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.  

Soothing Worn Nerves

Yesterday was a hard day for me emotionally.  To sooth my  frazzled nerves I did some hooking for the first time in several weeks.  Keeping our house looking perfect as it sits for sale means less hooking due to mess and cleanup, but I had to try to find my center again so hooking was the ticket.

I continued work on my little chicken rug that I started in Texas in mid-August.  It's a fun rug, but not one of my favorites (yet).  Here's a picture of it.

I also started a small cat rug using hand cut and hand torn strips.  I want to have the cat rug finished for my workshop in Mesa in two weeks to demonstrate a hand cut / hand torn look.   I also want to see if hand cut / hand torn appears older looking (vintage in appearance).  So far one cat is done and it looks like an average 9.5 - 10 cut from my Townsend.  Maybe I'm not cutting crooked enough!  I don't see any difference by hand cut / hand torn strips.   It may be too early to tell if there will be a difference, but I can tell you I'm not enjoying pulling loops for the larger cut.  Sure it will make hooking the rug go faster, but it isn't fun to hook with such big strips, even with a great hook for wide cuts.

I know it is often said that wide cuts are the heart of primitive rug hooking.  But in my own humble opinion, I don't think going really wide is that big an issue.  In the couple antique rugs I own, there aren't really wide cuts.  They would be more like 8 cuts than anything.  So.... I'm not a big proponent that you have to use wide cuts to prove a rug to be primitive or antique in style.

I'll post some cat rug pictures as I progress more on the rug.