Shep's World by Connie

Connie Phelps of Illinois sent me this series of pictures from her rendition of my pattern Shep's World.  I love how Connie hooked this rug.  It makes me want to start the rug all over again (and folks, this is a big rug).

Connie went to town with color in a very Magdalena style.  I love the free abandon of color that she used.

I know with this kind of hooking it's not as easy as it looks.  You really have to think about your color changes, background contrast with motif(s), etc.  I asked Connie how she color planned the rug and this was her response:

"I should tell you that I actually pulled a lot of color out!!  I have always loved color so have to edit sometimes!!  I started with the dog and used Magdalena style for my inspiration and when I was at a Fiber event in April I actually bought wool geared for this rug.  I used a neat gray-blue plaid for the background around the dog because I was told that it made a great sky.  I really wanted to use reds throughout and hooked with a lot of the wool I had marbleized.  This rug was so much fun because each animal was a joy to hook.  I got the pink pig wool with it in mind.  It is a pink/coral color and so pretty.  I went from animal to animal and filled in a bit of the background as I went but found out that after they were all done it was way too busy with my blue~green~purple marble wool.  I wanted to use them all and it just didn't work!  It might be too busy now but I like the colors.  My cat in front of the pink pig is "owlish" so I call it a Cowl!  I would lay the rug on the floor and stand on a chair and squint just like I would do when I would paint.  I then saw that I needed to balance light and dark backgrounds around the animals to give it more movement.  I really don't know what I am doing but go by my eye and I am learning with each rug that I make.  I really did love doing this one but still do not enjoy all the hand stitching on the binding!!  Does anyone?"

Here are pictures with detailed closeups.  And for fun of comparison, I show Trudy's rug (featured previously on this blog) and my rug at the end for examples of other ways this pattern has been hooked.

Good work Connie!  Now, please hook one just like it for me????  Pretty please????

Shep's World hooked by Connie Phelps.  Pattern by Kathy Clark, Briarwood Folk Art

Love how the sheep has polka dots of gentle color!

Check out the color of the pig!  The blue Mallard is Connie's husband's favorite animal. Wonderful!

Shep's World by Trudy Johnson of VA.

Shep's World by Kathy Clark, Briarwood Folk Art

If you wish to pin these photos on Pinterest, kindly give credit to this location for the photos and the pattern design by Briarwood Folk Art.

Shep heads for Arizona

I finished up the Shep's World rug in time to take it to AZ for the class I'm taking and the rug show that is part of our class.

The finished rug measures 36 1/2 by 28 inches.  It is hooked in Townsend cut, hand cut and hand torn strips that average 8.5 - 10 cuts.  Some small accent colors (especially black and the rust/orange) have been hooked in a narrow cut averaging from a 4-6 cut.

As a last minute addition I added some random and narrow cut black lines in the rectangular background area around Shep.  The more I looked at the finished rug on the floor I decided the narrow black lines would give the rug more balance to enhance other black tones in the rug.  Here are two pictures showing the rug with the lines and without the lines.  I think I prefer the lines added, but I may still end up removing them.  

Shep with black lines in rectangular background area.

Shep with no black lines in the rectangular background area. 

I had an interesting piece of selvage from one of the wool fabrics used in the rug so I gave Shep a collar.  It is hand stitched on.  I also tweaked his mouth a bit to give a small dark lip line.

Note the addition of a collar strip on Shep's neck.

It is hard to tell from these photos, but the wool selections used in this rug are much more harmonious together than they look in the photos.  This is one rug which doesn't photograph well.  It has a good primitive appearance in person, with far less contrast as it appears to have in the photos.  Here are some closeup shots of the other barnyard critters Shep watches over.

The brown hen below recedes into the background quite a bit on the rug and after hooking the hen I didn't use this color again because of the contrast challenges.  But I decided to keep her in the mix of animals as she is because I like the fact she doesn't stand out a lot which makes the mix of animals more quirky.  

The brown hen is a little hard to see and make out in the overall rug, but this adds to the antique style charm.

Several people have emailed me and commented about the wool used for the cats.  It is an old Pendleton plaid and unfortunately I seem to have used it all up so I cannot photograph it to show what it looks like as fabric.

This rug was a lot of fun to hook.  It is more muddy in primitive style than I usually hook and that was a good exercise for me.

I've received a few requests asking if this rug will be available as a pattern.  Yes it will be available but due to my impending move (fingers crossed all escrows close) I'm postponing pattern making until mid March.  I've taken my website and Etsy shops down for the time being.  If you are interested in the pattern please feel free to email me at briarwoodfolkart@surewest.net and I will keep you posted about its availability.

I am scheduled to be back from AZ on January 21st and I will post pictures of my AZ adventures then.

Thank you for watching my progress on this rug.

Closing in on a finish!

Shep's World is coming along and nearing completion.  It is always satisfying to finish a rug.  This one is in the running for binding before mid-week because we are running away to Arizona for 12 days.  We leave on Wednesday.  I will be binding in the car as my husband drives.

While in AZ I will be taking a class with Sharon Smith of Walnut Creek, CA.  Now being from CA, and only about 2 hours from Sharon you may wonder why I would go all the way to AZ for the class.  Good question.  Well, AZ is especially nice in the winter months and we are very fond of the state.  It's a great get-away place for us and I've made many hooking friends there from attending classes and teaching there last October.  Taking a class with Sharon will be lots of fun and a very exciting part of the adventure is meeting up with my friend Loretta (aka, Hooked on the Lake blog).  Loretta is coming in from Canada to take the class. I met Loretta last March in AZ in a Karen Kahle class so here we are rendezvousing again!

Shep's World before the border is added.  

I hope to finish up hooking on Shep today by adding my border rows while at my first Saturday hook-in group .  I have a quirky border in mind and can see it in my mind's eye, but will it actually turn out the way I want?  I will only know once I've hooked it.

I've got my wool cut for the border area, and guess what?  I made a mess cutting wool and it's OK to make a mess for the first time in 4 months!  This is because we received an offer on our house last weekend, we are in escrow and the public showings are over with!  Making a mess doesn't cause the same pressure as it did when the house could be shown at a moment's notice.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us to close escrow in early February.  We've made an offer on a home in our desired community and it will be a good house for holding hook-ins because there is no organized hooking group in the community.  If all goes well we will be moving in mid-February.  I'm afraid to be excited till the check is in hand, but it feels like everything is going to work out this time.