never let an opportunity go by where I can buy old stuff to be repurposed (as what hmmmmm not sure) but they looked so good in the picture I bought 2 and got one for a friend. When we finally were able to pick them up (they were huge and needed a big vehicle) one went to a new home in Quebec with friend Diane and the one I picked up for Linda already found its way into her house where it currently is used as a stand for her mosaic glass window (mine on the other hand hmmm still in the garage! although I do have a mosaic glass window I too could hang off my stand). Here is Linda’s – looks wonderful for 10.00 doesn’t it!

So the corded show binding is actually going really well on the mats – people kept telling me – it will become easier every time you do one. Well 4 mats later and yup much easier! and I really like the look but I think on a bigger rug with thicker cording it would be reallllly nice. In the meantime, I started hooking the mat for the fish packing box in those teals and reds and golds. At first holy cow, it was tough. The colours reallllly were a little (well make that a LOT) out of my comfort zone. However, I kept at it and threw in a background that is very neutral, cool taupes and hmmmm it makes those other jewel tones (which now look a lot less dirty than I originally planned) really sing. Sooo this will be my nod to Jewel Tones before heading back to dirty old primitive colours!

INSPIRED BY THE OLD…

Rughooking magazines that is. Recently I decided it had been years and years since I perused my 15+ years of rughooking magazines so I started pulling them off the shelf. Ohhhhhh I had forgotten the wonderful articles and pix that abound in these magazines. For some reason there seem to be more primitive related articles than appear in the current issues of RHM – and I LOVE PRIMITIVE. Found an article on rugs hooked by various people using the patterns of Laurilyn Wiles (Vermont Folk Rugs). Ohhhh I love these whimsical patterns and love the colours that were being used in the hooked versions – deep teals, deep reds, deep golds all with an aged “dirty” look. Exciting wonderful colours that have inspired some new dyeing. Yesterday I dyed a pile of teals – a kind of muddy teal because of the wools that I over dyed but lovely. I used 1/2 TSP of Cushings Dark Green and 1/4 TSP of Cushings Turquoise over hmmmmm a LOT of wool (about 13 fat 8ths) in lights to darks so got a  lovely variety to start planning with. Next  an old red and then the mustardy gold (from the dye book of Susan Quicksall – Dyeing for Color) and hmmm next the design! Yup a little backwards! But don’t we occasionally let colour inspire the design. I have an old fish packing box that I want to turn into a tray (obviously not to be used!!! as such!) with a fish rug and I plan to use all these new colours. Teal is not a colour I have used much in the past but hmmm “dirty teal” could become a new staple!

(the colours are actually a bit more aged and deeper than the photo – darn pix never turn out looking exactly like the real thing!)

So if you, like me, have a huge collection of books and magazines you have not looked at in a while – pull them out and let them inspire you! Now – beautiful cool dry day so down to the dock with some stitching!

PROBABLY NOT MY SMARTEST IDEA…

Today I am starting the finishing of 7 mats that were commissioned anddddd I decided to try a new (well for me it is new) finishing technique I saw recently being done by my friend Barb. This finishing technique involves sewing on a show binding that has a cord inserted – it looked pretty simple and so far is proving to be not toooooo difficult (until I get to the butting together at the end which could be a tad fiddley) but hmmmm one should NEVER try a new finishing technique when one has 7 pieces to finish in the same way UNTIL one knows that it actually works! Time will tell as my goal is to get at least half of them done today (well make that 4!). So if it works well this will be a new and hopefully fun way to finish off some of my rugs. This summer I want to try out a few new (or old) finishing techniques. I know we all get tired of doing the same old, same old and that is why so many of us have projects that are hooked, pressed and just waiting to be finished BUTTTTTT if we can make it more interesting and more fun by trying some new finishes hmmmm maybe those projects will get done!

ADDENDUM…

Internet went down in the middle of writing this blog post so I finished one mat. Definitely not my smartest move – a lot more work and more fiddly than I expected especially on a small piece. On a larger rug I think it would be a wonderful finish – on a small piece hmmmm not sure. I like the look of it but there were a lot of steps involved and now I am committed to doing 6 more mats this way – SOOOOO I don’t think I will be doing 4 today – 2 is questionable!!!

Last week we had company and thankfully my company loves to go antiquing and junking! My rusty old wagon wheel is firmly installed now on the lake side of the house, filled with wonderful little ground cover plants and being used as my new-old umbrella stand. I LOVEEEE my little garden. The stool has yet to be fixed (Gord banged on it and broke one of the slats so that will need to be replaced) and covered with a hooked rug. Then when cousin Helen and her hubby were here we discovered ALMONTE. I have been going to Almonte for years to do fiberfest in September but I never realised what a beautiful little town this is – lovely old architecture, wonderful little shops and restaurants and ohhhhhh manyyyy junk and antique stores! So this was my purchase on Friday (when Gord found out he did not have to cut grass at Camp Iawah we decided to spend the day in Almonte). This vintage laundry basket came with a horrid plastic liner (which was promptly dumped) and is currently full of some of my rugs and pillows but will be great at shows filled with wool or patterns! And all for the low low price of 20.00. I think this was a wonderful find:

FOOTSTOOLS AND MORE…

Whew the heat, the humidity – not conducive to hooking IF YOU DON’T HAVE AC! So have been spending a lot of time indoors – humidity and I are not great friends! And I have been hooking!!!! And so have other people. Here are a few lovely pieces completed by friends recently:

Julie’s finished Muskokas…

Jane’s finished M. Shaw chicken chairpad with prodded edge…

And here are pix of some of our finds at one of my favourite local junkin’ spots – Millers in Rideau Ferry. I am glad there were so many people there buying the day we went because holy cow I am going to have to lose weight if I expect to make it through the narrow aisles. Stuff is stacked to the ceiling and held in place with wires (well some is) but more and more is being added so as I pass through the aisles sideways I have to suck it in and not breathe until I get to the other end. But a LOTTTT of new goodies to be had (well some made it to my house and Dianes!)…

my fun unusual footstool…

Diane’s 2 wonderful primitive stools…

Diane’s beautiful window!!!…