FanXstitch

More Green Cat

2011-06-29T17:58:00.003-04:00

More Greencat progress.

Progress 6-28-11

Progress as of 6-29-11.

Lion Flowers. The bottom over is going to be in lavenders--maybe.

The view from my porch.

More Green Cat

2011-06-27T19:09:00.005-04:00

I'm hooking everyday now despite the awful heat in South Carolina generally 90-100 and no air conditioning outside where I work on stuff. Thankfully I have nice shaded porch that sits high off the ground with lovely steady breezes wandering through most of the day.

Fiendfyre is done except for the final edging on it which I haven't decided on what to do with it. Going between just whipping it or adding a braided border. I'll have to see what I have left in the gray department uncut up. This was a massive project to do 36 x 78 but I had youngest son prodding me to get it done--I think he wants it.

The two Tribal Rabbits which I guess are going to be pillows are done except for the finishing. They're 18 1/2 x 19 and 19 diameter.

Circles runner in case I forgot to post it. All finished including the edging. 17 x 53

Currently working on green cat again. Here's my progress as of 6-27-11.

Back to hooking

2011-06-02T16:18:00.003-04:00

I've gotten back into hooking again. Just small pieces for the moment. I finally finished my circles runner I had started a while back. It's 53 x 17 done in odd ball leftovers from different projects ranging from 3's to 6's. it's okay but not that great either. I didn't plan it out and just grabbed up whatever looked okay at the time. I think I spaced the circles too closely and didn't have enough black background show through. It's busy I think. It also has a irregular ripple edge on purpose just to see how such and edge would look.

The next new piece is one of my tribal rabbits. I did a pair on burlap as just rabbits in circles. This one I added a squared off border with circles and shapes. It's done in creams, beiges and tans, with darker browns. The rabbit is black and so is the background of the border. It's 18 1/2 x 19. The other one is similar except with a circle border and will have reversed coloring with the rabbit getting the creams, the inner circle black and the border in creams, browns and blacks.

An updated picture of Fiendfyre. Still have top, bottom and sides to go and hope to get it finished this summer.

Green Cat

2010-05-19T11:24:00.003-04:00

Green Cat 5-16-10

Green Cat 5-18-10

I finally started on Green Cat this weekend. I'm still debating on my color scheme with it. It isn't turning out as realistic as I was hoping for. I'm more graphic art than realistic. It's also more to minty side than I'd thought it'd be and the colors don't look that minty until I hook them. I did over dye some light teal fabric with yellows and greens trying to get more forest and kelly leaf green and thought it looked great but hooking it now I'm not sure. I had a big piece of it and needed a lot in the kelly green color range for most of the leaves but with bits and parts of other colors on the pieces. The pale green in the face is looking more like cream than pale green==grrr. It doesn't look bad but its isn't what I had in my head for it to look like and not sure whether to pull it all out and start over or not. I did change the colors in the nose from a yellower green to the kelly I used on the sides of the face, The yellower just sort of jarred with me so I did change it.

I also suspect my linen is more for larger than smaller cuts as it isn't holding the narrow cuts like other linen I have hooked narrows on. I'm having a harder time getting my shading with the narrows because of this. This was gift from a friend so I'm not sure where she got it and she usually hooks wide cuts.

I'll finish the head and debate whether I go on or change it. Ant opinions?

2nd section of Fiendfire done!

2010-04-21T17:28:00.004-04:00

I really pushed myself on this and had another uninterrupted day to work so I put in a 15 hour day Tuesday and then finished the rest up from 9:30AM to 3PM today. I got the new part to be worked on re-stretched on my frame to work on tomorrow. Today more fabric cutting....

Tuesday 4-20-10 hooking

Wednesday 4-21-10

Next section to do

Weekend Hooking on Fiendfire

2010-04-19T16:47:00.003-04:00

I had the whole weekend to myself while my 2 sons went out of town to Atlanta and took the car which was okay so it was just me and the dog. Right now we are just down to one car though mine should be back up and running soon. I really enjoy alone time especially with nice sunny days in the backyard. The neighbors even cut my 3 foot high grass for me since they have a riding lawn mower and it took them no time to get the field done. At least now I can have the grandkids come over and play in the yard now.

I sort off pushed myself on hooking about 12 hours each day and 7 today before I came in to use the computer. This is getting very colorful. I haven't done any real color planning on this, it's grabbing whatever looks good at the time to stick in the various spots. Originally this was just going to black and gray but my slash of black wasn't as big as I thought it was so I've been improvising. I've been digging through my already cut strips from previous projects and adding in to what I was going to use from just my reds and purples. I'm trying for waves of colors, going in and out of the blacks. I think it's working?

This is Saturday's hooking 4-17-19

This is Sunday's 4-18-19

And here's today- Monday's 4-19-20
I got the rest of the colors put in and am now working on the background grays. I've got to cut some more tonight so no hooking until tomorrow.

Fiendfire Bottom Section done

2010-04-16T18:42:00.003-04:00

It took me 7 days to do the bottom part of Fiendfire. Though I still have the bottom bottom of it still to do and the sides on the bottom I'll get them later while I concentrate on the center parts. I have reprositioned the canvas to do the next section upwards. I've really been having to dig through my stash to do this one and hope I'll have enough grays to finish it. I've been working outside on this putting in 8-12 hours a day and really pushing myself to get this done by the end of the month. I know I won't have it done by the 24th, not if it took me 7 days just to get the bottom part done. I have at least 2 big sections to go and all the sides4-5 inches each side plus about 4-5 inches on the bottom too. Soar I am happy with it. It's more like doing one of my paintings than hooking and feeling very liberating for some reason.

Fiendfire

2010-04-12T16:53:00.004-04:00

I've started a new rug called "Fiendfire" named after a scene in the Harry Potter Deadly Hallows book where the Room of Requirement gets destroyed by magical fires that is full of all kinds of shaped flames. That's what the design reminds me of though the art was done years before I read the book. The original art was designed back in 2005 when I still designing tattoo flash. It was just a small sketch and I decided to try to do this as a rug and expanded on it somewhat. The rug will be roughly 3 x 7 on burlap in various sizes of wool strips, some of my spun yarns and unspun fleece.

Progress so far

SMILE Challenge and Tribal Sheep finished.

2010-04-05T17:44:00.004-04:00

This is my entry for the SMILE Challenge on the Rug Hooking Daily group. I got it finished March 30. It was done on white linen in mainly 3's. The challenge part was the elf and I added in the sun, flowers and border and my season for the challenge was Summer. I think it's okay, This is one of the few pieces that isn't 100% my own artwork.

I just got the Tribal Sheep finished today and am almost through with the whipped edge. This is done in 3's except for the balck border which is in 8's on linen. I really like this one and am happy the way the gold background came out. There's about 4-5 shades of gold in it that I hand ddyed in different dye batches. The browns came from some wool that I got gifted with this year.

I'm going to try and finish up some of my UFO's--the Cat's paw runner, the tribal butterfly and Greenman before I tackle anything new. I'm also going to try and do some felting soon to make up some medicine pouches for the my show on April 24th.

More Tribal Sheep Progress

2010-03-26T17:24:00.003-04:00

Yesterday 3-25

Today at 1 PM

Today at 4 PM

I didn't get as much done yesterday as I had a doctor's appointment and birthday party for my oldest granddaughter here in SC. Chloe turned 7. Wow, how time has flown. Hope you have a wonderful year this year.

Tribal Sheep

2010-03-24T17:44:00.005-04:00

Tuesday hooking

Today's hooking at 1 PM

Today's hooking at 4 PM

I started work on my Tribal Sheep rug the evening of the 21st so I have been hooking on this roughly 2 1/2 days in mainly 3's with a few 8's here and there. I'm using about 5 shades of golds, leftover in browns from the tribal rabbits and black, so a lot more limited palette than on the rabbits. With the warm sunny days we have been having lately I can sit and hook for a good 6-7 hours outside, then do a an hour or so hooking at night while I watch my TV shows. I'm feeling very good about this project and with luck might even done by next week.

Tribal Rabbits Finished!!!

2010-03-21T15:13:00.003-04:00

I finished the tribal rabbits at a little after 11 AM today. I really whizzed through this one. I maybe have 4 days total hooking time in this with 6-10 hours of hooking a day as I would hook starting in about 9:30 and keep going fairly steady until 4 PM then hook again in the evening for about 1-3 hours. I used a combo of 3's and leftovers in random sizes from other projects. The back ground evolved as I went along. I had seen something similar to it on a primitive rug hooking calender as a background but wasn't planned out when I started hooking. I hope the colors all work out okay with one another and I think I achieved my dulled palette I was going for. I found out I really need to dye up more browns as I was more limited in a range of browns shades than I was any other color I was using. The mat is 17 x 22 and I still have to finish the edge. I may have to spin up some yarn for this and dye it as I don't think I have anything I can use on it right now.

I'm going to start on the sheep tonight. It's going to have a gold background and I have been going back and forth over whether to do the sheep in black or a different color like blues or browns. The background is going to be more solid though of multiple shades of golds. Backgrounds are still giving me fits and I really agonize over them. I wonder if I can do one similar to the rabbits but not quite as pronounced in the golds so it's a pattern but not an obvious one. I don't want the background to be so busy or stand out as much. Most of my golds are overdyed over camel and tans from suits and skirts. Though there are a couple of pieces that came from the inherited stash.

I'm getting to feel better about my hooking. I'm still disappointed that no one has been interested in purchasing any of my patterns yet. I hope the new designs will spark some interest maybe. I do have a craft show coming up in April and I'm trying to get some rugs for sale for it so I am really pushing myself on getting hooking done now. Maybe showing my work will get people interested here in SC in trying to hook. If it wasn't for all the on-line support hooking groups I would get totally discouraged with it. That and Facebook have been helping keeping me going since I don't have a local group to hook with. Annyway back to cutting up strips....

New Rug and Designs

2010-03-19T18:09:00.003-04:00

I just got finished with my SMILE Creative Challenge over on Rug Hooking Daily--wow first rug of the yar finished. But can't show it until everyone else is finished so at the end of March you can see it.

Have started another experimental rug. I'm on a tribal design kick and came up with 2 small canvases to work on. The First I started 3-15 is a pair of Tribal Rabbits and the other is a Tribal Sheep. Both with be done with duller tones towards the brown side. I'm working in a mix of 3's and leftovers from other projects. These are being made with selling them eventually in mind. So they are more decor orientated than I normally do. I'm trying some designs that my kids (late 20's to 40's) would be interested in since they love my tattoo designs and tribal graphics as I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from other people on them too. I doing the backgrounds in a sort of primitive style drawing on what I have seen in books on older rugs and the way they were hooked but putting my own contemporary twist on them. Hopefully this approach will work. The sheep rug I may or may not use some of my sheep fleece on. I'm still debating on that and will see how it goes when I actually get to it.

Decisions on Green Spirit

2010-02-21T18:46:00.004-05:00

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.

Snow in SC

2010-02-13T13:04:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we got about 3 to 6" snow here in Columbia which is a very rare thing. Luckily it did not turn into a ice storm which is really bad around here. It was really scary going back home last night as Sc is not really set up for snow and the most they can do is throw some salt and sand down on major roads which luckily we were able to use to get home. On my road no one had even been down it so we had to trail braze to the house. Today it's melting off the trees and power lines which is good. Hopefully most of the stuff will be melted off the roads by the time we leave tonight.

Thursday I lucked into a huge stash of rug hooking supplies. I was contacted by my local hookers about a give away of one of their former members supplies since she has gone into a nursing home and can no longer use it. I ended up with three huge trash bags of fabrics, most of which were off the bolt and were large amounts of yardage.Another member contributed a huge bag of hand dyed fabrics. I hot a newer model Frazier cutter with #2 and #3 heads, a bunch of small traditional hooks, scissors, binding tapes, a McGown hit and miss squares with flowers pattern, a beautifully done half finished floral rug with scrolls rug and hopefully all the cut strips and fabrics to finish it. I am going to attempt to finish it. I haven't done any traditional style hooking before and I am in awe of the very tiny strips this was done with. I generally use size #6 and up and mainly 8's. My fiber hooking is with both a fine hook and a primitive one depending on what I am doing.

I had to do some shifting and reboxing some of the crafting stiff to empty some containers to put the new wools in. Really need to get some see through containers and organize.

Here's the completed Mother and Child section on the Spirit rug. Next section I am working on with be Green Spirit. Then I'm working on the Earth tiger on Janice's rug.

Updates

2010-02-06T10:41:00.009-05:00

Hi,

I'm sorry I haven't been writing in this since last fall. Lots of things have been happening but I haven't felt like writing. My latest bit was unexpected heart surgery Jan 27th. I had gone into a women's clinic to get a Pap spear and to get checked for breast cancer but my blood pressure was 180/120 and up for a couple of readings so they sent me across the street to the emergency room at Palmetto Hospital. Needless to say I was admitted and kept overnight with surgery scheduled the next morning. They put in 2 stints and told me I had 90% blockage, have lung cancer and some other problems related to that. I still have to go to another clinic to get checked for the breast cancer which I strongly suspect I have. I've been recovering, but I still don't have all the energy I should have and tire easily, I won't even go into all the depression over this and uncertainly about my life, art career, and future. What is bad is that I he no health insurance and very little income currently and am not old enough for Medicare and don't qualify for diability or Medicade. But I'm just going prod on and not let it all get to me.

I am hooking again. I have 2 commission rugs I am working on. One is a family Chinese zodiac type rug similar to my rug for a friend near Charleston that raises Tunis and TunisXShetlands. I am using the fleece from her sheep to hook her rug. I got the fleece in Nov and ahve it washed and dyed for hooking. The second is for a friend in Idaho that raises Icelandic sheep, Angora goats and rabbits. I am using her fleece to do a pictorial rug advertising her animals for use as a banner and display. Both are going to take a while to do as they are both roughly 3 x 4 and 4 x 5.

I have bowed out of my article I was going to do for Rug Hooking Magazine as with my health problems I am afraisd to commit to it and miss the the deadline plus if I have to have cancer treatments I'm not going to be in any shape to work let alone think to write.

I have been having problems hooking the 2 commission ones so I have startd working on a rug for myself using the designs I was going to use for the RHM one plus the other designs that weren't going to used and have put them together into one big 29 x 49 rug on monk's cloth which was originally going to be used to just do standups of the designs. This way I got all 5 designs in one place. The background I used a French Curve to trace around it shape randomly all over the mat and added in a couple of abstract human figures and some hearts. The background will be sort of strain glass like--at least that's what's in my head. I am using Karakul fleece from my friend Barb Barnett in Iowa that I trade my designs for her her fleece with.

I have spent most of the fall and winter washing and dyeing various batches of sheep fleece. The end of October I was washing and making batts of 20lbs Gulf Coast Native fleece for a local breeder, then in Nov I got 30 lbs of Anna's Icelandics, Jacob and Mohair and 25lbs of Janice's Tunis and Shetland fleeces and was washing them, and dyeing them as I went along for their rugs, then December and January I got 2 batches of Barb's Karakul and Tessdale fleeces, and have about 10 lbs more of her 28lbs of fleece to wash.

I have also been experimenting with spinning rug yarns. I have been doing some core spinning using both Llama and Shetland blends, and dyed Icelandic. The Icelandic is really soft and nice and not coarse so I am spinning some of it to make it a bit hardier for a rug. I am also experimenting with 2 and 3 ply yarns and blending the various fiber together to get a nice rug yarn. I am think of eventually trying to do some rug punching and to explore hooking with yarns more. I can't do any wheel spinning until after the 16th because of my surgery because they went in on my right groin which is above the leg I use to spin with since I have a single treadle wheel and I don't want to put any pressure on it by pumping my treadle. I am so hoping I get either an electric spinner or a double treadle wheel this year. My poor old German wheel is okay but very limited as to what it can do.

I also hope I can get a used gripper frame for my hooking--SOON! I'm still using my big oval quilting frame and stretcher strip frams with tacks for my work. I am experimenting with a pcv frame I made as a standing one and I'm using q-snaps to hold the fabric in place but not sure how they are going to hold when I have to move my hooking to another spot to work and try to use them over the hooking.

That's all for now. I hope to write more on this blog soon.

2 Blue Ribbons!!!

2009-10-13T20:33:00.004-04:00

My Blue Ribbon Bag!!!

I got the result of the SC State Fair judging and I've gotten two blue ribbons so far. The first for the pumpkin salad felt bag and the other for a skein of yarn I had spun from one of my dyed teal and blues combo of Lincoln and Mohair spun 2 ply sportsweight. I guess I'm a better spinner than I thought I was. On my Dinosaur rug and my handspun Welsh wools original design knitted lace shawl I won't know until I go to the fair Friday with the Conagree Fibre Arts Guild to do a demo if I have any other ribbons or a mention. They only post 1st prizes on line on the fair site. This is my first ever win of anything for my crafts.

