Deadlines Pay Off

When I was a working girl (been retired 2 years now!), I was acutely aware of deadlines.  I prefer to be finishing up ahead of a deadline but not so much in advance that there's no last minute stress.  Being under stress makes me more creative.  Being too organized and ahead of a deadline could be boring!

So it's natural that I've been hooking up a storm and creating some last minute teaching samples for camp in Tyler.  I prefer showing examples as a visual aid for teaching points.

My love of antique style rugs is very attuned to hit and miss hooking. I think it is the keystone of antique rugs and instantly ages the look of a modern day rug.  I've had my eye on the antique rug below, on the left, for a couple years.  Finally, with a deadline looming, I got around to hooking a rendition of this little gem.  As is common with photographing rugs, especially with hit and miss, the real rug is more appealing in person than photographed.

Antique rug adaption - old on left, new on right. 

To finish this rug off, I incorporated some new with the old.  I cut and serged the linen edge to about a 3/4 inch width of the last row of hooking.  Then I machine and hand stitched a piece of gimp braiding onto the exposed linen.  After finishing with the gimp, I tacked the rug to a heavy, coat-weight piece of brown wool which frames the finished piece, much like a mat does for a painting.  To the brown wool I am going to run a tube of binding tape on the upper back so I can add a strip of wood for hanging the rug on the wall.  The rug is quite lovely in person and not showing off very well in photos.

Antique rug rendition, Kathy Clark, Briarwood Folk Art

Finishing on rug edge:  gimp framed by coat-weight wool backing

I also hooked this little "Busy Bee" mat to demonstrate a dirty lights background.  In my opinion, mixing up dirty lights is more challenging than making up old looking darks.  For this rug I combined two off-the-bolt selections with cotton quilting fabric added here and there, sprinkled throughout the background.  The bee's wings are entirely cotton fabric which adds a bit of interest and enhances the vintage look.

Busy Bee hooked mat by Kathy Clark, Briarwood Folk Art

For a fun finish on this rug I cut strips of different wool and tied them on the ends of the rug for a ragged fringe look.

In my next post I will share some additional samples I made for the Star of Texas Camp in Tyler.  They turned out really cute, so I hope you'll tune in for more pic's.

If you pin a picture from my blog for Pinterest, kindly give credit to the blog and Briarwood Folk Art.