The Cheticamp frame is gone gone gone! Moving to a new home where soon a bigggggg rug will rest on it.
In the meantime, Karen sent me pix of her fish head and tail ready to be finished off and attached to those fish bones. I have 2 sets of bones and pattern for head and tail left so if you are looking for a way to use up your worms 🙂 and a fun small piece to hook let me know. Pattern on linen plus wire fish bones are $45.00.
My friend Trish is selling her home and as a result downsizing. So her fabulous Cheticamp frame is up for grabs.
The frame has two sets of arms – one set measures 38” and is the standard size. The second set measures 58” extra long for large rug projects. Asking $400.00 Canadian. If you have always wanted a Cheticamp frame like Deanne Fitzpatrick uses this is a great deal. Please let me know and I will put you in touch with Trish.
And now a picture of Suzanne with her wonderful pillow based on the painting by her friend Maria. Since this pillow will be residing in Puerto Rico it is made of many different fibres – wool strips, sari silks, yarns, panty hose and fantasy yarns. Suzanne did an amazing job replicating her friends painting…
Even the deer are covered in hoarfrost (well you can’t see it too well but they had a coating of white the last few days on their heads and backs…)and I discovered that all those veggies discovered in the bottom of the freezer don’t need to be to binned – the DEER LIKE THEM.  Not sure how good frozen snap peas with a bit of freezer burn are for their teeth but I felt much better feeding them to the deer then tossing them! 
and so, to keep warm, I have been doing some dyeing – which kept me REALLLLLY warm!.  I like to moosh up my wool in the pot with my hand as it is less strain on my shoulder. Because sticking your hand into a pot of semi boiling water is NOT a good thing! I use my Bluettes glove (that used to be gloveS until I accidentally melted the left hand glove onto the burner of my stove!). These gloves are amazing as they protect your hands from the majority of the heat and you are able to keep your hands in the water to moosh and stir. However, hmmmm my hand was getting darned warm – well actually  BLOODY HOT! in that pot – what was wrong with my wonderful glove which had worked so well for 18 years! Wellllll upon close inspection after a few pots of feeling like an unfortunate lobster, I found a teeny little hole in my glove which was allowing hot water to enter and cook my hand! Darn – that meant I had to order a new pair and trying to find exactly the same ones on the internet after 18 years was not easy. I finally ordered a pair and when they come in if they work well will post about them as they really are a wonderful staple in your dyeing paraphernalia. In the meantime, I am thinking hmmmm DUCT TAPE might work???  worked on the boiling Haggis!!!! so why should it not work in the cooking wool 🙂 ? And so a picture of my wools from yesterday…
The wonderful deep rich gold (Olde Golde) was dyed over a bunch of different base wools in various tones of tan from light to dark – the formula is:
1/4 tsp Bronze (Cushings)
3/32 Medium Brown (Cushings)
1/2 tsp Nugget Gold (Cushings)
2/16 Red Brown (Magic Carpet)
over 7 fat 8ths of wool to get a good deep rich old gold…
The light is my Maple Sugar formula, the Navy is my New Navy formula and the dirty teal is New Majolica from the dye book of Susan Quicksall of Holly Hill Designs – Dyeing for Colour. These were dyed for Ruby but hmmm I have LOTS left over so if you need to add to your stash let me know. My price per fat 8th is 8.00 plus tax and shipping.
and now some pix of rugs to warm you up and inspire you…
Cathy’s lovely pieces (these are kits available through my online store)…
Alana’s beautiful rugs done entirely with recycled wools…
love love love that background done I believe with recycled blankets…
Alexandra’s wonderfully primitive rug…
and her big E for a friend…
Ruby’s beautiful Lupins done in a class with Laura Bozormeny on impressionistic hooking…
Linda’s Wonky Crows (a pattern by Wendo van Essen)…
and Linda’s latest gorgeous carving…
and yes I have been hooking as well – a commissioned piece of my Otters rug but made a bit smaller…
Friday I got a phone call – someone wanting one of the new Karla patterns – Blue Sea.  What attracted Judy was the amazing sky in this picture. Yikes! I had not even reallllly thought about how I was going to dye that sky! but Judy was arriving in about 2 hours so out came the wool and dye pots and pans. And I dyed that sky! I loved the way this wool turned out so much that that afternoon I dyed up another batch – enough to do sky for this pattern should anyone be tempted!!! Six fat 8th’s. In real life the colours are a tad more saturated and yummy!
Have received pix of wonderful pieces hooked by Laurie. Laurie paints as well and you can see how her painting experience has translated into her fibre pieces…
JoAnne’s FishTych mounted on the perfect piece of driftwood…
Cheryl’s fun scrappy Dancing Bears adaptation…
Louise’s lovely punch needle sitting in the bottom of a basket…
and Cheryl’s completed piece started in an ultra wide cut class with Karen Kaiser – some of these strips are an inch wide!…
Oh my God! They went in a few hours!!! So I will be ordering more copies from Kathy but in the meantime, if you live in the U.S. you can order directly from Kathy Clarke at Briarwood Folkart and if you live in Canada I am happy to take your order and fill it a bit later! Of course, if you are in a bigggg rush you can order directly from Kathy even if you live in Canada!!!
Diane sent me a picture of her purchases – I forgot about the wonderful mirror – probably because I was so miffed that I did not discover it first as it matches (except in size) another one I bought earlier in the year! Darn! Just not fast enough when Diane and Bill are around!!!!
and may your year be full of fun and fluff (wool fluff that is)!
The holidays just slipped by so quickly – lots of company and too much food (can there really be tooooo much food – YES!). At the very end of our holidays my friend Diane came for a visit with hubby who likes junkin’ as much as we do so off we went on Saturday – first to the flea market in Perth where I found nothing but Diane found a wonderful vintage plum pudding mould. Â Now I would use that to carry my wool strips around from location to location but Diane is actually going to use it for – hmmm plum pudding!!! Then off to the junk man (Millers in Rideau Ferry) where we discovered that 1. We are either getting wider or the aisles are getting narrower!!! and floors less sturdy! and 2. it is bloody cold in the outbuildings and if you dress too warmly you don’t fit between the piles of stuff! However, we did manage to find a few items we could not leave without – Diane got a little carrier for her wool strips and I got the most wonderful vintage fishing rod for FISH TYCH. It is an old Kingfisher fly fishing pole – no reel just the pole – with lovely wood and insets of oxidized brass and nickel. It is missing an end piece but for my purposes that does not matter – it is just the length I need for the 3 pieces. And a really gooooood price. I was so excited – now I just have to decide how to hang it. I had attached pockets on the back and have run the rod through the pockets but as Diane said that covers up a good part of the beautiful rod itself and that is a shame. So do I attach loops? Must debate on that for a while…
Kingston Stitch by Stitch next date is January 12 from 10 – 12. Looking forward to seeing some of you there…
And now, some pix to share:
Barb’s wonderful cat pillow…
Linda’s lovely carved man in the woods…
and last but not least, the long awaited book on primitive finishes by Kathy Clark of Briarwood Folk Art is here… I have 10 copies at 25.00 Canadian each. The books are full of funky, unusual primitive finishing techniques – email me if you want a copy and send me your address and I will pop it in the mail to you…