I did get some design work done today before I hit the computer. I laid the first of my designs for the RHM article out on the linen. I'm going to do an identical one on the other piece. One is going to be worked with my fiber blends of rovings and the other is going to be done with commercially available rovings. This way too I can figure out fiber amounts for the project both from my fibers to make kits and how much one needs to get from an on line store or a fiber shop. I also managed to get the central design out of the leftover linen to do a one sided stand up figure and just for grins I might do it in wool strips to see how it looks. I'm in the early stages of color planning for this and with all my dyeing done for the felt and for sale fibers I have a bunch of colors all ready done up that I have to sort through to see what amounts of each I have. I am still thinking about the border I did for the design and am still not sure whether I like it or not and whether to change it for the second one. It looks okay but I keep thinking it's not quite right. I had to come in early so I didn't get a chance to play more with it.

New Project--Tribal Butterfly

2009-10-12T15:17:00.004-04:00

Okay, I'm in a better mood today. I'm checking out some possibilities with galleries and shows to market and sell my felt and rug designs. I'll see what comes from my inquires.

To make me feel better I started a new project. One of the designs that didn't sell was a Tribal Butterfly that was based on some tattoo flash I had made up a couple of years ago when I was thinking about being a tattoo artist and was apprendicing under an old biker tattoo artist for a while. I have a number of tattoos on my body, mainly ones I have done myself and I think all my children (adults) have at least one tattoo somewhere on them. To us it's art, abet a bit permanent but still art. I get some weird looks from ladies my own age locally because I guess respectable ladies don't have tattoos but to me is was another medium to try my art on.

Back to hooking-- The design is 34 x 37 with a 4" border surrounding the 28 1/2 x 30 inner design. The border is blank right now until I figure out what I'm going to do in it. Maybe either more tribal swirls or writing something about butterflies, the spirit and freedom they symbolize to me. Butterflies to me are comfort, joy, freedom, imagination let free, and a bunch of other happy feelings, doing one tribal style is adding the primitive to it, the primal, spirit of the forest, nature and just life in general to the mix of emotions I feel from the design.

It is on burlap (sorry that's all I had to work on) and I'll be hooking it in sheep fleece again. I'm continuing my experiments in it to in preparation for writing my article on hooking with fleece for Rug Hooking magazine. I still have to finish the designs for the article and submit them to my editor for final approval before beginning hooking. I still have to line up fiber for making kits for the article designs and am working on that through emails and calling.

For this design I am using some of the fibers I had carded and bagged for my show. While putting bags together I discovered I had bunches of blues dyed up, way more than I realized that I had after I went through all my different bins and tubs of fiber. These are sky blues, lavenders to medium blues and purples with touches of pinks mixed in. The main body of the butterfly will be in deep purples with touches of bright medium blues. The background will be in different shades of the blues and lavenders from very pale ice blue to a medium lavender color towards the edges. I'm using fine and primitive hooks on this. I do wish it could have been on linen or rug warp but can't buy any right now.

I still have to finish a felted vest made entirely from white mountain Welsh and Badgerface sheep. It needs a bit more wet felting and then I'll be able to add a lining. I also have the round felted rug to finish with a backing and embroidery. I had also found a unfinished dragon purse too to do in my going through my supplies last week. The dragon design is getting put on the piece of blue felt I did last month.

Depressed and Frustrated

2009-10-10T19:03:00.002-04:00

The Fall Heritage Festival at the SC State Museum was a total bust--$6.00 and free stadium chair that someone had left behind. Just feel like all those months of non stop working 7 days a week since April have been for nought. The only rug everyone wanted my my granddaughter's Cat rug which was not for sale. People did like Walk Me dragon and the other dragons. I had WMD hung up on a long pole suspend between a step ladder and a bunk ladder so you could really see it. They loved Greenman. I had some minor interest in my crocheted purses and some in the felted ones but no sales. The only thing that sold was 2 small bags of fluff for spinning. We didn't have that large of a crowd became the local USC football had a home game at noon, and we have the big Walking With Dinosaurs show here in town. I'm not sure what other events were also going on. Very little interest in my new rug canvases. I had done up some new dinosaur rugs and some pillow sets, new angels, angel cats, tribal animal designs, abstracty type designs, snowmen, sheep, and some of the Chinese zodiac characters.

This is the worst I've ever done at at show and I needed to make some money very badly. I just feel like a total failure and that I've let my family down by not being able to contribute or pay back what I've spend in craft supplies the last couple of years to at least justify my being an artist. Maybe I had too high of hopes for this show--I dunno. I'm not even sure whether my work is good enough to continue trying to do it, especially since no one wants to buy it either as finished work or as canvases. I'm not even sure what to do with it all now as I can't afford to do another show any time soon and I'm never had any luck selling on line. The few times I've put canvases up for sale no one has been interested so I really wonder if my stuff is sellable at all? I was really hoping for a break or a miracle.

Dyeing Again and Greenman

2009-10-02T19:41:00.005-04:00

Today was spent mostly dyeing up batches of fleece for projects and to sell at the festival next weekend. I did about 9 or so big batches using my two 6 qt pans and my 12 qt pot. I started in at 8AM and quit finally around 2:30. My kitchen looks like a rainbow herd of sheep exploded. I have 2 screens set up to dry the fleece on with a fan blowing on them and had another batch outside drying too. I finally got some good deep blues and purples, along with deep greens. These are always the hardest colors to get right and I had to double dye these to get them dark enough. I started with dark gray fleeces--Navajo-Churro, Jacob, and Shetland but still had to dye them twice to get them as dark as I needed. I also took time to wash a Lincoln fleece I must have missed in previous fleece washings, and I still have another one yet to do. These are the last of the Lincoln's I got from my friend Barb in Iowa.

This is the outside batch

After the sheep dyeing and lunch I debated on starting in on the carding I still have to do to have some bags of roving for both spinning and fleece hooking but I was too wiped out physically--maybe tomorrow on the carding. I did re-frame Greenman and had started doing some work on him yesterday and decided to work on him again to day. I'm almost through with the upper left side except for one leaf. I might even get him mostly done before the show at this rate. I have promised myself that I will get him done before the end of the year. I'm still blanking out on what to do with the border. I alternate between Celtic knots, or acorns and oak leaves, and also the different names of the Greenman.

Glow Sheep Bag done!l

2009-09-27T21:23:00.003-04:00

Glow Sheep bag is done. I got it whipped into place last night and did the sewing on it and the lining plus 2 pockets done today. What I love about it is that the purples in the felt match the purples in the sheep which was hooked in early spring. The felt was made earlier this month during my felting frenzy out of a combo of black Shetland, Jacob, brown Icelandic, dyed Karakul and Lincoln then carded and blended on my carder into big batts. I was aiming for close to dark purple and managed to achieve it happily. The darker colors are the hardest ones to do especially with the food and cake dyes and I have to overdye and blend with the natural dark colors of the sheep breeds to get dark colors. Navy blue is the hardest color to get along with deep reds.

I used a piece of tie dyed ctton in bright blue, purples and greens for the lining and added a large and small pocket to the inside. I had to make 2 small handles about 1" wide because of what fabric I had left and to make sure they were solid and sturdy. I forgot to measure the finished bag but estimate it to be about 18 x 24--good size for carrying projects. If it doesn't sell I might keep it for myself.

I'm going to try and get the cats paw runner done. I got the the stuff out of it and had to make up a batch of black strips as I used up all I had cut on dino rug. I may try to get some more done on Greenman before the show but doubt that I will get it completed before the show.

Tomorrow I'm going to start work on new designs and mats to sell at the festival, then look at what I can put together out of my fabric and fleece stashes for kits. Now if I can come up with hooks between now and then for kits and demoing.

Here Be Dragons Finished!!!!

2009-09-26T19:09:00.003-04:00

Finally today I got Here Be Dragons Welcome mat finished. It measures 29 x 28 and is hooked in old t-shirt cottons from some of my favorite tie dyed t-shirts and some black ones. I say farewell to my favorite blues and lavenders swirl shirt, my Con-Cat sci-fi convention 1989 shirt, and a burgundy and purple pocket T. This was done on rug warp with a Black Peaches and Creme cotton yarn to make it 100% washable.

Also finished today the linings and final finishing on 3 felt bags. Now I'm working on the Glow Sheep insert and making it into a bag. Only 2 weeks to go until the festival and I'm hoping I can get everything done.

I got some more burlap to do canvases for sale at Hobby Lobby. I wish I could offer better backing fabrics but I was lucky to be able to buy 9 yards of fabric today @ 1.99 a yard. It was a choice between fabric and putting money on my cell phone. Fabric won out. I really hate being this broke where 20.00 is a lot of money to me. I am praying very hard that some of the things I'm creating will sell at the festival as we need the money so badly. I am hoping too that I get at least one commission to do a rug. It won't solve our problems but it'll at least help. I'm good at creating things, I'm just not that great at making money with them.

Pumpkin Salad bag finished

2009-09-21T21:37:00.011-04:00

I got my Pumpkin salad bag finished Sunday complete with cotton burgundy and small black check cotton lining with added pockets. It measures 19 x 22 and is designed to carry large projects. It's going in the SC State Fair.

Out of the rest of salad fabric I got 2 more bags I have to put linings in.

Canteen bag 12" round

Medium size tote bag 14 x 16

Other felting projects--

Spiral Gray rug 36 x 36 done in all natural colors Karakul fleece

Glow sheep bag in pre sewing progress

A blues and purples piece I haven't figure out what it's going to be yet

And today I finally got the outer border finished on dino rug and will be spending tomorrow whip stitching the edges and giving it's final finishing--yeah. It's going in the SC State Fair. I decided on it because it's all original rather than Walk Me which has some problems on it's braided border which didn't come out as well as I hoped it would as my braiding still has a ways to go and WM is based on one of my cross stitch patterns. I was also afraid that WM would freak the fair people out because it's a fantasy dragon and this is the Bible Belt South--dragons don't go over very well here with mainstream SC folk. I figure WM will do better with me at the Heritage Festival since it is in front of the SC State Museum and gets more art lover and open minded people coming to the festival. I have lots of run in with locals with my paintings over the years so I tend to air on the side of caution when presenting any of my fantasy art work locally.

Felting and making bags

2009-09-18T15:42:00.003-04:00

It's raining today off and on for the next couple of days so I'm glad I got a bunch of the felting done when I did. Today I am making bags out of the felt done so far. First is a bag using a pumpkin with cats paw background I hooked for a Rughookers Yahoo Groups swap as an insert in a bag from the "salad" piece of felt. I got it inserted into the felt last night and have to sew up the sides and add a lining and handles to it. There's enough left over for a second bag without an added insert. The pumpkin one will be going in the SC state fair. Still haven't decided which rug is going in the fair yet. I've only got to the 7 or 8th of October to get stuff in for it. Then the Fall Heritage Festival is the 10th, with a demo at the state fair on the 16th, and finally SAFF in Asheville, NC at the end of the month.

I really hope I make some money at the festival as I need to get backing fabrics for my projects, especially for the RH mag ones--I'm out of everything and there is no money right now for anything--really. Playing this month's bills is scary. I don't use credit cards or charge anything so if I don't have cash on hand I can't buy anything. I'd rather not have than have a massive credit card dept I can't pay off. If I didn't have stashes of fiber and other things I wouldn't be able to do anything at all. I hate being this broke but it does force me to be even more creative and inventive with what I do have.

I have 2 more hooked pieces to add to purses-- my glow sheep done last Spring and a hooked dancing star. Still deciding if I need to make more felt before I put up all my equipment and fleece.

My article on hooking with fleece is a go with Rughookers Magazine, I will be doing a small oval rug for it and be doing a step by step instruction for the fleece hooking and it will come out next fall sometime. I feel very honored that they are letting me do this and hope my article will get more people to try using fleece in their hooking.

Felting

2009-09-13T18:10:00.005-04:00

This weekend and part of the week is for felting. I've run out of all the hand made felt I had made up and have been having to make up new batches for my purses and other stuff. I haven't done this in almost 2 years as I didn't have studio space or room to do it. We've been eating over the shop as the kitchen is full of fiber, dye pots and plastic for the floors. I'm dyeing up batches of fibers for both the felting and for my fleece hooking. I've used up a lot of my colors already on projects and am also out of a bunch of shades so I'm doing both the felting and dyeing at the same time to minimize the mess.

Yesterday I got one 30 x 8 foot piece of purse fabric done, though it might end up a shawl. Have to see how light weight it is after it dries fully. I'm calling it Fall Salad as it looks like a fiber salad before and afterwards.

It started out as going to be all dark browns and I started getting low on what I had to work with brown wise so I carded up some miscellaneous fall sort of colors and layered them on top then started adding more and more until I had a sort of fiber salad going. It used Jacob, Black Welsh Mountain, Black Shetland, and Icelandic for the browns, Lincoln, Karakul, Columbia, Merino, Jacob, Icelandic and Shetland for the colors. It took most of Friday to layer and card up enough to have the thickness I needed for the felt. Then it was about 4-4 1/2 hours doing the actual felting. I'm a bit out of shape on this so it took longer than I usually take. I now have a table to work on where as before I was felting on the floor for large pieces like this. The table is better for my back but I was still exhausted and hurt a bit after I was through doing this. At 59 I am really starting to feel my age and what is scary is that I'm in better physical shape than some of my kids.

Here's the finish piece. I'll try to get shots of the backside tomorrow.

I'll be doing a purples and blues piece tomorrow and try to layout a green one, maybe to do a another greenman bag. I also need to make up some fabric for my swap circle project as I will be doing it into a tote bag like I did the Ravens. The felt I just made was going to be for that but I'm not sure if it will work now.

Sheep rug is finished as a hanging now. I got the straps and rings on it. One project down upteen to finsh and time slipping away.

Patterns For Sale

2009-09-05T19:51:00.002-04:00

If anyone is interested I have 2 of my snowmen canvases for sale right now on The Welcome Mat under Yard Sale.

The original version as a handpainted needlepoint canvas back in '95

I have my Barbarian Snowman (42 x 38) on JoAnne Fabrics sage green burlap. Has 4 to 5" margins. It's designed for either narrow or wide cuts. It is based on a needlepoint canvas I did in mid 90's, that later got translated into a cross stitch design for Stitcher's World magazine in 1989, along with an original design for a female Viking snowlady? The original did not have a background so I have added a snow barbarian horde landing on a sea shore with their long ship in the background and a sea serpent. Great for a kid's room (this was going to be for one of my grandson's but don't have time to do it and can always make it again). It was created when I was doing a big order for a needlepoint shop and had done one too many cute snowman, I also have snow ghosts, snow vampires, snow Frankinsteins, snow Cthulthu's, snow TV stars, and other snow characters. Will gladly give color suggestions and help as needed on this. $55.00 plus shipping to your zip, Paypal only or will trade for backing fabrics.

Done as a needlepoint canvas in '96

My Patchwork Snowman pattern drawn on monk's cloth. It was designed to be a large stand up figure aproximately 15 w x 24h. It has a 3 to 4" margin on each side. I would recommend narrow to medium cuts 4's to maybe 7 cuts. I can also provide coloring guides for this or make suggestions. The design is based on one I did for handpainted needlepoint canvases in the 90's and was later translated into cross stitch patterns for Stitcher's World magazine to be part of the Snowman Tree skirt in 1997. $40.00 plus shipping to your zip. Paypal only or will trade for backing fabrics.

Just email if you are interested at fanxstitch@yahoo.com.

I finally got my knitted bag with hooked sheep pocket finished today. The yarn for this was all done by me from a couple of different breeds of sheep, and the fleece was dyed first, carded into different color batches then spin. I made the pattern up as I went along and was knitted on wooden straight 11's mainly while I was in Wales. Then I sewed the bag and threw it into the washer and dryer to felt (several times as some it refused to felt up--Tunis and Suffolk do not felt very well). I was not really happy with the results because the handle was too long and not right and I couldn't figure out what to decorate it with--it really needed something so put it up for almost 2 years. I came across the bag and my little test sheep done in all fleece on burlap done last Fall and it finally clicked together. The sheep looked great on the purse and I hadn't figured out anything else it could go on. The sheep needed it's edges finished and I found some leftover of the green yarn from the purse so I just did a simple whipped edge. I was just going to sew the sheep on the bag but then saw it was just the right size for a pocket. I found some dyed teal with colors close to the yarn and sewed it to the backside of the sheep, then I whipped and sewed the three sides to the purse to make a pocket on the front.

