Decisions on Green Spirit

I started out hooking Green Spirit in dyed fleece like I had done the Mother and Child center on my Spirit rug but have not been happy with my results. I just wasn't getting the design to come out clearly and was losing a lot of the lines and shading just wouldn't work the way I needed it to. Remember last week that I inherited a new Bliss cutter with a #3 head. I have playing with the 3's on another design that I am doing as a challenge on Rug Hooking Daily. It's the SMILE challenge that Sunni is doing. I looked at that design and fleece just didn't seem to work for it so I got brave and started hooking with some of the precut worms left by the older rug hooker. I have been pleasantly surprised by the results I have been having with the shading and what I can do with the traditional style hooking methods. Keep in mind that when I use strips it has usually been 6's and above and I have been very nervous about trying to hook with something so thin as a 3.

This afternoon I sat outside in the almost 70's sunny weather to do some hooking. I got out some of the pre cut worms in shades of green and flesh tones and began hooking, despite my annoying next neighbors and their radio. The war of the backyard has not abated at all over the winter in fact it may have gotten worse as I can't set foot outside the backdoor without them cranking up their radio to painful levels and blasting me with gospel music and sermons even if before I went out it was perfectly quiet. I don't find people having religious views. I don't mind the same station if it is turned down low. I just object to it being loud and annoying me and I refuse to be run off from using my own backyard. I was in this house before they moved in. In defense I got my boombox out and if they didn't like my techno and German Industrial too bad.



Meanwhile back to hooking. I am enjoying using the 3's. And I think doing Green Spirit in them has really made a difference. At least I can see my lines and shading is closer to what I envisioned when I drew it. I really see a lot of possibilities for me artwise using them. I have not given up entirely on doing primitives or hooking with fleece but I am seeing my work in new ways. Once I get done with Spirit rug and my commission pieces I have another rug I have been wanting to do for awhile--Green Cat. I hadn't tackled it before this as I just couldn't see it being done with larger strips or with yarn because of the massive amount of fine detail it has in it. There's pictures of it in earlier posts on this blog if you want to see it.

Tonight I am going to start cutting up strips for the the background. I took apart Folk Angel as I just didn't like the way it was going. I am going to be using a lot of the colors from it, especially the reds and purples for the background of spirit. I have almost a full kitchen trash bag full of nothing but red 1" strips which looks like it might be enough to do the background. Cutting these up is going to take a while. I guess find some movies or shows to watch as I do not watch sports at all.