Tall Tales from Texas

I've been back from Texas for two weeks and I haven't yet told you about my fabulous trip.  The past two weeks have been full:  stomach flu upon arriving home and that was a lost week and this past week we've been in a house frenzy preparing our house for listing.  We've reached our decision to stay in northern California and move to one of our local 55+ active adult communities, so our "go live" date for the house being on the market is 9/10/12.  It's a strange market and they say "turnkey" homes are few and far between so they are selling quickly.  We shall see.  We've been contemplating this move for several years, so here we go and please wish us luck.

Moving is such a chore; I dread it.  Just the effort to get the house ready to show is way too much stress and that's only the beginning of it.  So my blog postings may be sporadic for a few months and my hooking may be even more sporadic.  My active hooking projects have found a new home in the back of my car.  Yes, frame(s), bags of wool worms, patterns I'm working on... in the back of the car for use "after hours" when no real estate agents will be calling to show the house.  No more mess in the family room allowed until we are resettled.  I can live out of my car for a few months.  Let's just hope this transition goes fast and smooth!

Texas:  where shall I begin?  Upon arrival I saw my closest friend Pat of 35 years who is like a sister to me; she and her husband retired from California to Tyler TX a few years ago to escape expensive California and for all Texas offers.

Pat took me all over to see the 55+ communities in the Dallas and Austin areas so I could give Texas a real serious look before making a final leap to move to my local 55+ community.  We laughed and laughed and talked deep, personal stuff only "old" friends understand.  We toured homes together and we decided we'll live in the same 55+ community as little old ladies.  Here is a picture of Pat on the Austin Duck Adventure tour.  She treated me to the tour and it's a fun way to get a quick look at the city.  You must "quack" while on the tour, so Pat has her quack-er in mouth for this tour.  She will kill me for posting this, I'm sure!

And a few more pic's of Austin taken from the Duck amphibious mobile.  It's a very pretty city.  But did I tell you it was HOT?!!! Very HOT!  It makes California hot look very good!

Yes, you go out on Lake Austin as part of the tour.  It was very fun, even tho' our Duck broke down and the tour lasted a lot longer than expected due to the breakdown.

After 4 1/2 days with Pat she delivered me to stay with Martha in Dallas, my new BFF hooking buddy!  Martha hosted me for a week and we went to San Antonio for the Angela Pumphrey annual hook-in hosted by the San Antonio guild.  Tricia Travis heads up the hook-in and she is a most gracious lady.  Tricia opened her beautiful shop Country Gatherings in San Antonio to all of the workshop attendees for a pizza night before the workshop began on Friday.   Her shop is wonderful and I felt more welcome by Texas hookers than I've ever known in my life!  What incredible women live in Texas!

I will post a bunch of pictures from the workshop in my next post.

Oh my, where has she gone?

Hello all,
Yes, I'm still around, the black sheep on the run and grinning all the way.

I took a little rug run over to the grand state of Texas for 12 days, then came home to a medical emergency with my husband who shared the germs with me.  My stomach sounds like a Texas thunderstorm today, but I'm finding my feet again and beginning to believe that coming home was a good thing.  Larry has had this bug longer than I have so fortunately he's ahead of me in recovery as he had the worst case of it and spent two days hospitalized because of it.

Larry and I have been exploring the idea of moving to a 55+ active adult community and part of my trip to Texas involved a big looky-loo at three active adult communities; two are in the greater Dallas area and the other is north of Austin.  I already knew there were a lot of hookers and hooking events in Texas, so I had no second thoughts about that aspect of Texas.  But a big part of my mental energy went to visualizing myself leaving northern California for Texas.  We've already done this drill in several other western states and so far nothing beats home when you factor in weather, amenities and the beauty of our home area.  So I went with an open mind and knowledge that home prices are unbelievably good in Texas, people are friendly and hooking is a big thing and I used the trip to seriously scope out housing options.

I had a wonderful trip and will tell you more about it and share lots of pictures over the next several posts.  Today's post is short because my energy and concentration are not up to par due to the bug I've been fighting.  Here's just a bit of longhorn steer art to share with you.

I hope you are all well and I'll be posting rug hooking pictures from my trip soon.

Magdalena Meets Andy Warhol

If you follow my blog regularly, you will know that I've been involved with a group that meets on Tuesdays that I call the Maggie's Girls.  We began as a group focusing on Magdalena's work and while this general theme continues, we are sort of moving on to other designs now, as more time goes by.  But lest we forget Magdalena, I want to share one of the latest Magdalena style rugs to come out of this rug hooking group.  I must give you a bit of background on this rug:

My friend Daniella is a very fine hooker and she tends to go back and forth between hooking either primitive or fine cut rugs.  After completing several fine cut pieces and watching me hook away with my larger cuts of wool, she decided she wanted to go prim again.  She has been telling me that she wants to hook a very, very old looking rug and so I encouraged her to hook a Magda rug along with me.  And so a tale of two lollipop bouquets was born:  Daniella and I started our lollipop bouquet rugs on the same day in the same room, sitting right next to each other.  But that is where similarity ends.