The handle I took loose from the bag carefully as I had really sewn and whipped it on there. I cut out segments from each end of the strap, found some wooden rings and made loop on each end of the strap. I took the leftovers I had cut off from the strap and reattached them to the purse and to the rings. It had shortened the strap to the right length and looked way better than it had. It has a 2 button closure. I didn't line the inside of the bag and am still debating whether it needs lining or not. This is definitely a one shot purse as I really knit then felt.

Later today I am going to get the raven bag done. I found a large piece of teal wool which I may or may not dye==still debating on that--for the back of the sheep rug. There's also enough to put either a sleeve on do straps for hanging. Then I'm trying to figure out what to do with the small "Glow" sheep 11 x 14 and one of my finished stars 8 x 8. Might have to create some new felt for them as all I have left unused is a very hot pink piece for a purse with a pick speckled end which won't work with either of the hooked pieces. I'll figure something out. This week is get all the almost done projects done before starting on new ones. Though yesterday I did lay out some new designs on some monk's that may be going in an article for RHM next year on fleece hooking.

New Project--Snowman

2009-09-03T20:12:00.005-04:00

New Project this week one of my snowmen adapted from my cross stitch and needlepoint designs. I started him Saturday the 29th after I got through with the sheep rug. It's not as far along as I had hoped it be because of staying over at my daughters and helping with the three grandkids. She's recovering very well and is almost back to her normal self.

The snowman is all in fleece on burlap and has a matching back that will get hooked too to be a standup figure. This will be my first one. I'm doing him in xmas colors for my display at the Fall Harvest Festival Oct 10th. I decided to do him with cats paw circles instead of patchwork or swirls as I have done some of my other snowmen. I've already got some mini snowman drawn out to hook too. And I have been playing around with some more Vogee dolls too since Halloween will be coming up too. Now that I'm home I'm hoping I can get his front hooked up by Sunday and start working on his backside.

Right now I am debating between putting either the Dino rug or Walk Me in the SC State Fair. I have to drop off my entries Oct 7-8, so I'm debating which needs to go in the Festival and which needs to go into the fair. Any opinions?

Sheep Rug hooked!

2009-08-29T13:47:00.002-04:00

Except for the final finishing and some treaking it's hooked. Finished at 11:58PM August 28th, started August 19th with minor delays and interruptions. All in natural and dyed fleece and hooked with fine and primitive hooks on rug warp. 22 1/2 x 28 1/2.

My daughter had gall bladder surgery yesterday and I will be over at her house helping with the three grandchildren 6, 2 1/2 and 10 months until Thursday at least. Taking projects with me as I have to still get ready for Fall Harvest Festival and SC State fair in October.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's hooking

2009-08-26T19:19:00.009-04:00

As promised Monday's hooking

Tuesday's 9/25/09 hooking--This was between 10AM and 3PM

I finished the ruff on the sheep and then started to fluff out his top mane.

Today's Wednesday 9/26/09 hooking from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM This was by 1PM

I trimmed down the some of the fluff with scissors and sculpted it a little so you could see the fiber tools better, then I worked the top fluff a little more before I started doing the lettering and lines.

This was in the shade at 4PM

The lettering, especially the word dyed is clearer in person than in this photo. I may have to add a thin outline to it so it will show up better.

Saturday and Sunday's hooking

2009-08-24T19:17:00.002-04:00

Saturday's Hooking

Sunday's Hooking

More pictures tomorrow

More Sheep rug progress

2009-08-21T19:02:00.008-04:00

Close ups of right and left sides

Today was my 59th birthday and I spent the biggest part of it hooking on the sheep rug while sitting outside, even in the heat. I have better light outside and can maneuver my hooking frame easier too. I worked from 8:30 Am to 4:30. I did have to drag the boom box out to drown out next door. I just not handle hellfire and damnation preachers that well while I'm trying to concentrate on my work. I got a lot of the background around the sheep done today. I decided on using greens--to try and make people think of recycling, green crafts, nature, etc.

Before I started hooking I was writing some ideas for a possible article on hooking with fleece for eith Spin-Off magazine or for Rug Hookers magazine. I'm going to contact both and see what I have to do to submit something. I have been taking pictures of some of my processes, sorry that they are with the camera phone but they
hopefully are okay.

These are some of my 'pallets' for the sheep rug

This is what I am hooking. Pulled fluff

Rolled in my hands like a clay or felt snake

Hooked into the rug warp

Close ups of eyes, an ear, and nose

Three Ravens bag semi finished--just have to add strap to it, and finish upper edge then take a much better outside picture. This was in the living room and does not do it justice. It's 18h x 20w. The main panels are 15w and the added side panels are 4 1/2 w.

Sheep rug started

2009-08-19T19:32:00.007-04:00

I was ambitious today. Between 9:30 AM and 5 PM I got all of this hooked. I'm hooking with Badgerface and White Welsh Mountain uncarded fleeces to do the sheep while the colors are coming from food dyed and Wilton cake dyed Lincoln, Finn, and other breeds of sheep. This was designed on rug warp and so far I am very happy working the fleece on this. I'm a lot happier with this than when I have done similar hooking on burlap and linen. I'm using fine and primitive hooks.

Noon

3 PM

5 PM

I am going to do this all in fleece, adding no strips or yarns just t see how an all fleece piece will come out. I am also experimenting with adding a fleece ruff to it. I'll see how it turns out and debate whether it stays or not. I'm hooking the fleece into the fabric and then pulling the intact fleeces out, not doing true proddy with this.

The crows are enclosed into a felt bag I am still sewing together by hand. I almost got the sewing machine out then decided not to use it and to hand sew instead. I cut out a circle in the felt and then turned down the edges of it and sewed in it and then sewed another ring around it to hold the backing fabric in place. There was enough fabric to do a good size tote bag with side gussets and a strap. I'll post pictures of the finished bag next time.

I'm making a 2 inch border in black around the dino rug. I started that yesterday after seeing that 2 rows was not enough of a border so I'm taking the border out to the original inner border line and it does look better and frames it without being over powering.

The neighbors across the street killed and removed all the big oak and other trees in their yard. These were huge trees probably 40 to 80 years old, 2-4 feet in girth, some older than the ones in my yard. I have a hard time understand tree killers when these were nice healthy trees with great shade for their yard. The squirrels and birds that lived in them are upset too.

At least the neighborhood wildlife has a haven in my yard. I love watching all the squirrels, and birds as well as the butterflies and dragonflies that come visit. I have trees and plan on keeping all of them as long as the neighbors don't kill them off. Today I had a very unusual visitor and huge hawk that was as big as my 3 year or grandson. My dog was inside at the time but it landed by my clothesline and before I could grab my camera phone it took off. I did find a similar photo of what I saw which was a red shouldered hawk not a red tailed one as it was lighter colored more golden and with lots more cream on it's chest and head. I've heard them in the yard and seen them flying up in the sky but it blew me away to see one land not that far from me while I was working. I felt very blessed today.

Three Ravens

2009-08-17T19:14:00.004-04:00

I got the three ravens hooked today, but am not totally happy with it yet. I have to figure out how to get the legs to stand out and make the ravens themselves stand out better. This was after three other attempts at a background color combo that would work. I think I should have done it all in fleece instead of doing the background in wool strips, and strips I cut from some of my younger daughter's ex-clubbing clothes and an old paisley skirt. I wanted to experiment with alternative to wool strips and try other recycled clothing in this piece. This is still going on in as as insert in a felted bag I am making from a felted Shetland, Jacob, Alpaca, and Icelandic shawl I made 2 years ago that came out thicker than I wanted, but great thickness for a purse though. I'm cutting a frame hole in the shawl and inserting the hooked piece in then stitching around the hooking. I may end up whipping the edge with some metallic threads and adding some embroidery. This piece will be going in the Fall Festival stuff for sale.

I do my fleece hooking with a 'fine' hook for the most part. I'm using mainly uncarded fleece, but you can use carded. The ravens were done in Black Mountain Welsh, Jacob, and some Black Shetland. The blues, purples and pinks came from some food dyed Tunis, Lincoln, and Finn fleeces, the yellows from food dyed Lincoln. I use a variety of different fleeces for hooking as I am still trying to figure out which are the best suited for doing it. Merino is a no go as it is too soft. You need something with some body and crimp to it as well as a longer staple length something at least 4" long.

Alpaca is a pain to work with because it is so slick and slippery to handle. At least it is for me. I mix it in with the wools I felt with but I hate trying to spin it by itself because it will not hold together unless I have a very fast wheel going.

The nice thing about hooking with fleece you can mix your own colors even as you hook for shading. You pull up your fiber just like you hook normally, you also control the thickness of your stitches, Some times it's helpful to roll the fibers in your hand like you are making a snake and gently pull it taunt like you are making pencil roving. Your back is going to be a bit messy. Needle felting it gently will also help lock the fibers in place. Best backings are linen, burlap or a close weave cross stitch fabric.

I'm going to be doing the Green Cat rug all in fleece, so I'll be able to tell you more how this works on a large project. This technique would also be good for making hot pads. I'm just beginning to touch the surface of what can do with hooking with sheep's fleece.

Dinosaur rug almost finished

2009-08-15T18:53:00.006-04:00

I've almost got the dinosaur rug finished. Just the border(s) to go on it now. Finished the main part in a 5 hour hooking session today before I did some much needed yard work.

Though I wish my gay neighbors would leave my bushes alone and quite cutting my shrubby by our mutual fence. I want a privacy screen and they keep cutting my bushes and tree next to the fence. They were cutting the yard but after they cut down my flowering bush surround my oak tree and destroyed my basket woven sculptures of a goddess figure and a tall greenman that were in the bush I haven't let them near the yard. Then there's their all day every dayChristian religious gosphal channel that they listen to from early morning until 11 PM everyday at very loud volume. I don't care what other people believe in but I do dislike having to listen to it and having to play my music loud enough to drown theirs out. I am trying to avoid cops or getting really nasty but I would like to enjoy my backyard and listen to the birds and sound of nature instead of listening to anything. When I can afford it I'm putting up a tall wooden fence to have some much needed privacy. Their yard in picture perfect--that's all they do is play with their yard and have the money to put in nice plants, and landscape. They also work for the city I live in which is another reason I don't want more hassles with them. Maybe I'm being unreasonable but I just wish they'd leave my bushes, and trees alone and tone down their radio. I just feel sorry for the people on the other side of them as their house is closer to the radio than mine.

Going off soap box and back to rugs. I sent in my forms for the Fall Heritage Festival Oct 10th at the SC State Museum. It was only $30 for a 12 x 12 space and hopefully I'll be able to get a tent too. I will be having a couple of rugs for sale.
I'm thinking of selling Walk Me Dragon but only if someone offers me $3,000.00 for it. Dinosaur rug will also be up for sale for $700.00. I really need the money otherwise they'd be going to family as present instead. I'm going to have a combination of hooked and felted items. Some that will be both hooked and felted with 3D effects.

I've been back playing with my fleece and roving this week and about have my 3 Ravens 12" circle finished. It's being done mainly in fleece but with some fancy yarns and fabrics thrown in. It's going as a insert in felted purse. I had done the felted fabric 2 years ago attempting to do a Shetland and Jacob shawl but it felted up too thick so it's perfect for making a felted bag of. I'm going to try and recreate my greenman purse I did 2 years ago and maybe some other ones I did for over in Wales. I'm working 12-14 days on my projects now trying to get things ready for the shows. It's amazing what a little space and seeing hope and light at the end of the tunnel can do to boast one's moral and get things accomplished.

Other designs I came up with this week working in the 12" circle space

I got my 12" circle for the Yahoo Rughooker's group swap done already except for the final finishing as it's on the same piece of linen as the raven piece is and I want to finish it and the other small pieces I have drawn out on it before cutting and finishing them.

After October I will be trying to teach classes in beginning hooking, felting and maybe spinning at Lexington. I'm also thinking of developing a mini workshop on my hooking with fleece techniques and another one on combining hooking and felting and maybe offer them in the future at a rug camp or something so I can go to a camp. Maybe someone will invite me to teach next year.

Been Moving

2009-08-05T16:27:00.002-04:00

Hi,

I've been moving over to the house permanent this last week. Kendra and Corey moved to his grandmother's in Brevard, NC. It's taken over a week to get everything resorted out and finding places for all my junk. A majority of my stuff was already at the house but a lot was over at my husband's shop. I now have a functional studio space in part of the den/living room area. On one side of the back wall is the sheep collection about 8 or so containers full of fleece for my spinning, felting and rug hooking. On the other side is the rug hooking fabrics in bins. In the middle is a 10 ft folding table with magnifying light. Several shelves with with odd ball stuff and tools are next to me behind the table. I have room for my spinning wheel and spinning equipment. Along one wall I have my big looms and on my easel I've got the family rug to be worked on. Behind the couch facing my table is all my yarns in bags until I can get some more bins to put them in. You can't see them from the living room part.

In the laundry room is all my felting equipment to do wet felting with. In my bedroom I've got the cross stitch and needlepoint fabrics and equipment, Most of my fabrics are in there, along with dolls, doll stuff, acrylic yarns, and what finished fiber crafts I haven't hung up and lots of varied fiber crafts UFOs. As you come into the house I have the dining room/entry area hung with all my cross stitch and needlepoint finished pieces. I've got painting in the hallway and in my room and a few in the living room. I haven't hung up any of the rugs yet. The matle over the fire place has my collection of odd varied collector items, character dolls, minatures and family photos. A lot of things haven't been together in one spot in almost 20 years.

I will be doing the Fall Heritage Festival October 10th at the State Museum here in Columbia, SC. They finally sent the entry form and have also asked me to do a demo of my work. The SC State Fair is Oct 14-21 and I am going to try and stick some things in this year but the drop off for it is Oct 7-8 and release dates are Oct 26-27. The Conagree Fibre Arts Guild is going to do a group demo at the fair and I'll be doing that too sometime during the fair but hopefully not on Oct 17th as that's when Autumn, Heather's youngest is having her first birthday party. So I've got to figure what's going in the Fair and what I'm going to have in my booth for the festival.

I've also got an opportunity to teach in Lexington. I volunteered to teach rug hooking, felting and spinning but before I knew for sure about the festival. I have to come up with a teaching plan. They would like some one to do children's classes, especially after school and adults. I have to write them back but I'm thinking I wouldn't be able to do any classes until Nov as I need prep time for the classes and I have to get stuff ready for the festival and the state fair. I also need to do a test run on my teaching using the grandchildren and see how it goes. I've never taught before so I am really, really nervous about my abilities.

Monday Brian, my youngest son, 27, moved in over at the house as his roomates in Atlanta vanished. So instead of having the house to myself I have one kid back home again, By the end of the month my oldest son, 39, will be moving in. But with no internet at the house they'll be spending time at the shop so I'll at least have some quiet time to myself. Hopefully, they will help me with the yard work that despartly needs to be done.

I did manage to get some more hooked on the dino rug, and am going to try and work on Walk Me some more tonight.

First Tapestry started, Dino rug and Red Woven Bag

2009-07-24T13:29:00.010-04:00

Pente Ifan, Wales

I have started my first tapestry weaving this week. I'm using a photo of Pente Ifan near Cardigan, Wales as my model. I got to actually touch this massive, incredible monolith while I was in Wales. It vibrates, and you can just feel the age to it. I felt like I was in a super sacred place, very holy, very mystical and cosmic. I went alone to see it while my friend Sue stayed in the car. It was a short walk through a pasture with sheep on both sides of the fence. It sits on one of the high rolling hills and isn't too far from the Neolithic Village I also got to visit. It was late afternoon, very quiet and still, with a light, cold misting rain. Some people have said that when they have looked through the opening in the center they have seen other places and times. I can sort of believe it as there as so much energy surrounding this simple structure. I still can't figure how they managed to balance the rocks the way they are to construct them with no heavy machinery to lift these huge stones. My ancestors must have been supermen. I stayed for about 15 minutes and left as it was getting on dinner time.

My tapestry is being done of a 12 x 12 frame loom that I had already warped and put headers on maybe a year or so ago and never got any actual weaving done on. The yarns are pulled from all my stashes and I am using hand dyed homespun, DMC Medici tapestry, Jameison yarns, rug yarns and assorted knitting and sock yarns--whichever have the right colors I need for this. I've gotten 4 or so inches done so far doing simple tabby and interlock tapestry. I'm trying to avoid doing slits to sew in as much as possible. The warp is not tensioned which I will correct in future weavings. Still having problems keeping even sides. I really have to figure out how to do sides. My tools are naalbinding needles, yarn needles, and a plastic hair pick.

