More Fine Finishes

Linda Long of Texas sent me pictures of two rugs she hooked during our time together at Star of Texas Rug Camp in Tyler, June 2013.

This pattern is an antique rug adaption.  Linda brought lots of color to the pattern and her bears are toasting cans of Coke vs. bear (oops, beer) steins.  Isn't all the use of color fun in this rug?  It is very joyful.

Dancing Bears antique rug adaption by Linda Long, Texas.

Linda is about the fastest hooker I've ever met and she had the bear rug finished by the 3rd day of class. She went on to finishing up this rug, a variation of my Gazing at the Milkey Bones pattern where I customized the pattern to include her two dogs.  Are these doggies sweet or what?

Gazing at the Milkey Bones, customized dog pattern hooked by Linda Long, Texas and pattern from Briarwood Folk Art.

This rug gave us a real challenge:  how to hook a night time sky with a black dog in the rug.  I dyed a painted sky of sorts for Linda to give it an evening look but light enough that the black dog shows up.  This is such a sweet rug.  Too bad they aren't real bones as these cuties look pretty hungry and appreciative of the bones filling the night sky.

Thank you Linda for sharing and the pleasure of working with you in class.  I hope to see you again soon.

A Great Finish

Charlotte from Texas sent me a photo of her finished Dancing Rabbits rug which she began in my workshop in Texas in June.  Isn't this rug precious?

Charlotte from Texas with her finished Dancing Rabbits pattern.

And just as precious is Charlotte!  She is a relatively new hooker, but you would never know that by her quality of hooking and how fast she adapts to ideas and experiences in primitive rug hooking.  What a pleasure to have Charlotte in my class.  I so look forward to seeing you again Charlotte!  Thank you for sharing your finished rug.

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Lulu's Happy Dance

The Shep's World rug is now ready for binding after applying three border rows with some little color highlights in them.

Lulu absolutely loves this rug and immediately claims it for herself as soon as it hits the floor.  Here is Lulu doing the happy dance on her rug.  She is crazy for Shep.

I don't want to tell her Shep will probably reside on the wall someday.  So far none of my rugs go onto the floor, but I haven't told her this yet.  Why spoil her fun?

Here's a pic of the rug with the border rows added.  Next I'll be binding this puppy!

As clear as mud!

I've been working on an antique adaption for several weeks, hooking a bit here, a bit there, but not much in big spurts.  Over Christmas eve and Christmas day I indulged myself in making a mess and cutting lots of wool to make significant progress on what I'm calling "Shep's World."

Here's the progress to date, depicting a dog and all his farm yard buddies that he continually watches over.

Shep's World and yes Shep is a dog, not a sheep.  Rug in progress, subject to changes.

I'm rethinking some of the color changes in the background by pulling out the darker wool around the white sheep in the lower right corner .  None of the colors in the rug display well in these photos, but in person the colors blend together much better.  The camera flash makes them either too bright or intense than in person.  Still, I think I like the lighter background best so the lower right corner will be changing.

Here are more pictures of the rug in progress.

A pig from black/gray plaid.

A gold/brown chicken that doesn't show up much due to low contrast.

A funky chicken and birds with lots of mixed background.

The size of this rug as drawn is 33" x 25" and the border will add another 1-2" depending on what I do to finish it off.

I've intentionally worked to make this rug look muddy in colors for an aged look.  I don't work in muddy colors a lot, but I always admire primitive rugs in the muddy tones and low contrast.  I don't know why I find it hard to adapt to a muddy style of primitive hooking.  Its something I'm practicing more, as you can see.

The cut sizes in this rug are 8.5-10 with much of the wool being hand torn or cut.  There is a mumble-jumble to this rug in lines being off kilter, color changing, but that is all intentional.  It really blends more in person than in the pictures.

Trudy from VA is going to hook this puppy too and I can't wait to see what Trudy does with it.  I love how she adapted the Magdalena Menagerie pattern so I look forward to seeing her progress on Shep's World.  To Trudy:  thanks for stepping up to hook another one of my patterns!

Maggie likes this rug a lot too because Shep is a kindred spirit.