M.I.A?…

YES it appears I have been missing in action – no blogging in a long time! But lots of decluttering, cleaning, painting and redecorating. Many trips to the thrift store to get rid of stuff, many bags of garbage and much less stuff (and Gord doesn’t know this but that means room for new stuff!). I am feeling the junk stores calling my name 🙂 .

Despite the aching body – I realized I am getting older when I had to think about how I was going to get up off the floor after I painted a cabinet – arthritic hip, sore knees and bad shoulder meant a lot of thought went into the process – I have been doing some hooking. Ruby’s rug is done! Well some cleanup and tweaking and show binding but the hooking is done. I had left a small 2 x 2 inch square section till the very end – the horse and cart. As you can see from the painting there was not much to distinguish the horse and cart from the buildings besides 4 wheels and 2 legs and some shadows but I am fairly happy with the way it turned out. May tweak it a bit yet but for the most part it is done and will soon be wending its way back to Ruby’s daughter and then on to the Glengarry Pioneer Museum.

So a few pictures of the rug in process:

The painting by John Sims and the original photograph…

Rug as it stood when I got it from Ruby’s family hmmmm over a year ago…

A few months later I finally tackled the easy parts… And then the really easy part – the sky…Once the sky was in I had to get back to the tough parts…
And finally today the cart and horse went in…
Only a year to complete! But it is a big rug. I dyed all the wool for Ruby when she decided she was going to hook the rug and it was all done in number 8 and number 6 cut (well a few number 8’s got cut into 4’s). It was a challenge hooking this rug for so many reasons – firstly, my hooking and Ruby’s were quite different and I had to adapt mine to hers so that the rug made sense; secondly, this would not be something I would normally hook – I love primitive and hmmm this does not read primitive to me; finally, I would have cut that darned cart and horse out of the picture however, it was in the painting and original photograph that inspired the painting so although Ruby and I both talked about the horse being in another county! it actually did make it into the rug 🙂 . So, now I will show bind the rug and send it on its way – it has truly been a love/hate relationship with this rug but I think Ruby is happy it is done!

And a few pictures of other completed pieces by friends:

Amazing!!! Barn Owl miniature Punch needle done by Michelle (one of the Lisa Fergusson patterns I carry in rughooking and punch needle)… Sweet little bunny punched by Jane… I love Wendy’s rug using up her worms…