I can't remember what I used to warp this thing but it looks like thin Medici type wool as it isn't cotton thread or linen and is thicker than quilting thread but not as thick as Peaches and Cream cotton yarns. I think my rocks and foreground grass is coming along okay. I think it's close enough to the original colors and shading. I'm doing a lot of color blending of threads using 2-3 strands of Medici as I weave when I'm not using thicker handspun, and even with it sometimes I am adding a stand of the Medici to make it blend better. Designing xstitch, needlepoint, my own yarns, and rug hooking has helped a lot in learning how to optically mix colors in yarn and fibers also the rag weaving of rugs and bags has helped too to see how colors interact and blend. I am studying a lot of the tapestries on line in progress to see how other people handle their colors and problem areas of their designs. I'm learning at lot that way than I have from my less than helpful books. I'm going to try to get into the monolith rocks today and see how far I get.

I got the red rag bag done. This was all on 2 cardboard looms, one for the bag and the other for the handle. It used red Peaches and Cream yarn for the warp and assorted cotton quilting fabrics for the weft cut in 1" strips using both my hands and one of the larger naalbinding wooden needles to weave with. I had to weave the bottom together with extra yarn, then sewed the handles to the upper header band. It's 15 x 18 which makes a nice large project bag or a bag where you need extra height for items so they won't fall out. My tapestry loom would fit in it with not problem.

I've also gotten some work done of my dino rug when I wasn't working on the tapestry or something else. I got the stegosaurus done and am putting in the background before I move on to another area. I think it's coming along okay. For those just tuning in, This rug was deliberately designed to look like a child drew the dinos. Very primitive, very simple--at least for me artwork so I could use leftover 6's, 8's and other wide cut leftovers. The figures remind me of the tail end credits on Ice Age 3. I love the artwork on the credits, it's darling and gave me ideas for other work along this and that lines.

You are probably wondering why this interest in yet another fiber art, tapestry and weaving-- it's just something I have been trying to do off and on for years. It's the only fiber art that generally frustrates me and I never seem to be any good at. Ever since I started spinning I've had this thing in my head to weave enough cloth to make a garment with using a primitive loom like a warp weighed one like my lost ago ancestors somewhere did just to see if I could do it and how long it would take me to do it. I've gotten a pretty good idea of how long it takes now to spin up enough fine yarn to make a sweater, blanket, or shawl out of on spindles and a wheel but how long did it take a poor lone housewife back in the past to weave enough simple cloth for her family? That's something I really want to know for myself knowledge and to having the satisfaction of doing it.

Previous attempts at weaving

I'd love to learn how to use a rigid heddle, 4 or 8 shaft loom but I'm never going to be able to afford a real or big loom. At least I can build frame looms, but don't have the equipment, tools to make my own bigger more complex looms. I'd love to have a big 36 to 45 wide rug loom, that would be wonderful and I can see being able to make my rag rugs way quicker than I am doing. I'm in love with Kromski Harp loom with it's built in warping board. And I also love the Ashford Knitting looms with their optional extra heddles. Hopefully one day I can make enough money to buy on in the future. I have started numerous weaving projects over the past 6-7 years since I've been here but never finished them. Hopefully, since this a small design I will get this tapestry done. What I get out of weaving is a sense of being connected, like I do when I'm spinning, something ancient and primeval like Pente Ifan is, if that makes sense, something I'm missing from daily like here in SC. I know I will never get into complex weaving, I look at weaving drafts and my head aches--too too confusing for my head at this time. Though I do admire some of the spectacular work being done by the complex, multi shaft weavers out there.

Though doing the tapestry I have to wonder what I'm going to use it once it's finished. Wall hanging, purse decoration, clothing insert? I'll have to think on it. It's not like a hooked rug that can be used mutiple ways and is a lot more durable. This tapestry is going to be too lightweight and won't stand up to heavy use. How much is going to be worth finished? I have seen incredible prices even on small pieces but would I be able to get those kind of incredible prices for my work? I'd be happy to get a 1/4 of some of the prices. I do get miffed that most of my work will never been seen in a gallery or any place it should be seen, and will most likely end up stashed in a closet in one of my kids homes or end up at Goodwill or the trash. At least I can show it on line where someone might like it in passing and if I'm really lucky buy it.

Nest week I move into the house so I will not be on very much as the computer is staying at the shop. Kendra and Corey are moving to Asheville to his grandmother's. Things sort of blew up over the house and them not really paying half the rent or utilies for the 18 months they've lived here. They are moving and sticking us with the bills. If he had just gotten a job besides doing the occasional sci-fi con for his friend, things would have been cool, but enough is enough. I won't go into other problems with them. Oh, he has a job waiting for him there.... I will miss my daughter and granddaughter, but I hope he shapes up and starts supporting his family as we can't anymore. So I move in next week after they've got their junk out, and move my working junk over here there. I'm going to get a cheap cell phone for there but no cable or internet for awhile. I need it because I may get stuck at the house as the car is taking longer and longer to start because of it's messed up security system that we can't afford to get fixed. So initally it'll be just me and dog, they are taking their cats thankfully. With everyone out I can finally inventory my junk and see about selling off some of the books and craft supplies I have. I'll be posting notices on different Yahoo sale boards for what I am selling off and post a notice on here too.

Weaving this week

2009-07-18T13:38:00.009-04:00

Tie Dyed cottons drying on the clothesline for my rag fabric weavings and crochet projects. Recycling old sheets and redoing so so fabrics to make them more interesting this last week while house sitting.

This week I am experimenting with weaving on simple looms using cotton strips. Weaving has been on my mind for a while now and while I had the time and space while house sitting this last week I took the plunge.I made a large rug frame out of the metal rim from a folding table that got destroyed in the rain but forgot to take pics of it. I've got an almost completed 24 x 40 runner in shades of blues and lavenders done on one side of it. I designed the loom so I could weave on both side. I had to leave it over at the house as I couldn't move it in the car over to the shop without tieing it on top. I have been making some cardboard and foam board looms that are tote bag sized to do weaving in the round on. I've started one in reds, oranges and yellows on a 15 1/2 x 20 black foam core loom. I've never done this kind of weaving before so don't expect much as I'm still learning as I go.

I decided to try the weaving after I made 3 crocheted rag totes using 1" cotton strips and size Q hook. They took 2-3 days each to make and used up lots of fabric. It's a toss up which uses more fabric crocheting or braiding, so in the interest of making my fabric stretch further I am trying to weave some bags with the cotton strips. These are fabrics from my mom's, grandmother's, and Cecil's grandmother's fabric stashes I inherited some years ago. Most are okay pattern wise but there are a bunch that I have to wonder what they were thinking or how cheap was the fabric when they bought them as they are rather ghastly in my opinion. I know I could dew them into something but I am not in a sewing mood and want to try making things that don't require needle and thread. My interest in braiding has whittled down because of all the sewing required by it. I will get Walk Me's braiding done eventually, I promise.

alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5359912771153528610" />

The current weaving project was inspired by a weaving book in my stash I had forgotten about, "Weaving For Beginners" by Lynn Paulin, Glick Publishing, Inc. 1977. It's only 41 pages but it is packed with info , photos and diagrams that are easy to follow and understand. It has info on how to construct several different types of frame, cardboard and masonite looms along with patterns to weave bags, handings and pillows. I love all my older books as they are always so easy to follow and understand, more so than current more pricey books now a days.

I'm using 1" or so torn selvage size strips from various plain and print cotton in my fabric stash==probably about 10-16 different prints and solids so that I can go from dark red up to light yellow without having sharp jumps in colors. My warp is Peaches and Cream cotton yarn in red. I'm using a piece of double sided black foam core board with 1/4" cut notches on top and bottom, with 4 1/4 dowels, 2 on top, 2 on the bottom to hold the weaving up from the board. I am weaving around the board to weave a tube that I will then sew closed when finished. I'm using a long wooden naalbiding needle as my shuttle, and a large hair pick as my beater. I did 1/2 to 1 inch simple tabby weaving with some extra P & C cotton to hold my weavings in place. After I get this piece done I'll have a better idea of time and fabric factors. I am hoping to eventually build my skills up to try to do tapestry weaving which I have been wanting to do for years but have a hard time figuring out how to do color changes in my weaving.

A little more progress on the dino rug. I do work on it off and on. So far I think I'm happy with it.

Torchwood This week!!!

2009-07-08T18:16:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm a big sci-fi fan, nut, etc. I'm a very big Doctor Who and Torchwood Fan. Torchwood is being broadcast on 5 days with the story Children of the Earth. It is awesome and really keeps you on the edge of your seat. I'm not going to give away plot and spoilers but I hope you catch it.

From the Doctor Who new site at: http://www.gallifreyone.com/news.php

Torchwood: Children of Earth was watched by 5.9 million viewers, according to unofficial overnight figures. The programme was the 5th most watched programme of the day and the 2nd highest rated on BBC1, being beaten by the three main soaps. The programme won its timeslot with an audience share of 25.8%.

An additional 97,000 people watched the programme in HD on the BBC HD channel.

The BBC Three repeat at 2345 was watched by 214,000 viewers, a 3.9% share.

Part Two of Torchwood: Children of Earth was watched by 5.6 million viewers, making it the the most watched programme of the day on british television. The programme beat Eastenders and Emmerdale, with both soaps losing ratings to the Michael Jackson Memorial on BBC 2.

The programme audience once more grew throughout the hour and got an average 24% share of the total audience.

An additional 82,000 people watched the programme in HD on the BBC HD channel.

The BBC Three repeat at 2345 was watched by 282,000 viewers, a 5.8% share.

The Appreciation Index for Episode One was 88, one of the highest scores for the day.

This week I'm taking a hooking break and crocheting tote bags from strips of torn cotton fabrics with a size S hook. I'll be posting pics tomorrow of them.

Dino rug and Cats Paw

2009-07-02T16:25:00.004-04:00

Just some photos of newest projects. Here's the finished T-rex for the Dino rug. I am deliberately making him primitive style with the colors and hooking.

This is the small cats paw runner I'm working on that's at the halfway mark on it.

While I'm doing the cats paw I'm doing color planning for the snowman canvases. One of them has cats paw circles on it on burlap and the other has rectangle and square shaped patches on monk's cloth. I am debating on doing some dimensional work on the noses with felting and maybe doing at least one with bits of fluff instead of strips. I haven't been doing as much work with fiber as I started out doing and need to do up some more examples using just fibers. More thinking required on what to do.

Caws Paw, Dino Rug and Braiding

2009-06-28T16:05:00.003-04:00

I've started reworking the cats paw runner. This time around after taking out the cotton strips I was trying I'm using left overs from previous projects. Though today I'm cutting up some supplimentary colors to make the colors balance a bit more and make it more cheerful looking. I have a lots of dull muddy colors left from Walk Me and those are going in the Dino rug which I have also started. The cats paw is being worked on an old needlework scroll frame and the dino is on the oval hoop. I thought I'd do some simple primitives just for a break from my more elaborate designs.

The cats paw is a fairly common pattern with multiple variations of its design. I'm not even sure how old the design really is as you see variations on circle or shapes on a background color back to ancient times in various fiber crafts. The only thing different I am doing is making an irregular looping edge to it instead of a straight line edge, though that too has been done by different people. I'm also debating on building this--adding a braided edge then doing some small additional paws and enclosing them in braiding and adding them randomly until I have reached a size I like.

The braiding on Walk Me is proceeding slowly. I have almost finished the first round around the edges. So far it's going good.

I've started the braided border

2009-06-24T16:28:00.003-04:00

Backside of WM

Braiding for WM

Yesterday, I got the hooked part of the WM finished and have started sewing the braided edge on. It's slow going as I want to make sure that the braid isn't come loose from the rug and am sewing this first row in fairly close together stitches on both sides of the burlap. Once I've got this secure then I'll be adding the next rows until I get the border wide enough or run out materials which ever comes first.

I took a break today and am designing a new rug, one I've had in my head for awhile. It's a dinosaur shapes rug done in primitive scattered figure barnyard style. This one I've added 2 small borders, one 2" wide and the outer one is 1". I'm planning on doing this is leftovers from WM and what will be leftover from the braiding. It's going to be 30 x 41 on burlap which seems to work the best with my wide strips.

Walk Me Is Done--At least the hooking part

2009-06-18T14:09:00.007-04:00

Three different color versions of Walk Me Please Dragon as I couldn't make up my mind which looked best. I'd kill for a decent digital camera. The rug is somewhere between 2 and 3 as to true colors. These where shot with me standing on a chair shooting down on the floor with my camera phone.

I got the the last stitch on Walk me done at 1:50 AM on Wednesday morning, the 17th. I had started in at around 2 Pm Tuesday afternoon and was determined to get it all done that night so I really pushed myself. My hand is still a little tired even today. Finished hooking area is 42 x 58, if I do 6" of braiding all around it will be 48 x 64 so around 4 x 5 foot total when done. The family rug I think is bigger I think it's 4 x 6.

For some reason I'm feeling down now very depressed and antsy==is that normal after you've completed a big project and have pushed yourself to get it done? I still have all the finishing and braiding to go on this so it's not completely finished, just the 2-3nd stages with the 1st designing and laying it out, then dyeing and picking colors for it before starting the hooking. The the other stages are doing the binding of the edges, getting the strips ready for braiding, initial braided strip around the rug, attaching the braiding, doing some more of the braiding to what size I want it or run out of fabriccs, and finishing it completely. Lots of work still to go but I feel this rug really needs a border or frame around it otherwise I wouldn't bother with all this. Am I nuts?

Here are some of the fabrics going into the braiding.

I haven't figure out my sequence of colors yet. Going to stare at them awhile until it comes to me. I've got 2 more batches of fabrics to put in the dye pots and marry. I got about 11 pieces of clothing, many jackets, but a couple of women's jacket and skirt combos and a pale green blanket yesterday at His House up the street. All but 5 pieces are going into the pots. The other 5 are a set of purple and a set of royal blue and a nice light blue plaid skirt to go in other projects. The new batch I cut up last night is mainly tans, browns and a black. I needed out after being in for almost 2 weeks and went to the library in Lexington to take out the Sturges book on braiding and the Rag Rug books. I'll be glad when I can afford to buy them all.

That's the WM leftovers in all three bags

Blues

Leftovers. I've got a bunch of them. I've been mentally trying to figure out whether any of them will go in other projects started or planned. The biggest chunk of colors are the greens from the dragons and the greenery and the gray, tan, browns used for the landscape with a small Walmart bag left of sky colors but mainly on the lavender gray sides, most of azure and light sky blue colors got used up. I have been thinking of doing a cat's paw or undoing the cottons from the one I started that I had initally started in acrylic yarns. Though I think the gauge on it it more suited to 6's or 4's than leftover 8's though I could be wrong. It's another piece I could enlarge with braiding. Maybe with the leftovers I can make a rug that my kids will actually use and not be afraid to walk on.

I've been getting a lot of ideas for braiding designs and experiments. I keep seeing braided animals shapes or maybe a dinosaur shapes rug with braiding connecting different animals. I still see a primitive barnyard style dino rug for kids. There'a wonderful braided rug I saw on the Thorndyke rugs site that swirls out from the center I want to try doing eventually. I see all kinds of shapes other than ovals, rounds, squares and rectangles with the braiding and want to try multiple strands too to try to get close to Delsie Hoyt's work at Kingdom Moon rugs.

I've been thinking about entering this in a show. Don't know whether it would stand a chance as I still have a lot to learn on the hooking and my loops, etc. are not perfect or even. Maybe design wise it's be okay but technique and probably my finishing would take off lots of points. I did think of entering it in a fiber show for all kinds of fiber art work but the deadline is July 1st and there's no way I can get it braided by then. Anyone know of any rug shows I could send it to and not have to attend? That's the only way it'd get seen or have someone else take it to shows as car, and money wise I won't be able to go anywhere for a long time.

Walk Me Update

2009-06-13T15:05:00.004-04:00

Here are the latest updates on Walk Me.

Sky section

Full view of rug. It looks almost like he's looking at a bubble or something.

Half view closeup of it. I got all the undone places done after I took this pic.

Section I'm working on now

The circle area is where it is.

Once this big section is done then I will have the space between the mountain side and the dragon to fill in and to even up the sides and edges before the big project of rug braiding begins.

Walk Me and Braiding

2009-06-09T14:07:00.005-04:00

I'm slowly moving along on Walk Me. This is just the top left section. I at least have the tower done, some of the mountains and am working on the sky. Decided it needed more dragons. I was just told my daughter had something come up and can't go shopping with me so I get some more time working on this today and will hopefully get the rest of the sky done this afternoon.