We decided we'd use up all our spare bits of wool and each of us brought lots of baggies full of wool to use in our rugs and to cross share.  After the first day of hooking Daniella went home and proceeded to hook all 70 or so of the lollipop circles in the next 24 hours.  She loved those little circles while I drag my feet on hooking them.  It took me few weeks to hook all of them!  By the next week Daniella returned and all the circles were hooked in luscious colors of wool.  They were not hooked in Magda colors of wool, but in Daniella colors of wool.  And they are drop dead gorgeous.  Daniella kept asking me if the colors were OK or not, since my rug was so different in comparison.  I encouraged her to follow her own spirit and not my lead of using drab, dirtly, old looking wool influence what came from her heart.  And follow her heart she did.

Whaaa-la!!!!  Can you believe this rug?  It is Magdalena on steroids and it is so beautiful.  Daniella took an old design and brought it into the 21st century.  Does this knock your socks off or what?  Don't you just love it?!  I love the spirit of it, the beauty of the colors and it is so fascinating to look at with all the beautiful colors and diversity of wool strips.

Seeing this rug is certainly enough to make me question my use of drab wool!!  I may be changing my tune soon enough!

Magdalena lollipop bouquet with tree stump vs. vase and primarily pastel and brighter colors by Daniella Brooks.

The beautiful artist who made a beautiful rug!

This is the first rug Daniella has bound on her own.  The yarn is very pretty with the rug.

Betty coaches Daniella on binding.

 Here are the three lollipop bouquet rugs together that have been produced by Betty (top), Daniella (middle) and me (bottom).

This just goes to show you can teach an old dog new tricks!  Might we all want to reconsider using primitive colors and just go bright?!

More Pictures From Rug Camp!

I've had a busy week, getting ready to hit the road again.  Yes, me the stay-at-home bore, is going on the road again for more hooking!  This time I'm heading to Dallas!  Yes, here I go to hook with the prim Ladies!  I hear Texas women love primitive so I can't wait to meet these hookers after my heart!

I have been graciously invited by Martha Reynolds who organizes the Yellow Rose Rug Camp to join her at her home, tour Dallas and go to her local hooking group, and then head to San Antonio for the 11th Annual Angela Pumphrey Rug Hooking Workshop on August 17 - 19th.  I can't wait!

Before I go I want to add this post of more pictures from Hooker Hill Rug Retreat.  A few of you have emailed me and asked where is my rug from camp.  I added it at the bottom of this page.  So here go the other fun pictures from rug camp where you can see a good time is being had by all.  I've given credit wherever I can, but oh my, I've forgotten who did a few of these lovelies.

My dear buddies Deb (left) and Sandy (right) work away on their rugs.

Max in progress by Gail Becker; Gail was my table mate at Cambria rug camp,
so you've seen some other pictures of Max back in June.

My dear "sister" Trudy made this little guy up from a kit I sold at camp last year.  He turned out so cute.  Way to go Trudy.

This is Trudy's snowman hooked altered art project from the mini-class I taught at camp last year.
She wanted me to specifically know she finishes projects, as being social is as much a part of rug camp for Trudy as hooking is.  I love her, she's my adopted sis!

Debby shows off her cat finished since the year before.  Debby is the  person working on the 5'
diameter plane rug I featured in the previous post and she is a Celebrations winner.

Andrine shares her large sunflower rug.  It is very dynamic in person.

Sandy shares her magnificent ship rug (Edith O'Neill pattern).
It is so beautiful.  I love this rug.  It is Sandy's special rug camp project going to many camps with her!

Gail's rug from a Teachers' Workshop class.  Isn't the sky amazing?!

Gail shows another Teachers' Workshop project she taught
this year at  McGowan Western  Teachers' Workshop.

Deb shows a fine cut hooked on wool pansy.  What a beauty.

Deb's rug from last year at Hooker Hill.  So cute:  Gracie and Grover.

Barbara's angels.

I think this is another Michele Wise rug.  

Andrine's purse project from last year at Hooker Hill.

Michele Wise's whimsy rug of dolls.  Each face was hand painted.  Michele is so multi-talented in fiber arts.

This rug is by Barbara and I think she started it two years ago at Hooker Hill.  It is totally full of surprise little bugs, sculpted flowers and even snail trail (iridescent yarn), and fun, fun, fun.  A little something tucked all throughout it.  I think it represent's Barb's garden.

OK, now my rug.....  here it is.  I am not that happy with the sky and hence I have not touched the rug since returning home from Hooker Hill.  I think I'll finish it off and see if it grows on me, once I get back from TX.  My dissatisfaction is over the fact the sky is too dramatic.  All of colors in the sky  appeared so light in value before hooking and now they appear so much darker than I want.  I may pull  out all of the sky but certainly it is bound to stretch my linen, and I don't know that I want to take this risk.

I think the sky competes with the dogs too much; I want the dogs to be front and center in this rug.  Gracie is showing up well against the blue sky, but little Piper sort of gets lost.  I will finish the sky with the wool I have and live with down on the floor for a while before binding it.  It will either grow on me or I'll reverse hook it.  And let me tell you, this is a big sky.  This is all I got done in a week at rug camp!  I'll show more pictures  in the future when I finish it. 

While I'm gone:  I have one Magdalena style blog post scheduled.  You won't want to miss this one!  It is amazing, so even tho' I'm gone, please check back in about a week for the Magdalena Meets Andy Warhol post.  Cheers, and Yippe Yi Ay as I'm on my way to Texas.