Hello Everyone,
I apologize for not sharing my wonderful experience about the Mesa AZ workshop until now. I've been recuperating from a whirlwind trip to Arizona and a post workshop high also accompanied by the blues: the anticipation and build up, the delivery of the workshop and then the end! Oh, how sad to have fine experiences end! Why can't rug hooking workshops go on forever?!!
The workshop, sponsored by Carol Miller of Mesa AZ, was great. Carol did a fantastic job of organizing the workshop and she worked hard throughout to ensure everyone was comfortable and all hooking needs were met. Thank you Carol! I am grateful for the opportunity to share my love of rug hooking with you and all the workshop attendees. Carol is also sharing input about the workshop at her "Ticklepie" blog http://www.ticklepie.typepad.com/
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| Carol, our workshop sponsor, at the worm table. |
The workshop focused on the charming attributes of rugs from yesteryear (antique rugs) and how to bring these attributes to your own hooked rug. Participants designed patterns in class on the first day. Designing was seamless; the ladies were ready to launch into drawing a pattern and they seemed to relish creating their own design. I provided some template examples but many participants already had designs in mind without the need for templates. They needed little oversight or encouragement for this phase of the workshop.
Here are some pictures of designs in progress. I wish I had more pictures but by circulating throughout the room there was little time for me to take pictures.
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| Joan has drawn her main motif onto Red Dot and is transferring it onto Monks Cloth. Brenda is in the background cutting out a template for her design. |
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| Rose is considering a ready made template along with pictures she brought to class as she works on her design. |
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| Rose brought these pictures to class to help plan her design. Her dog Penny loves to chase Morning Doves. Notice the scale of size difference between these two images. This is a perfect example of the wonderful naivete found in old rugs: one animal is much larger in scale than another. |
Through my upcoming posts I'll share more pictures of rugs in progress and the rug show we had on our third and final day.