Been getting lots done on the braiding though. I hope I can get this flattened out more as it gets bigger. I like the braiding part, it's all the hand sewing that is slow going. You can see the progression of the rings. Once I have 2 more rows of the white done then it's getting a pink and lavender ring with four points coming up off of it in between the four points now. I'm going for a kind of star or sun pattern with this.

I'm making myself concentrate on these 2 projects alone to get them finished. Though more on the Walk Me rug. Then it will get the braided border which I am still gathering fabrics for. After that I promise to get some work done on GM and Famoly rugs. Time seems to be slipping away from me so fast now. I know I've got until October 10th but I don't feel like I will have that much done by then to have a decent dispaly. I'm stuck inside for awhile because of the heat and the kids being at home which doesn't help my mood. I miss my greenery, my dog, and the peace and quiet over there but as always I make do. I do have a bunch of canvases to do I created but haven't felt like looking at them and doing color planning on them. Too tempting to start a new one before the older ones are finished and I do have to get these finished and out of the way first. I'm determined to stick to that.

I'm Back at the shop

2009-06-04T17:30:00.008-04:00

One of my backyard vistors. Anyone know what kind of bug this is? It was about 3 inches long and flew.

My 'Vacation' is over and I'm back home again for awhile. Really going to miss the backyard, my dog, the birds, squirrels, butterflies, peace and quiet, and no internet. I've made lots of progress on Walk Me and have been getting lots done a day as I'm able to work 12-16 hours on projects with no interruptions, as well as think about future project ideas. Too many people, distractions and interruptions here most days. My room here is sort of windowless and is lit with fluorescence lights. Always feel so restricted and claustrophobic in here--miss my wall of greenery, the birds and butterflies--even as a kid I'd rather be outside than in. My squash, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers all have blooms and are developing fruits, Moved my grape bushes to where they'll get more sun, and shifted some of the containers around, but didn't do as much gardening as I did last week, I just wasn't feeling that good this week and did more sitting and working.

I've made lots of progress on Walk Me. I've actually made more than the photos show. This was taken on Sunday, and I've now got the castle up to the top roof done, and all the landscape next to the dragon to the edge and up to the mountains filled in. Still have the sky, the roof and mountains to go on the left side. I'll try to get a decent picture shot tomorrow.

First braided rug finished and have started on the second rug in shades of lavender, pinks, light and dark blues, and creams. I started out doing this as a round up I've added four bands coming up out of a round so this will have more shape to it. I'm calling this one Aurora's rug. Which it may end up going to her eventually. I have some fabrics already picked out for one to do for Autumn in fall colors. In my head I have several more rugs planned and am going to try braiding in shapes like a pig, or cat or even a mouse or sheep.

More progress on the Folk Angel too.

I've added a link to a new rug hooking site Red Jack Rugs by the very talented April DeConick in Houston TX http://redjackrugs.blogspot.com/. Please check out her site and rugs.

Braiding and Here Be Dragons

2009-05-27T20:50:00.000-04:00

Still slowly working on Here Be Dragons mat. With luck it'll be done by this weekend. I think I have about 1/4 of it to go. I do think I am going to try using Monk's for any future cotton fabric mats. The rug warp really doesn't like irregular shaped strips which most of my t-shirt strips are since I torn them instead of cut them. I am ever so grateful for my slanted hook other wise I probably would have been very frustrated and sore handed doing this.

Most of my week I have been concentrating on my first braiding project which will end up as a small oval bath or kitchen mat. It's out of cotton quilting type fabrics from my slash. I'm doing it in shades of blues with a little lavender and pinks throw in. Though the pinks may not be used on this, It depends on how big this turns out. It's getting fairly big as it is very quickly. It is more narrow than fat so far and debating what to do to fix that. I am learning a lot on color progressions. I braided a bunch of the fabrics first and then started sewing instead of braiding a bit, then sewing and braiding some more, sew, etc. So I really didn't know how this was going to come out color or pattern wise. Next one will be braid a bit, sew that, braid, sew and try to get the colors and develop a pattern of colors as I go along. This is not one of my better projects. My braiding technique needs lots of work especially with the cottons to get the braiding even and consistent looking. Both my daughters are interested in this mat, especially the fact it's washable. I will be making more and giving them for xmas this year.

I can't wait until I get a chance to try the braiding in wools. This weekend I get to house sit again--yeah, which means house to myself and can spread out my fabrics, look at what I have, do some color planning for some of newer canvases I want to do and do some dyeing too. If I can get some money from hubby also hit the thrift stores. I need to start gathering wools for Walk Me's border. I know already I'm low on browns and have a good idea how much I'm going to have to acquire for doing at least a 4 to 6 inch braided border around it.

I also hope to play around with braiding to try and figure out how Delsie Holt of Kingdom Moon Rugs http://www.kingdommoonrugs.com/gallery.html does her rugs. I totally love them. I really want to try and do scenery type rugs like she does.

Hopefully the local rug hooking group is still going to meet today. They cancel it if there are less than 4 attending. I am determined to make this one and actual meet another hooker in person. I am still disappointed that the local teacher isn't teaching and I'll have to go to another state to take classes for my beginning requirements to get into teacher training. Even though I look like I don't need beginner lessons there are a lot of things I don't know and I do want to teach eventually and am too unsure of myself just to put myself out there as a teacher yet. I want to teach but am afraid to at the same time. Not that I have any extra money for going to anyone's classes as money is very tight here at home. And no extra money to put back and save either for future classes or camps in the future. I'm not very good at making money with my arts and crafts either. I really suck at it. I enjoy doing them but never manage to sell them for decent prices. Never sure what to charge or what anything is really worth. I have business training and have run businesses but I don't like doing it. What I need is a business manager/partner or keeper that will take care of all the business aspects of my art while I concentrate on creating and making it. Hopefully, the right person will show up sometime.

I'm Back

2009-05-21T15:58:00.006-04:00

I've been staying over at my daughter's house the last couple of weeks while her SO was out of town doing sci-fi cons as photographer of celebrities. He was doing one in Fl then had to go up to Detroit for another with a brief pit stop at home. Occasionally my daughter gets to go with him but not these last trips. When she does get to go my granddaughter, Aurora, gets photoed graphed with the stars too like the cast of Battlestar, James Marsters and others. I'm hoping I get to Dragon Con this year as they will be having James and Patrick Stewart and a bunch more--I haven't checked the confirmed guest list yet.

Kendra and James Marsters

Firefly cast with Kendra and Aurora

Aurora and Kendra with Battlestar cast

Kendra, Aurora, and Corey with James Marsters (Spike on Buffy and Angel, Capt. John on Torchwood and Brainiac on Smallville

I have been working on rugs over there. I get so much more done when there isn't the net to distract me as they don't have Internet. I've almost got the Here Be Dragons mat done--I figure 2-3 days yet to go. I started back working on the Folk Angel rug I started in January with the #12 cuts or 1" wide strips. I'm trying to get some of the older UFO's done before I jump in on the new canvases I did last month. It's going a lot easier this time around hooking it because of my slant shaft hook which makes pulling the big strips through a lot less wearing on my hands. It's not a Hartman--not able to afford 35.00 for a hook yet.

Folk Angel

Here be Dragons Mat

I've also been experimenting with braiding using cottons from my fabric slashes to make a bath or kitchen rug. I'm trying to get the basics down so I can do a braid edging around Walk Me when I get it done.

I've been looking into getting teacher training so I can get certified eventually to teach rug hooking here in SC. I'm only one of maybe 8 people that do hooking in SC and I can't find anyone that does braiding here--that's very sad and pitiful. There are very few professional traditional artists in SC period in any medium--guess everyone moved elsewhere or they gave up and quit doing it. I want to take classes but all the one's I want to take are a good distance away and too me very expensive, not even counting traveling, rooms and food. On both ATHA and the McGown sites there are teachers in NC and GA so I guess I'm going have to go there. I have to have at least a basic class and recommendation from a teacher to get into any of the teacher training classes. Even though there are a lot of self taught, like me, teachers out there I need help in learning to teach and do classes. Lot of self confidence problems. Maybe something will break and I'll be able to do this somehow.

Here Be Dragons progress, etc.

2009-05-12T14:18:00.003-04:00

I've been busy over at my daughters since last weekend and haven't had a chance to update. I'm working on two projects at once. The Here Be Dragons mat in cotton t-shirt strips which is a little over 1/2 done and the cat's paw runner which I took the acrylics I had hooked out and am doing in now in quilter's cottons from my fabric stashes. I am also learning to do braiding. I'm using bits of fabrics I am using in cat's paw and will be attaching the finished braid to the runner as a test to see how braiding a border will work with Walk Me when I get it done. The cat's paw is 12" wide by 31-33" long if I remember rightly. With the added braided border it'll be more useful. The braiding is interesting and frustrating since it is in cottons.

I still have to go on hunt and search the thrift stores trips to get up enough fabrics for the WM border as all the wools in my stash are spoken for for projects. But thrift stores have to wait as we are too broke right now for me to do any shopping at them. Business at the computer shop has been down with people not picking up their fixed machines and my kids have not been paying their very low rents to us and we still have to pay out money for shop, house and trailer rents and ultilities. No to mention food and gas. And since Ebay won't let me sell my downloable to email sxstitch patterns in the regular xstitch area like I had been for almost 7 years I have almost no income myself coming in. The xstitch was paying for my backing fabrics and other supplies. Anyway I'll figure something out.

New Projects

2009-05-03T14:18:00.006-04:00

I probably need new projects like a hole in the head but I started on 2 small mats (for Me) to demonstrate alternative materials for hooking. One is a table runner on monk's with irregular cat paws in acrylic yarns, 12 x 30. It'll be in shades of purples, blues, teal and golds. I'm using a number of Lion Brand Homespun on this because it's thicker than most of the yarns in my stash and I've also decided after knitting and crocheting a lot with wool I really hate the stuff to work with or make anything out of it. I had bought it for baby blankets and ended up giving my kids wool creations instead. I want this to be a sort of hit and miss type rug and washable. I had gotten this piece of monks off Ebay and hadn't found a use of it until now. If it's going to be a usable table runner I don't want to use my good wools, not with my family.

The other is a "Here Be Dragons" welcome mat on rug warp 20 x 28 in t-shirt cottons. I'm using about 3 old black ones that vary a little in how black they are and wear for the background. The colors are reds for an old holey tie dyed Con-Cat convention shirt, a dark burgundy tie die, and a pale blues, pinks, purples and whites tie dye that is at least 20 years old and too holey for wear. I decided to go with a very simple palette on this. I ended up with 2 Walmart bags of ripped strips mostly of 1/4 to 1/8 width. This is a good rug to practice my lettering skills on. It has Here Be Dragons at the top in wave style, and Welcome in large letters at the bottom. Between them is a tribal sort of dragon done mainly in the Con-Cat reds with burgundy accents. I screwed up when I drew this out originally on the fabric. I had a big dragon behind the Welcome letters which was okay but not that great either so I did the smaller tribal one over the top of it. I opted for the simple 4 colors instead of a bunch of ones as I wanted a) see how little material it would take for this size mat, b) wanted to do something that was okay looking but not so pretty people would be afraid to use it, c) it could be easily washed and d) demonstrated recycling and easy to find fabrics.

I'm also planning a mat or doll done in cotton yarns and/or cotton quilting fabrics. Just have to get more rug warp and monks. My other designed piece of rug warp, the sheep and wool welcome mat in an earlier post is going to be done in wools. If it's all about what you can do with wool it needs to be in wool. I have one 1 yard piece of monk's left right now and I'm debating what's going to be on it. I am eyeing the Heatherfield's again as possible xmas stockings for grandkids. I've seen some wonderful examples on the web for doing them with hooking and leaving the backgrounds plain which would be great with the Heatherfield and some other ex cross stitch fabrics in my stash.

The rug warp is interesting. A little stretchy and not so easy to pull the larger hoops through. I'm doing it on my big oval hoop and have to keep adjusting it. But overall it's not bad to work on. The monks is not bad but it still has a tendency to split, and separate if I don't pull my hoops exactly right.

Getting ready for this show has been a good thing. It has been forcing me to really work on projects, come up with ideas and also think how I am going to demonstrate and explain the hooking, especially using a variety of materials. I may be ready to even think about teaching classes next year if any one would want me as teacher that is. If I do do classes I am going to concentrate on hooking with recycled fabrics and materials, hooking with fleece and roving, hooking combined with felting, maybe making 3-D sculpted objects, and maybe doing fantasy character rugs. These are subjects very few people are doing in hooking. I guess I can think outside the box easier (years of practice) and I don't have the company of other hookers, except on the web, to maybe guilt me into sticking with the usual wool strips. I also have this huge stash of craft materials and fabrics either inherited from relatives or bought over the years and dragged with me through multiple movings that I really feel the urge to do something creative with and hate giving away. Every time I do I end up reacquiring similar stuff and in double and triple the amounts I got rid up. My house hates a vacuum, I guess, and I have to have x amount of stash to make it content.

That's one of the reasons I have been thinking about hooking some of sewing or quilting cottons into rugs. Cotton hooking is very popular over in the UK as is proddy which I may get back into. I have also been thinking a lot about learning to braid. A couple of the Rag Rug books I get from my library has directions for making cotton fabric rugs. It'd be a great way to use up a lot of calico's, especially the ones that are rather loud or I hate the color combos in. I've also been thinking of adding a braided edge type wool frame to Walk Me maybe in browns, or dyed over camel golds.

I have too much in my head I want to do....

Designing

2009-04-30T15:18:00.004-04:00

Still slowly working on Walk Me. I'm in the left hand rocks and have a bunch to do there. I've got a good 6 inches upward to go until I start in on the castle.

These last couple of days I've been designing. I'm working out some versions of a wide cut GM. I've got a head that will fit on a 15 x 25 mat, another I'm trying on 28 x 33 mat, and a very elaborate one that is a version of the Fall Greenman cross stitch that will fit on a MG Textiles linen burlap 54 x 60 package. I have a hard time designing on just paper so I usually draw out the design on burlap or other backing fabric, then I make interfacing and paper copies of the design. I know, reverse of probably everyone else. I may make a quicky sketch of a design idea, then I will look at a piece of fabric and figure out how it's going to fit, eyeballing, enlarging and expanding as need be. Projectors and other methods have never been useful for me. I'd kill for a larger table to work on but have to make do with what I have. The only exception to designing on fabric first was greencat that I worked out on large sheets of paper first. Though I am working the fall GM out on paper.

I got four snowmen done yesterday. I'm made several large standups and 3-D ones for wide cuts. I'm going to do some for smaller cuts too and make them smaller. I've got one patchwork, one with circles or cat's paws with a matching back side. a plain one, and really over amped on the Barbarian snowman which is a scene rug now with a Viking longboat, sea serpent and fellow barbarian snowmen landing by an ocean. It's 42 x 38, great for a kid's room. Only one of the patchwork snowmen is on monk's, everyone else is on burlap.

Halloween wise I found some freaky kids I did had done in 16" circles for cushions I need to copy. I had forgotten about them. I will be doing some skulls soon. I've got ideas to make 3-D ones with hooking and felting that can be used as purses or decorations. My mind has been also on bats, witches, goblins, warped cats, werewolves, vampires, mad scientists, eyeballs, and Cthulhu critters both cute and realistic. There's also a tribal Pegagus in the works and some other designs I'm adapting from my tattoo flash.

Now if I can get a quarter of what I've designed hooked for the festival.... If I could afford it I'd ask for volunteer hookers to make models up for me but too broke.Though I am curious to see what other people will do with my designs.

Walk Me pictures

2009-04-28T16:55:00.006-04:00

The computer is fixed. I have to reinstall some of my programs and get everything close to normal again, but it a lot healthier and working more smoothly then it has been.

Got more work on Walk Me done last night.

Repaired the glaring white spot down by his tail shadow, evened up the edges, I hope at the bottom and got as far as by his front paws by the time I quit.

Original hooking--see white blob behind his tail that doesn't work?

Redo of area--much, much better.

I got sucked in what we were watching instead of my work so less progress than I hoped was made. We were watching National Treasure I, new Ashes to Ashes 2 episode, and Northern Exposure 3rd season last night. Tonight will be the second movie, Heroes, Big Bang Theory, and Castle. I usually do a lot of hooking watching shows, when I'm not over at daughter's in the backyard which I haven't made it to this week so far.

People have been writing me about Greenman designs and canvases. Hopefully by mid May, early June I'll have something for sale either on paper or on interfacing for you to put on your own backings. I'm think of around $20-30.00 for it hand drawn on either the paper or interfacing. I can't offer any on backing materials yet. There will be two types one for narrow cuts, yarn or fleece hooking, the other for wide cuts. I would not recommend doing wide cuts #6 and up on the design for the narrow cuts as the face and everything else will come out very distorted looking. And the design for the wide will be similar but not quite the same as the narrow. I need to do a little test hooking on it before I pronounce it okay for wide cuts. The test pattern will be done in Fall colors for the festival. I will also have suggestions for all 4 seasons palettes.

