Yesterday was a hard day for me emotionally. To sooth my frazzled nerves I did some hooking for the first time in several weeks. Keeping our house looking perfect as it sits for sale means less hooking due to mess and cleanup, but I had to try to find my center again so hooking was the ticket.
I continued work on my little chicken rug that I started in Texas in mid-August. It's a fun rug, but not one of my favorites (yet). Here's a picture of it.
I also started a small cat rug using hand cut and hand torn strips. I want to have the cat rug finished for my workshop in Mesa in two weeks to demonstrate a hand cut / hand torn look. I also want to see if hand cut / hand torn appears older looking (vintage in appearance). So far one cat is done and it looks like an average 9.5 - 10 cut from my Townsend. Maybe I'm not cutting crooked enough! I don't see any difference by hand cut / hand torn strips. It may be too early to tell if there will be a difference, but I can tell you I'm not enjoying pulling loops for the larger cut. Sure it will make hooking the rug go faster, but it isn't fun to hook with such big strips, even with a great hook for wide cuts.
I know it is often said that wide cuts are the heart of primitive rug hooking. But in my own humble opinion, I don't think going really wide is that big an issue. In the couple antique rugs I own, there aren't really wide cuts. They would be more like 8 cuts than anything. So.... I'm not a big proponent that you have to use wide cuts to prove a rug to be primitive or antique in style.
I'll post some cat rug pictures as I progress more on the rug.
