Little Scrappers - Stash Buster Cuties

By the time this blog is posted, I will be knee deep teaching in Texas.

When you are flying to camp it's hard to take rugs along for show and tell.  When I've attended camp and the teacher didn't bring rugs along, I was a little disappointed.  But I fully appreciate why teachers leave rugs at home if they aren't driving to camp.  It's hard to trust your rugs to the airline baggage check or shipping them.

A couple weeks ago I had one of those 3:00 a.m. moments and I decided to hook some small mats I call  "Little Scrappers." They are only 8 x 11 inches and made entirely from wool scraps vs. new yardage.  I can easily add the mats to my carry-on bag for air travel.  Each was hooked with a teaching point in mind to discuss old style techniques and/or finishing.

These little mats are so darn cute I am hooked on making them.  And they hook up fast.  I'm almost of the opinion I could go on a one year sabbatical dedicated to only hooking little mats.  Maybe that would use up my stash of worms, worms, worms.

Here are some examples of my Little Scrappers stash buster mats which I am also offering as pattern panels from smaller pieces of linen left over from making larger patterns.  I also include ideas for hooking and finishing off the mats with the pattern panel.

Antique Roosters

Little Scrappy Dog

Peacock

Two Cats

three Cats

Hit and Miss Hens

If you see something you want, just let me know (briarwoodfolkart@surewest.net) and when I get back from camp I'll make you up a panel.  I'm only charging $9 per mat (plus shipping) and making them in two, three or four mats to a pattern panel.

I also hooked this round mat I'm calling "Can You See Me Vintage Birds" to test some muted background colors and some intentional and extreme higgly-piggly type hooking (high, low, medium loops all mixed up instead of one consistent loop height).  I had a good thing going with the high, low, medium mix in the blue outside circle, but when I pressed/steamed the rug it flattened the loops to an even height.  So much for that experiment.

I want to point out something about this rug that I did intuitively and later found that my intuition was spot on.  I try to understand contrast in rugs because getting the contrast just right to make a rug look old is tricky.  I needed to give the birds some contrast; they were melding right into the muted beige background (which happens to be one of my favorite wool choices for a vintage look).  I didn't really want to outline them, but I'm not adverse to outlining because it was a frequent feature of old rugs.  But I also didn't want a very noticeable outline.  So my gut said to use the opposite of blue on the color wheel.

Can You See Me Vintage Birds mat by Kathy Clark, Briarwood Folk Art

I'll have some camp pictures for you when I return from Texas!

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

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.  

If it's Tuesday it Must be Magdalena Day!

The Maggie's girls met yesterday and nearly the whole group was present.  We've been a little fragmented lately with various schedules and this will continue for a few more weeks at least, but we're trudging onward to finish up round one of the Magdalena style rugs.

Betty is finishing her lollipop bouquet with whip stitching and cording.  Denise is still working on her background but she has made significant progress.  Sandy is working on a non-Magda rug since she finished up several weeks ago and I'm working on my Magdalena Meow Mix Cats with Leaf.  Here are the pic's from yesterday's meeting.

Denise's rug.  The background is fascinating on this rug!

This picture will show you more of the background.

My Magdalena Meow Mix Cats with Leaf.  I've made a few changes since the last post.

At the last guild meeting we shared Betty's rug and the group was shocked that she hooked it.  Betty the fine cut hooker swayed by Magdalena's lollipop bouquet.  We asked the group whose rug it was and preliminary guesses were that it was mine.  But once we told the gang whose it is, there were a few shocked faces!

Hope you enjoy these!

Hit-n-Miss Hooking - The Charm of Antique Hooked Rugs

If you've followed my blog from my humble beginnings, you know I’m crazy about antique hooked rugs.  A common characteristic of antique rugs is hit-n-miss hooking.  In the case of Magdalena Briner Eby, she took hit-n-miss to a new extreme, with a bit of a Rorschach look to several of her rugs. This trait is what makes Magdalena’s rugs interesting and easy to identify, and so very intriguing to me.  I can't wait to get to the hit-n-miss aspects of my Magdalena Menagerie rug (see post from 1/6/12) but I still have to hook those lollipop circles before I will let myself go on to other areas of my MM rug.  I hope to get some lollipop circles done today.

I have been "experimenting" with hit-n-miss for a long time and whenever possible, I add it to my rugs.  I have to admit, while hit-n-miss has no rules to it (MY KIND OF HOOKING!) I find it a bit intimidating.  I usually get a little too “intellectualized” about adding hit-n-miss, and I fret about it looking out of place.  Here are a few notes from my exploration of hit-n-miss hooking: 

·       There are no steadfast rules about hit-n-miss hooking; you can make your own rules!

·       It’s a great way to use left-over worms (cut strips of wool) from finished projects.

·       You can go as crazy as you want, or as subtle as you want, it’s your rug!

·       Throwing some of your lines of hit-n-miss off-kilter will give your rug a more primitive look than hooking completely straight lines throughout the rug.

·       Using similar value strips will help tone down the busy impact of the hit-n-miss.

·       Using strips of different sizes will add primitive appeal and allow you to slip in some pieces of wool that may seem a little too bold for use.

·       Hit-n-miss can go large or small in a design and takes numerous forms.



I’ve added pictures of a variety of hit-n-miss designs to show examples of its use in rugs.

Note the number of colors used in the hit-n-miss and its randomness.  We might not call this pretty, but it is very interesting.

Hit-n-miss used as a border and scroll. 



Note how orderly the hit-n-miss is in this rug.  The rug has a lot going on in it and the hit-n-miss almost becomes the quiet area of the rug.  It's use in this rug contributes to the homey feeling of the rug, adding charm from yesteryear.  I also think the hit-n-miss in this rug ads a sense of being in the woods, mirroring the texture of tree bark consistent with trees in the center motif.

This rug is what I would call hit-n-miss off the charts!  It is used throughout the rug and even in the horse, to some degree.  What an imagination this hooker had!  The lollipop bushes in this rug are fascinating like pin wheels.  While there is so much going on in the rug, isn't the variety of hit-n-miss amazing?!  I could look at this rug for hours, but I might get a little (more) crazy after doing so!

 

The border of this rug influenced  one of my rugs because I love the randomness of the hit-n-miss hooking, but it doesn't domintate the rug too much.  The free spirit hooking surrounding the tranquil horses is just the right touch of old for my taste.

Here is my rug, the time-worn Welcome Cats popular among many hookers as an antique rug rendition.  I went with much more subtle colors than the horse rug, as you can see.

I love how the hit-n-miss border worked out on this rug, and at the time it seemed quite bold to me, but it no longer seems bold with more experience under my belt.  This was one of my earlier hit-n-miss experiments.  Cynthia Norwood helped me with this rug at Cambria Pines Rug Camp.  Cynthia is a great teacher and author of the book Creating an Antique Look in Hand-hooked Rugs. Take a class with her if you ever get the chance!

In the cat below, the hit-n-miss is very standard straight lines.  I was able to add the dark (black) strips because the cats are black; otherwise the black strips would be too bold and disruptive.  They would cut your eye up as you roam the rug, but I think they work well due to the cats. 

Both of these cat rugs have gone to live with a woman who has 16 cats!  She really appreciates my cat rugs!

On my next blog I am going to share more about hit-n-miss hooking and tell you some very exciting news too!  Standby for more from the Sheep!

Please note:  research I've conducted indicates antique rugs created before 1923 are no longer subject to copyright law and this is why these rug patterns are offered for sale by commercial rug hooking vendors.  Before replicating any antique rug pattern, please attempt to determine the date of the rug's origination to be consistent with copyright.