The original designs for these are based on my 4 Seasons Greenmen FanXstitch cross stitch patterns which differ slightly in looks, colors and objects in them. If anyone is interested in the xstitch they are $8.00 each or $25.00 for all 4 as downloadble to your computer PDF's. I take PayPal just email me.

The up loader on the pics quit working so I'll have to do Spring and Winter GMs and my other GN's later.

Walk Me Dragon progress again

2009-04-27T17:11:00.001-04:00

Slowly working on Walk Me. I'm straightening up the edges on the hooked sides today on the bottom, top, and right sides. Since I am working with an oval hoop I don't necessarily get straight overlaps when I reposition so there's gaps and it looks sort of scalloped in spots. It's not too noticeable until I take it off the hoop and get some perspective on it. I may take out the patch of cream light colored rocks by the dragon's tail. It kind of glares and just doesn't fit there. I'll fill in with similar colored rocks which should make it blend better. I'm learning slowly on how colors effect one another next to each other especially with the larger size strips. I hope my rocks look okay. I have been really trying to make them look like rocks.

Photo uploading is not cooperating today so no pictures. My computer is acting funny so hubby is going to be doing some work on it. So if I'm not on for a day or so that's why. I also need to start designing some stuff for the Fall Heritage Festival and get away from the computer for awhile. If I'm around my computer I get sucked into cyberspace and get lost looking a my groups, Facebook and email or off exploring something on the net. The last day it has been family origins. Still trying to track down when my dad's family came to America and whether we are related to Chief William McIntosh that was on the Trail of Tears.

Walk Me progress this week

2009-04-25T16:21:00.008-04:00

Spike being camera shy

Still slowly hooking on Walk Me. I'm still in the upper right corner and hope to get most of that section finished tonight, Hooking lots of rocks and hoping I'm getting the shading right so they look like rocks. In a bit I have to cut some more strips as I'm running out of a bunch of colors that I'm using.

4-23 Progress

Since then and last night

I have been invited to display my work and have a booth with my hooking at the Fall Heritage Festival at the South Carolina State Museum in Columbia October 1oth. I will be having my rugs and whatever else I can come up with by then plus do demos of hooking and spinning. Hopefully I'll be able to make some converts to both crafts there. I will also be pushing the recycling angle on the hooking since most of my wool is recycled from old clothes and I'll be doing at least one mat with t-shirts. I also want to do one out of plastic bags and another using acrylic yarns. I really want to use up some of the Lion Brand Homespun yarn I have. I'm both excited and nervous, and hope I can pull it off and look close to professional.

Some more gardening pictures. I did get some tomato plants, peppers and eggplants in pots this week. Kendra has been busy putting Sunflowers in the front.

Pepper and Tomatoes

eggplant and tomatoe

Pepper

Volunteer strawberries

Potatoes
alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328732036081130930" />
Volunteer corn

Volunteer peas

Dragon topiary planted with herbs with woven sun from Wistera in yard

Walk Me progress and Hawkwind

2009-04-21T17:22:00.007-04:00

I haven't been getting as much done as I have been doing on things this week. Blame Facebook. Mysti got me to get on there so I have been exploring it and adding things too it. Also found a motherload of Hawkwind related pages and have been discovering songs and information about the group and their offshoots I didn't know before. Especially about Robert Calvert. I am a long, almost lifetime fan of Hawkwind, which is a UK British Space rock band I have been totally in love with since 1972. I've been to five of their concerts over the years and have gotten to go back stage with the band--they still remember me. I also have done numerous paintings to their music which they have gotten three of. My kids hide out or run off whenever I play any==I think I over amped listening to it when they were little. But no music other than there's has ever hit such deep cords and had such meaning for me over the years. It calms me and makes me feel alive. Their instrumental work is incredible and it's a shame that their talent and genius isn't more recognized and acknowledged. They will be having their 40th aniversary in August this year. I'd kill to be there in the UK for that concert...sigh. Old hippies still rock on.

Meanwhile back to Walk Me. I'm now working in the upper right side of the rug on the second small dragon. I hope the background rocks and the other small dragon look okay. Working small sections like this is hard to see who everything looks together until I take it off the hoop. This is a way bigger scale than I've worked with before. I hope I can find or make a frame where I have more area showing to work on so I can get everything balanced better. I do like working this big, I see real possibilies with it. I used to paint huge paintings, wall and ceiling murals, and do murals on sides of vans so working large scale is no problem it's just being able to see everything in relationship while I'm doing it.

I'm still here

2009-04-18T12:01:00.003-04:00

I haven't gotten that much to report. I'm slowly working on Walk Me. Right now I'm working on the right side lower bottom that has one of the mini dragons and lots of rocks. I spent yesterday cutting strips for the rocks and landscape behind the dragon. I had run out of a lot of the light colors like creams and light grays and will be needing my sky colors soon so I took the day to do nothing but cutting #8 strips from a large batch of various colored fabrics while I listened to Hawkwind. I ended up with 2 Walmart bags full of colors, one for the earth tones and one for the sky. I still guessomating on how much each section will need so I probably cut way more than I will actually use on this. When I get through with this project then I'm sort the leftovers into baggies for other projects. I love having cut extra so that there are precut strips ready for another project, just that less I have to cut in the future.

My head has been on family this week. Oldest daughter in FL called yesterday with bad news--she may have throat cancer. She's been having problems with the side of her through swelling up since January. They took a MRI the last time she was in the hospital for it but the first tech read it wrong and told her she didn't have any problems. A second one read it and saw something but sent the report to her primary care doctor but he didn't say anything until her visit to refill her prescription for thyroid meds. He called her at home Friday to have her make an appointment with him soon as possible. She is 40, lives alone, is on Medicare disability but no Medicade. She gets enough to pay for her rent and utilities, and her medicines which are quite expensive as she has other problems besides the thyroid. She gets 16.00 month in food stamps because she "makes too much". She has to go to charity places to get food. She has started to go back to school on line for a graphic artist degree but it'll be awhile until she finishes it. We may have to move her up here to SC and put her in with youngest daughter at the house. I've very worried about her alone and facing all these problems by herself. Right we can only wait and see what happens before me can make any solid plans.

My youngest son that moved to Atlanta is moving back to SC this week as it evidently didn't work out there. He plans on staying with his friend rather than moving back in. If my oldest moves here that'll be six of seven offspring in one spot which hasn't happened before. My daughter in Germany is staying put there with her 2 kids.

I'm going to try and get over to the house today to get laundry and some work done. It is so hard to get work done here as there's too much distraction with the computer and no pretty greenery to look at to inspire and motivate me.

I'm Back

2009-04-15T09:50:00.013-04:00

I'm back from my house sitting. I really miss the backyard already. Every morning I take my coffee, a bunch of Rughooker magazines and notebook out to sit at the patio table to wake up and enjoy the greenery of the yard when I'm over there. Just me and my dog, listening to and watching the birds and squirrels. I get up between 7 to 9 AM depending on how rough a night I've had. Hard, long lasting, deep in my chest coughing spells were waking me up a lot with lots of junk coming up. But I always feel so much more alive and creative over there. Here I wake up in front of the computer in a non window room with fluorescent lights and stare at the screen and read my messages and groups. I like the internet but I really didn't miss it that much and enjoyed getting so much done on projects and actually spending lots more time on them as well as planning new ones.

I didn't do any new dyeing or got new clothing to take apart this last week. Still have a bag of clothes to cut and wash up left to do. Spent all day, 8 hours plus cutting up fabric for the Walk Me dragon for the rocky background. I ended up with 2 big Walmart bags full of #8 strips in shades of tans, creams, grays, browns, rust and lavenders in spot dyes, dip dyeing, solids, plaids, herringbones and others. I picked out from the fabrics whatever I though may work. What doesn't get used will be put back in my tubs for future projects and will be that much less I have to cut up.

I did redo the Here Be Dragons mat, and designed a random shapes cats paw runner on some monk's cloth. It'll be about 12 x 50 when done. I haven't decided on a color scheme for it yet. I also played around with my experiment in dimensional and combination felting and hooking. I'm doing a Tree Man on a piece of 19 x 45 burlap. I sort like it but it's bugging me in spots. I'm using my dyed and undyed fleece and rovings and may use some spun yarn and wool strips. I started it Saturday after drwaing the design up Friday. I had been wanting to do this for awhile. I think it's going to end up as a free standing sculpture so I will be doing a back and sewing it into a tube or bowl shape. The goddess maybe be moved to the back instead of coming out of the top like I have it drawn right now. I also have ideas to add branches and leaves to this coming out from the background and am working through several ideas on how I want to achieve this.

I got some hooking done on the Family rug and have now repositioned it to hook a new section. The sun was not cooperating when I took the pictures of the rug off it's frame.

My husband Bill as a Metal Rabbit. The tiger in red is getting hooked not the big head. The tiger is me by the way and after looking at the head I decided it didn't fit in with the rest of the full figure characters.

Got lots more done on Walk Me and the bad picture of it was taken inside on the floor. I am now working on the right side bottom of the mat where the little dragon is.

Off and on during this time I was doing bits of yard work. Managed to get my new grape vines and blackberries planted. Planted some herbs in the dragon topiary. Still have to plant the 2 rose bushes I bought in the front yar. Only one of the 5 I planted last year survived. These two are a white and pale lavender and white with plae pinks. I also have butterfly flowers to plants and a bunch of veggies. Need to get some tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant starters going soon. Eric next door took pity on me and cut half of the big backyard. Though he did kill one of my apple trees as he didn't see it. We may leave the rest of yard to stay wild. It looks so pretty that way with all the morning glories and other native flowering plants and bushes.

Meanwhile back to answering all my accumilated mail and getting caught up on my net groups.

Walk Me Dragon progress

2009-04-09T11:38:00.009-04:00

I'll be doing another round of week long house sitting starting tonight until next Tuesday while the kids go up to NC to visit Corey's grandmother for Easter. I'm here long enough to check my mail, and resupply myself for the weekend.

Spike

volunteer potato plants

Volunteer strawberry plant.

Views of the backyard and hoping to get someone over to cut the grass. It's a foot tall already.

Most of last week I was sick with sinus and allergies and coughing up my lungs alot. Spring has sprung with a vengeance and the pollen is really bad around here. I finally got some Benadryl and have been taking lots of Echinacea plus drinking herbal teas and feel a little more human and together than I have been. Even the dog was worried a few times and I really need to get a cheap phone for when I'm over there alone. Outside of rain a couple of days the weather has been gorgeous into the 70's mostly and sunny. I love sitting in the backyard and working. We have a round outdoor cast iron table with large umbrella and lots of chairs that I sit at to work. I can finally get the right working angles for my larger projects if I prop them across the table and chairs. I've been able to get lots of work done on both Walk Me and the Family rug. WM is in a large quilting oval hoop and FR is on 30 x 32 stretcher strips. I've been alternating work on both of them.

I got all the wool clothing from the thrift stores washed and dried but not all cut up yet. I had probably 20 jackets, 10 skirts and 7 pants to cut up. I'll get them done this week. Some of the cut up has already hit the dye pots, I tried some experiments in marrying colors. I'd layer different colors together in a scrunched up bundle tied up together with left over wool scraps then put them in a big pot of salted plain water and let them simmer for a couple of hours alone. I got some amazing color combinations that way which will get used sometime in projects. I even tried onion skin dyeing for the first time and got lovely yellows, apricots and golds, though at one point I pushed the colors and added toothpick bits of yellows and oranges to the mix to get the colors I was dyeing for. At the same time I was dyeing the big bundles and there was a lot of purples in the batch so I got purple colored water, I dipped in some of the graduated yellow strips I was doing and got some wonderful shaded lavender and yellow pieces similar to what I had seen in an article by Wanda Kerr in Rughooker's magazine. The purples grayed the yellows just enough that I'll be able to do the kind of graduated shading I have planned for Green Cat on some of the cat flowers.

I only got two designs drawn out, because of being sick and not being able to think. Both are on the new rug wrap I got to try out. One is a half moon shaped welcome style mat that has all the uses for wool, a spindle, rug hook, knitting needles, crochet hook and felting needle plus a large sheep. I've had this in my head for awhile seeing similar ones by different artists on the net. Though none of them had all the craft uses for wool spelled out and the different tools for them. It's 20 x 27. The other didn't turn out that well and I am going to redo it. It was a "here Be Dragons" welcome mat and the dragon just isn't right. The lettering is good but my art work on this sucks. I am hoping this week to get more designs done. I'm thinking of even trying to do some xmas and Halloween mat designs and maybe try designing some 3D pieces too. Maybe a stuffed Dragon?

Also need to take 2headed dragon over to the house to work on so my youngest son can have it for his birthday. The oldest son I am thinking of doing him my revised McIntosh family coat of arms as a mat. I was born a McIntosh. We're from the Oklahoma and Kentucky branch. The family motto is "touch not the cat but with a glove" I had fun with that image. It was going to be a tattoo but I didn't get around to doing it.

Walk Me progress 2

2009-04-01T15:14:00.010-04:00

Walk me is moving along. I did have to break down and dye and cut up more fabric for him.

He's still mainly in 8 cuts with some 6's and other sizes thrown in. If I had done him in 6's maybe I wouldn't have had to make so many changes to him to keep in proportion. I did have to unhook some of his wing. After I got it off the hoop and looked at it I realized it was too long and needed to be shortened about 3-5 inches to make him work.You can see my before and after pictures.

Before

After

I think I will be doing the landscape I have sketched in. Fabric wise I can do a multicolored landscape easier than I can a creamy meander background. I went through the fabrics yesterday and put together a big tub of possible choices to use in it. I'm pretty good on grays, tans, golds, rusts, brown and textures, though I may have to do some dyeing for the sky part. I wish I had better pics of the background. Behind him on the left is a castle with turrets, on the right is a cave with big rocks surrounding it, and a couple of the mini dragons. And he's on a rock ledge. I might even add some more once I get him done and really look at the picture in total.

I am not liking the hoop at all as I can't see how the section I am working on is doing with the rest of design especially in this large scale. I am really starting to think about getting one of the gripper frames on do my bigger projects on a big frame. I saw a quilting frame with Ratchets at Hancock's last week and it it had a nice wide area to work in and was adjustable to 112 inches. It was 199.00 and collapsed down to fit under a bed.

I'll be house sitting for a week and half while younger daughter is in Atlanta with the baby and her SO is in Tampa for a sci-fi con. So I will be off the computer more than on since there is no internet, phone or cable at the house. I love having the house to myself and have lots of stuff planned to do besides getting caught up on laundry. I have a big trash bag full of thrift store fabrics still to take apart, wash and maybe dye. And maybe some runs to the stores to see what else I can find for future projects. There's a yd of white that part of is going to get dyed for sky tones. Then I'll be working on designs. I have a request for a GM for wide cuts from a friend on the Welcome Mat and will see about working out something for that. I have a bunch of other designs I hope I can get worked out too. I'm still not quite at the stage to sell my designs. Initially I thought no problem, I'm a designer, I can do this, but once I got seriously into doing the rugs and seeing how the different cuts and materials work I've backed off somewhat.

I look forward to my time alone with just the dog, and their cat. I'm also taking the spinning wheel over and going to try and do some spinning up of yarn for green cat. I think the last time I spun was in the early fall before I started hooking again. I think I'm going to try just hooking yarn on this, no punching, just hooking though I did plan on experimenting with the needlepunching and try out the punches I bought last month. On entertainmnet to watch and listen to I'll be going through Battlestar again, Primeval, and whatever else looks interesting.

Walk Me progress

2009-03-29T12:32:00.005-04:00

I've gotten a lot done on Walk Me since Friday. I'm working on his wings now and with luck will have them mostly done by the time I finish tonight. I redid the dragon legs a little and had to undo three rows of stitching as it looked cut in on his upper leg against his belly. His leg is sturdier looking now. I may have to dye more fabrics for this. I'm hoping I'll have enough greens but this is really using up the fabrics faster than I thought. I had dyed the last time for both Walk Me and Green Cat, but for Green Cat I might have to get a whole new batch of fabrics for and dye them. Most of the belly, wing and triangle ridge spikes are from an old wool blanket I got last fall on one of my thrift store hunts. It's about coat weight and dyed beautifully. I think it was going in something else originally but I cut up enough to make 6-8 gallon bags of 1/4 hand cut strips. This was before I got the cutter. It's a nice batch of spot dyed pale yellows and greens over the cream sort of a lemon lime color.

The dragon body is a real mix of fabrics. The main body color is some spot dyed yellows and oranges over some Pendleton teal that came from a skirt and jacket set. I wasn't sure how the teal would do when I threw it into the dye pot but it amazed me on how it took up the yellows and oranges and changed the teal in greens with bits of the original teal still in it. I'm mixing in some herringbone dyed in dark green and mossy greens, and some fabrics that were overdyed from camels and grays. The dark green are from dark green coats, watch watch plaids and some blues and purples dyed over greens. Because I don't have large amounts of the body color and I need to blend in some darker colors to spread the lighter ones out I'm having to spot hook (hope that's a real term as I don't know what this technique is called) the body to get the shading right, little bits hooked here and there and fill ins. Hope that made sense.

I think this is what you do to get meander backgrounds or sections. I wish I could find some information on hooking with spot dyed wools so far I haven't run across any info in my books. Maybe I'll ask on the Welcome Mat or Hooking Today boards and see if I can find some info. I really wish I could go to a teacher and ask her or find a class on this. Though I'm not sure what kind of class I need or be looking for. Any suggestions?

Dragons

2009-03-25T14:39:00.008-04:00

I'm still slowly working on 2 headed dragon, but not that happy with it though the kids love it. This is in wide cuts, and I really should have done this is smaller cuts. Having a hard time with contrasts and details in this. Colors that look good close up in person aren't showing up that well at a distance or in photos unless I really lighten them a lot. May have to rehook some areas like the sword in front of the left dragon and make the treasure chest stand out someway. If I do this design ever again I'm going to do it way larger or else go to smaller cuts. Definitely a primitive style as is. I have so much to learn on shading primitives and getting details to show up.

I started Walk Me Dragon yesterday. It has been nagging me and with the frustration s I am having with 2 headed thought I'd try something different. I did design this for wide cuts and am trying my new #8 blades out, I had a bunch of greens already cut and I am using them and going through my new greens I dyed a couple of weeks ago to supplement them if I need to. Already I have had to make modifications to the design. I had to do some minor changes to the dragon's muzzle and enlarge his head slightly for everything to work. I'm using my finished cross stitch and one of my painted canvases as a color guide. Today when I took everything loose to reposition my quilting hoop I enlarged the dragon's body as the head was too large for it. The new drawing now fits the space better.

But I am still dithering on what the background is going to be: meandering in cream colors, or do a scene? So I stared at it for a while and came up with a cave on the right and maybe a castle with turret on the left? I have the dragon standing on a rock ledge--I see that in beige's, tans and creams. I've got some more rocks by the cave maybe rusts, browns, golds, and grays? I also sketched in some mini dragons flying around. I'm not doing a McCaffery dragon so I'm not going to call them fire lizards but use your imagination. My walk me dragon has been around since 1993 when I first designed him as xstitch for my then PhoeniX Stitchery xstitch business when I was doing sci-fi cons, He's one of many dragons I've done over the years but my most favorite. If I go with this scene then I have a wonderful sky blue suede I can use for the sky that I found at my last thrift store hunt. I've also got some other pieces of sky blues I can add to it. The lettering will have to go or else be made smaller. My other opinion is doing the meander style background in shades of creams, and light colors. I found a bunch of sweaters that will work for this and some new light colored plaids that are heavy on the cream and beige side. Either way this is not getting a border as I want to try it without one.

Color planning for rug hooking is so much different than any other medium I have worked on before including quilting. Picking out the 'right' colors that will work well together, blend, shade, and look good with the whole composition is proving harder than I thought it would be given my background in art, painting, and other crafts. So much depends on your dyeing, what size cuts you do the fabric, and how it the cut hooks up, what colors are next to it to throw the color off or make it become invisible. There are more infinite possibilities for disaster as well success than I dealt with in cross stitch even using overdyed floss in my designs or mixing 2 to 4 strands of embroidery floss to get a color. Most of what I am working with is uncontrolled spot dyed fabrics that are overdyed over a base color or color and pattern. What looks like a great piece to use somewhere does not necessarily come out like I thought it would for good or bad. I think I'm going to try doing some controlled graduated swatches for future work and see if that cuts down my frustration levels. I know what I want to achieve but I am far from getting the results I want or need and I'm not even sure what questions I need to ask to figure out what I am doing both right and wrong on the dyeing and color selections for my work. Maybe I will break down and take a class with someone as I am gradually losing confidence in myself to pick the right colors for projects. Though most of my frustration is with the wide cut hooking, I'm still happy with the things I have done using the fleece and yarn instead of fabrics. It's just getting colors right in the larger cuts that is driving me nuts.

2Headed Dragon

2009-03-20T15:33:00.008-04:00

I've gotten more work done on the two headed dragon mat. I hope to have this finished by Tuesday so my son can take it when he moves. I'm still learning on how the different cuts change the appearance of a design. This is hooked mainly in 6's cut on the Fraiser, but I had some hand cut 8's? 9's, 10's? that are roughly around 1/4" wide, and then cut a lot of strips in half to make outlines and the shading work. Ideally this design would have really worked better in 3's and 4's to better show the details in it. But I wanted to do this quick so it's not coming out exactly like I thought it would. Maybe if I had enlarged the design 1/3 to 1/2 percent bigger I wouldn't have lost so much detail. The other problem was not having that great of range of colors on hand without hitting the dye pot. I do like how the inner wings are turning out. I'm using a red, teal, yellow and black plaid cut #6. I think it looks good. Still have to work on outlining and shading more.

For Green Cat and Walk Me Dragon I am going to try and do some 6 to 12 shade swatches especially for the lion flowers in Green Cat. To get the coloring and shading I want that might be the only way to do it. I haven't tried dyeing graduated color swatches before so it will be a real test of my dyeing abilities. I want do some of them like sunflowers and some like daisies. Though I might do some cornflowers in blues and pinks to give it a little bit more color. I might do the some of big leaves with pink and yellow edgings. Since white is rather hard to come by in used clothing I finally bit the bullet and am getting a yard of Dorr White so I can do the white daisies and the sunflowers. Though I did luck into a bunch of creams and off white coats and sweaters my last trip to the thrift store but no pure whites though. Did get two more camels, more blacks, grays, blues, burgundy, and some interesting rust and tan plaids.

Most of the creams are going as a background for Walk Me. The original cross stitch had a plain off white/cream background. I am going to attempt to do it in a meander pattern like I have seen other people do for their backgrounds. I have gotten great suggestions and instructions on how to do and how many different colors of fabrics I need to work with from several seasoned hookers. I'll need at least 12 different but close in color as a minimum so I'll keep gathering until I have enough related fabrics. I tried black before for a background for WM but because of the darker greens in it, the dragon fades too much into the background and the design loses it cheeriness and happy feeling to it in my opinion. Sunny blue skies would have worked too but I want to try the cream first. I have designed this for using my new #8 blade which should be getting here soon. GC will be using my new #4 blade and maybe some 6's. When I can buy new blades again I'm going for the #1 and a #3. With the #1 I can do 1/2", 1" and 2" Still need to get back to Folk Angel and finish her.

I did start in on the yard at my daughter's and got some new bulbs planted, cleared out some of the leaves in the beds and planted some spring veggies in the front yard pots. We still have leftover onions going in a few places and I'm leaving them be for now. I've seen some volunteer peas, lettuce and a couple of other vegs and I'm going not bother them. Only 2 of the 6 rose bushes I put in last year have survived. The four that didn't are dead dead. They were cheap markdown ones from Walmart and never really took off anyway. Sons or SIL are going to have to rake and run the lawnmower over the front and back. I'm not really able to this year. My yard work on Tuesday has taken me until today to recover from as I over amp. Maybe if I threaten no Warcraft or Internet for any of them for 2 weeks they'll go do it. We finally had a decent looking yard last year as I killed myself doing it over 4 months time, but then I got busy and the kids didn't keep it up since I quit doing it and now it's back to looking like c..p again. Technically my oldest daughter gave me the house, but youngest with SIL and baby are living in it with me just visiting, working on large craft projects in the backyard, and storing craft junk there for the moment. When they move out I'll move in. Though right now we don't have the money we had last year for me to the gardening I'd like to do. Though I hope we will be able to get some veggie seeds and starter plants so we have a family garden again.

New Photos of the Basket rugs and new dragon

2009-03-14T19:21:00.004-04:00

These were taken with my daughter's digital camera and really show the real colors of these rugs.

New Hopes and Dreams Basket

New Dragon Basket

I started the my son's two headed dragon mat. I'm using 6's, 8, 9 and 10 strips. I had a problem with the first dragons mouth and nose coming out right so already I have modified the design. Decided to go for a red dragon with gold ridges and belly. I'm saving up my greens right now for green cat and Walk Me Please. Hope to get more hooked tonight.

New Designs and GM progress

2009-03-13T18:02:00.006-04:00

I got some more done on GM. I'm working on the upper 1/3 at the moment. I like the way he looks like he's peeking out in the one shot.

I've been working on new designs the last couple of days. The new green cat is proving to be a royal pain to transfer. I wrote on the Welcome Mat in the forum section about my problems but haven't gotten any answers yet. I had traced the design onto gridded interfacing for supposedly being able to trace through to the cloth underneath. In my case the rug linen that my friend Saundra had given me. I tried black markers, purple and blue ones both Bics and Sharpies and just got partial transfers here and there through and I retraced and retraced several times with no improvements, and these were fresh, never used pens. I had had no trouble transferring Walk Me dragon on burlap, but I used ungridded interfacing. I was trying different ones to see which I liked best. I have redrawn the green cat pattern on non gridded and will see what happens on the reverse side of the linen. Does it make a difference which side of the linen I use? There doesn't seem to be any obvious differences I can see. It takes 1 1'2 to 3 hours to draw out the Green Cat because it's big 26 x 55 and has a lot of detail in it.

I have also done a variation of the design in which I took the center green cat, redrew the winged mice on either side and added some more fl orals. It measures 17 x 34. I'm going to do an experiment with this on some green 26 ct Heatherfield. I'm going to be sewing 10" all around this in burlap as the Heathefeild is only 19" wide. My idea is to make a hooked frame in wider cuts. The design is going to be an experiment in adding felting and dimensionality to parts of the design. Greenman is being hooked on 26ct Heatherfield so this should work. This will hopefully be along the lines of my greenman purse but done as a hanging. I what to experiment with some of my fancier threads and fibers too.

Lastly I did a quickie for me design for my son Brian and his friend RJ. They are moving to Atlanta very soon and wanted me to do a welcome mat for their new place. They wanted a tribal dragon...well, I came up with a two head guardian dragon instead. It seemed more appropriate somehow. They're 27 year old single gamers so had to throw in some swords and skulls. Other kids get nice normal things, mine get dragons, werewolves, vampires, skulls, and weird stuff for their rooms. Spike and Drusilla from Buffy live on top of my computer monitor along with spiders, a phoenix, a witchblade glove, and other strange things. The guys have approved the design and I'll be pulling colors for it tonight.

Getting Ready for Green Cat and Progress on other rugs

2009-03-10T13:21:00.009-04:00

It took a couple of days to get the new Green Cat design worked out for the linen I'm going to use. Once I got one side of the design worked out the rest of it clicked into place. This is not asymmetrical design where everything is identical on both sides but reversed. It has similar elements on both sides, but slightly different. It's a tad more complicated design wise than my original and may not work for wide cuts after all. This will make a great rug for a kid's room now. It's got a very happy feeling to it. I think. While I was working on this I was think about other variations on the 'green' theme a green dog, a green wolf, and maybe a monkey. I have a stag/deer already done as a sketch and needlepoint canvas some years back I may use too as a hook design. I wish I could draw as fast as my mind comes up with ideas. Still have to draw it out on interfacing then transfer to the linen. I though I'd see how the interfacing tracing worked as I haven't tried it before, I usually just stick the drawing underneath the backing fabric and draw over.

I got some fabrics dyed for the GC yesterday. For the most part they came out pretty much like I wanted them too. I'm still working out the colors I'm going to use and have to figure out what I'm going to do with the cat flowers in the sketch. I just sketched out generic fantasy flowers sort of daisies and straw flowers. I'll have to look at some flower books and hope I can find some decent color references. Flowers and shrubbery are not my strong suit.

In the evenings I've been catching up on my older in progress rugs the Greenman and the Family rug. I've about got the bottom 1/4 of the family rug filled in so I can move my fabric to reposition it to hook Bill the metal Rabbit and work on Nicholas the fire pig, my mom the earth snake, myself-- the metal tiger, my dad the fire rabbit. Most of these are in the center.

Going from clockwise Bekka fire dragon, Mark-teal water horse, Michelle-fire sheep, Heather-wood rabbit, Chloe-water sheep, and Cecil center- metal dog. Not hooked yet--Nicholas-fire pig and Bill--metal rabbit.

The original rug layout. I've been making more changes as I go along.

Mom and Dad

I am using a large stretcher strip frame that 30 x 32 as I gave up on the oval quilt frame when I couldn't get the finished hooking parts in it without crushing them to reposition. I'd kill for either a wide rug frame or something with the gripper strips. Though my compliant with most of them is the limited area you have to work in. I like seeing the surrounding area of what I am working on to get the colors to blend in--just like when I was painting. I still might break down and make myself a large rug frame but then there's where to put it and work on it given my space limitations and liking to have my rugs portable so I can work on Bill's desk at night, at my desk, or take it over to my daughters to work on.

Greenman is about ready to be repositioned too and I'm going to finish the top part before the bottom. This will end up as a wall hanging. Since I am hooking with just unspun dyed fleece I think I'm going to have to needlefelt the back to sequre everything and neaten it up. This does not make for a neat back just using the fleece, but it does give a thin layer of padding tot he back. Working with this I am seeing ways to do my combination felted and hooked pieces I have in my head. I'm making myself not jump projects and to try and finish these things I have started before jumping into new ones. I have so many ideas in my head that I want to and never enough time--grrr.

On the pictures, they are taken with 2 different angles and lighting. One shows up the textures really well and the other is closer to the real colors in them.

2009-03-08T17:50:00.003-04:00

I should have some new pictures tomorrow of the 2 basket rugs. My daughter's been busy and hasn't had time to take pics of them.

I redesigning my Green Cat. I had the original sketch sized for needlepoint canvas so it's half again smaller than I need it to be and not quite long enough. The actual design size will be 26h x 52w with 4" margins on each side on rug linen that my friend Saundra gave me. The original was 15h x 27 1/2w long. I'm also adding some sort of cat headed flowers that weren't in it to break up all the greenery and give more color to it along with more flying mice. I'm also designing this with wider cuts in mind. You could hook it either way. I've done this design as both needlepoint and cross stitch. I designed a package of Green Cat designs to use Charles Craft products that Stitcher's World magazine didn't use for their kitchen towel, huck towel, apron, napkin, and potholder. I haven't offered it for sale in awhile on Ebay or anywhere. If you're interested in it, just email me.

This rug version will not have the Celtic knotwork in it. Maybe a future version might. I am thinking of doing a smaller one of just the face area in sculpted felt and the rest hooked as a purse, pillow or a hanging.

Meanwhile back to drawing.

Not much going on

2009-03-06T12:09:00.003-05:00

Voogee is progressing slowly. I'm having some problems getting the right colors in different spots namely the her collar thingy. I tried different gold combinations, but each one sucked and I took them out. Hot pink really didn't work. Now I'm trying some reds with the circles left golden sunny yellow. Will work some more on her later today.

Tuesday night I spent some time filling in the background on my family rug with wide strips and almost have about 1/4 of the rug completed, except for the outer border which is still blank. It may get every one's name and maybe their animal. Like Chloe-sheep, Cecil-dog, etc. along the edge where they are located. My lettering right now is not that great in the hooking so I'm still thinking on it. Or I'm going to create a large label to sew on on the back of the rug to identify everyone. If I do that, using the label on the back then I might do the border as dancing stars with maybe suns or moon phases at the corners.

This week I got my #4 head for the Frasier but haven't tried it out yet. Next to get will be either 8 or 8.5. I also got a primitive bent hook to see how it works and if it makes hooking any easier. It not a Hartman, can't afford one yet. Did get some more old clothes yesterday. I was on a hunt in the local thrift stores for light colored fabrics like creams, pale gray, white, etc. Did find a few interesting ones but no whites or camel. Though I did get a couple of Penningtons and a cream and red wide stripe wool blanket.

Sheep Done

2009-03-04T17:13:00.005-05:00

Got the sheep done this afternoon. Still have to bind and finish the edge but all the hooking is done. About a day and half all total. It's 11h x 14w, so not that big. This was an exercise for me in 1) hooking directionally, 2) controlling my loops, trying to get them more even and consistent, with better spacing and less packing, 3) shading with wide strips, 4) using wider than I have been strips and finally 5) to see how fast I could hook and get this project done. I'm not sure what to call this--Purple sheep, Glow Sheep or Just Sheep 2. I'm still debating on whether it's going to be part of a purse or as is.

Hobby Lobby has burlap on sale this week for 1.99 a yard so I got 7 1/2 yards of their light green. Their beige was discolored and stained very badly in the center and wasn't usable even for me to play around with. Though if thy knock the price off that bolt I still might get it to muck around on. I also got a package rug linen burlap by M.C.G. Textiles for 21.99 and I think Green Cat is going on it instead of trying to make it fit on small piece. It's 54 x 60. I have tried rug linen before so this will be a test for me on how it does. The same company had a Rug Yarn Punch Needle Tool for 4.29 Looks like it'll handle up to sports or worsted weight yarn. Then there was a three needle set of punch needles for floss and small yarns for 1.2mm, 1.6mm and 2.2mm by Boye I picked up for 6.99. Thought I'd try playing around with the punch needle too. I have a very huge stash of every brand of embroidery thread there is and type and color. Maybe doing some punch needle will reduce the slash I hope. Fabric for doing them on is covered too. I might play around with some of my tribal tattoo designs and see how they do.

Now to go start dinner and work on Voogee doll tonight.

Hopes and Dreams Finished!!!

2009-03-03T14:11:00.006-05:00

I got the Hopes and Dream basket completely finished last night including the binding. This is my 4th rug finished all together now. I still have 5 unfinished to do--Family rug, GM, Dancing Star set, Voogee and one I started last night a small sheep mat that will be 10 1/2h x 14w and might end up as part of bag or something. I also have a heap of draw out canvases to do. Older ones from '07, some from when I did Barb;s last batcg, and some more recent ones. I will be drawing out the Green Cat on the linen Saundra sent me. The design will fit perfectly on it and I might even try out my new #4 head for the Frasier as I want really good shading on this rug.

HD finished is 19h x 27w on burlap, done in mixed sizes of strips with a heather gray yarn whipped edge. It's going over to my daughter's to get photographed with her better digital camera. Wish the pictures were better but here it is finished. I'll post the pics when I get them and send copies to Gene for his blog.

And here is the small sheep. As you can see that I screwed up on the canvas when I drew it and just hooked over my mistakes. I liked the rest of the design. I did this canvas back in '07 when I was doing canvases for both Barb and Susan and this was too messed up to give them so I kept it. It was part of a similar background series of animals I did at the time as I like wave effects around objects and wanted to try it. I'm working in wide hand cuts on this. The strips vary from 5/16 to 10/16 with most in 6/16 size by my ruler. I'll have to find the list of what these translate in strip cutter sizes. As fast as this is going I might have it done tonight.

No more baskets for a while. They were fun and challenging to do but I am really eager to get back to my own projects and not get involved with a swap or hook along for awhile. I really feel that both could have been way better though I learned a lot on these two projects and am getting the hang of more precise hooking done so I have neater looking projects. Both should have been done in narrower cuts rather than the medium wide ones they were done in or else done in yarn. A little disppointed in both, colors could have been better, and better shading.

HD day8 Almost Done

2009-03-01T15:31:00.006-05:00

Hopes and Dreams is almost done, Just a corner, row of border, and binding and I'll be through. I'll get the last of the hooking done tonight watch Trial and Retribution. It's a UK cop show we follow. We watch a lot of British TV. The binding will get done tomorrow, just simple whipping, nothing fancy. This rug is getting done in less time than the dragon mat. I'm happy with my speed on this.

I'll get back to Voogee and get her done. She's definitely a her. Then back to the Family Rug. I really want to get it done before the end of March, April at the latest. If I can get it done by the end of March and if I can talk my hubby into it, going up to Virginia for the Rugfest show. I'd really love to go to it someway. It'll be a long drive and it'll depend on how the poor car is doing and money--always money as we are still paying for 3 places plus utilities because of the kids.

I will be doing up some new designs. I found my needlepoint masters that I used to for drawing needlepoint canvases. I will have to enlarge the designs somewhat as the designs are too small for hooking as is. I will be doing a Green Cat which is along the lines of a Greenman except with a cat face and winged mice. My Walk Me Please Dragon, some of my Star and Patchwork Snowmen. Tribal Phoenix, Dragon riders, and Dragons in Flight. There will also be a new one There Be Dragons Welcome mat, and I have been thinking of doing something with dinosaurs. Not that much different from doing dragons, but thinking in terms of kid's rooms. Also have some fairy, knights and other fantasy ideas in my head to try.

I'm hoping I can get the Green Cat out on a piece of linen Saundra, an on line rughooking friend gave me. It's my only piece of rughooking linen I have right now and this design merits using it. Gene Shepherd inspired me today on his blog with his dyeing for his hen rug class. I love some of the mottled colors he is going to be using and I can see some of them in both the Green Cat and Walk Me. Here's a picture of my cross stitch model of the design to give you an idea of what the mat will look similar to. And a picture of the Green cat Painting I did for a friend but I will be doing different colors than this as it was for her house and wanted particular colors in it. The painting was 36 x 60.

HD day 7

2009-02-28T15:01:00.001-05:00

Not too much to report today. I got a little hooking done last night and the night before on the lower corners. I'm putting multicolored swirls using some leftover handspun spun yarn I made a couple of years ago as art yarn. The colors are similar to the main ones in the design so I think it's working. I'm continuing with the solid navy sort of background. I will finish this up with 2 row of the pink/lavender/gray fabric that I used in the last row of the inner borders. Going to start in on the rug after I finish this and see if I can get both top sections done and finish the bottom right part.

HD day 6

2009-02-26T12:54:00.003-05:00

No pictures today. I did do the inner border in just 1 row in about 5 different pinks and am continuing the dark blue, black watch background and will be adding in swirls in blues and purples.

I'm still worn out from yesterday's grand moving of my crafting stuff from the trailer over to Kendra's house. It filled the back of a 10 ft Uhaul to the half way height point. The only furniture was a folding table the rest was books, and books, and more books--I really could open a mini crafting library on multiple subjects with no problem. Then there were the 6-8 sheep fleece tubs, the 3 x 3 by 4 box full of cotton roving 20 lbs of it, spindles and niddy noddies I've made for sale, felting tools, my large handmade tapestry loom, art easel, boxes, tubs, and bags full of cotton fabrics and others, yarn of various types, embroidery and fancy flosses, needlepoint miscellaneous, cross stitch miscellaneous, beading stuff, 10 boxes of porcelain doll parts and accessories to make them up, non porcelain dolls made by me or my mom, paintings, artwork and supplies. I keep telling my kids they are going to make a mint selling off my junk after I die but we are not getting rid of anything until to I do croak.

Right now almost everything is piled in my bedroom over at the house and I have to go over to sort it out--joy. A large chunk is going into the attic, mostly the stuff I'm not immediately going to work with like the doll stuff or too fragile for up there since it's not well insulated and mice and squirrels do sneak in from outside. Hopefully my compulsive organizer SIL will resist the urge to get into my junk. He was itching too so badly yesterday. He's already organized the books I have brought over by subject matter on the shelves.

I have been careful not leave any of my craft stuff over there too long if it's bags as he can't stand plastic bags and has to put it in a container. Last time he took a bunch of my knitting projects I had organized in bags with their respective yarns, directions, etc., took them out of their bags and put them neatly altogether in one big container. Needless to say I was not happy and he couldn't understand why I wasn't. My kids were amazed that he is still breathing as they got taught from an early age not to mess with momma's stuff or help "improve" it in anyway without asking. He reorganized the shed--the paint cans were lined up in an artistic arrangement from big to small, the tools were also carefully arranged in a row. His art tools are very carefully arranged and his desk spotless, needless to say I don't see much art being done, and he is very talented. The house inside is very uncluttered, but outside it's a mess. I can't do all the yard work I did last year at the time so I'm going to be lighting fires under him to get both the front and back straightened out.

Sebastin, the elderly dog at my daughter's house is nearing the end. i feel so sorry for the old guy. He doesn't seem to be in pain and recognized me and enjoyed being petted. But he's not eating now, very weak and refuses to come in. I think he wants to die outside rather than in and it been in 40's to 70's here. I keep going back and forth between having him put to sleep and letting nature run it's course. Going to talk to Heather again and see what she wants to do as he's her dog. Spike, my dog is trying to be helpful and supportive to Sebastin but his dying is freaking my dog out. Samson, that we lost 2 years ago went to the vets and never came back but he was in a lot of terrible pain from a type of dog cancer and degenerating disease. He was 10. Sebastin is at least 18 as he was mature when they got him in the mid 90's.

More hooking tonight I hope.

Hopes and Dreams 5

2009-02-24T14:34:00.006-05:00

A little more done last night on the inner background. Got the right side done and have started on the left adding some swirls, and meandering lines in purples and blues. Gene Shepherd has a write up on the basket on his blog today. http://geneshepherd.com/blog1/ Thank you Gene!!!

I'm debating whether to change the first heart like he suggested to a more solid color rather than shades and swirled like it is now. It is close to blending into the basket color. Maybe hook darker under the first and third hearts so they stand out more? I do agree that the two hearts really aren't as contrasty as they should be.

My friend in Iowa, Barb Barnett, who got me into the rug hooking when I was hunting for sheep fleece to spin weaving yarns because I thought I wanted to be a tapestry weaver, but found I was a hooker, and felter instead, sent me pictures of one of my sheep designs she's hooking with her own hand spun, and hand dyed yarns from her sheep fleece. Barb is also a beginning hooker,, and I think she's doing great. Barb has a number of my early canvases for hooking and is a fantastic rag rug weaver, and felter. She taught me long distance with lots of emails. She also has a flock of about 20-30 sheep of different breeds--Finns, Shetland, Karakuls, Lincoln, and mixed breeds which are wonderful to spin and felt with. She will be shearing soon so check with her for great deals on fleece.
http://barnettsheepandwool.com/rughooking.aspx

Meanwhile back to packing and sorting my junk for the big moving session tomorrow.

Hopes and Dreams 4

2009-02-23T14:03:00.005-05:00

Got the lettering done. Not real wild about it but I'll let it stay. It is readable even by my husband. I shortened 'hopes' to just 'hope' because I couldn't get the other 2 letters to come out. Note to self--practice more lettering at least with strips rather than yarn or fleece. Redid stars 6 and 7 and reversed the colors. Filled in around the banner parts with the dark plaid. IF i do this sort of banner again used a light mottled cream or white or shades of white to make it less boring and solid colored. I added a blue and purple spiral up above stars 6 through 8 and will do a matching spiral on the other side and maybe something on each side of the bottom part around the basket. You can see the spiral better in person than in the wide shots of the basket. I've include a closeup of it.

I keep wondering if I should have done this in fleece instead or yarn. The shading would have been better and more realistic. I feel like this rather a plain looking piece at least for me. I have very mixed feelings about it. I really have to work more on doing shading with strips and getting a wider range of dyed fabrics to work with. What I think is going to work doesn't seem to be at least the way I want it to. It is going rather quickly because of the size of the #6 strips but I think this would have been better done traditional and with smaller strips. I don't think any larger would have worked at all unless I did it all primitive style and left off or moved the lettering elsewhere like above and around the basket or maybe in the outer border. Maybe I should have done the hearts all in shades of reds instead of the pinks and blues I used? I can see a couple of primitive color pallets for this piece. I can also see it in patriotic colors of red, white and blue and turning the banner into a flag.

Anyone got any opinions on how this looks? I'm very unsure about this piece.

Hopes and Dreams Basket 3

2009-02-22T17:52:00.003-05:00

More hooking done on the basket last night. I got all the basket part done. I think it's more flat primitive style than dimensional realistic. I used dyed herringbones and plaids for the basket part. Almost did it in a solid gold, but decided not to, though I did hook a solid line around the rim and base as I was afraid it would have faded into the background too much, but didn't outline in gold on the top. Should I have outlined the handle on top too? Opinions anyone?

Finished the stars too, but will have to reverse stars 7 and 8 above the word 'wishes' as 7 needs to be gold and 8 needs to be yellow. From left to right it should be Jessica, A.J., Chloe, Kelsey, Brody, Kira, Nicholas, Aurora then Autumn. With luck I'll get the lettering and banner part done and maybe some of the background hooked tonight.

Outer background is still in flux in my head. Thinking of doing a simple one or two row border--gold maybe or shaded golds, then continuing with the inner background color, but throwing in some swirls or spirals in the colors of the hearts, and maybe some more random stars. Then maybe a simple 2 row gold outer border to finish it off. Gee, this sounds like a cooking recipe. Do this, do that, throw a little something there and mix well and cook until done.

Hopes and Dreams 2

2009-02-21T14:00:00.006-05:00

I changed a few of the hearts from yesterday to more solid colors rather than the attempt at shading I was trying to do. Shading like I was trying to do would probably work with a smaller cut size than the #6's I am using on this. On the lettering I did use a smaller cut. I cut the strips into 2 strips for the lettering and the cream was all ready in a smaller cut size maybe a 4? I love the dark background so far. It's actually a dark blue and green Black Watch plaid. I think Gene is using something similar on one of his baskets, and I thought I'd give it a try. It may not be the same plaid as what he is using but it's working well on mine. I decided not to use the sky blues I was originally going to use as the inner background, and cream wasn't going to work and neither was gold or tan because I have gold in the stars, and will have tannish golds in the basket part. I'm really going to have to do some thinking on what the outer background is going to be.

The lettering is not easy to do. I almost gave up on doing it until I figured out how to make it work. Even tried yarn at one point and that didn't work out. The trick was finding a fabric that would stay together for hooking once I cut a #6 strip in half. I found some of my dark herringbone worked. I did each letter individually as I went upwards surrounding it with the cream before I did the next letter instead of doing the letters and then filling them in. Seemed to work better for me. I'm using a fine hook on this part rather than the medium one I'm using for everything else. The burlap seems to be doing okay hooking wise for this project. I don't know if the monk's or something else would have been better.

Time to go work on the ever ending laundry. Hope this is looking okay? I'll get more done on this today and this evening.

Hopes and Dreams Basket and Voogee Doll

2009-02-20T12:26:00.005-05:00

I started in on the Hopes and Dream basket and got the hearts done and part of a star. Though really looking at it the light and in the pictures I may redo some of the hearts. I wish my camera took better, closer to the real colors I am using than it does so you could see the actual colors. On the canvas they look great but in photos they suck and appear way darker despite my attempts to lighten them up. I am going to take out some of the darker blues in heart 2 and heart 6 and make them less multicolored and more solid. If you are wondering about the heart color order I was doing birth order of my kids-girl, boy, girl, girl, girl, boy and boy. If I do this pattern for some one else I would do their number of kids in hearts and then number of stars for grandkids.

The stars are going to be yellows for the girls and golds for the boys in birth order. The lettering is going to be in yarn to see if that works with strips around it. This will be my first lettering job. The basket is getting some golden browns this time in both solids, herringbones and plaids. I'm still debating on the banner part. Inner background I'm debating on using a Black watch plaid or use it with some other colors for the outer background.

Voogee didn't get worked on last night just the basket but here's the progress from the night before. I'm going for bright and colorful and colors that will appeal to a small child as well as their parental units in this family. I'm experimenting with shading and trying to help the dimensional look of the doll. I am thinking of doing this in black, white and gray tones to see how it would look. It would also work in normal flesh tones, hair, etc.

Gene Shepherd has my dragon rug up on his blog with my comments on it. http://geneshepherd.com/blog1/ There's also a lengthy explanation of how I dye with Wilton Cake dyes and food dyes. He was curious about them since I mentioned I do all my dyeing for wool fabrics and sheep fleece in them instead of using the other types of dyes out there.

I'm not sure how much hooking I'll be getting in this weekend. I'm finally moving my junk over to my daughter's house from the trailer. Most is going in the attic, at least the stuff I am not currently working with. He's got to get his stuff out of storage and needs to put it somewhere so if I move from the trailer his junk will fit in the space. Right now my working stiff is in 3 places here at the computer shop, the trailer and my daughter's house. Real fun trying to remember where such and such component to a project is. This also commits me to living with my daughter, son-in-law and 7 month granddaughter. I've been wavering for months since the older daughter told me I had to move in or lose the house since my husband and I are paying for it, but the kids are living there since they have no where else to go and no real jobs just freelance art ones. Staying over at the computer shop has been my compromise as I didn't want to live and work around them that much. When I do bring junk to work on over there I camp out in the backyard or the front porch so I can see what I'm doing and peace and quiet. I'm not terribly sociable when I'm working on my projects. And I'm not too happy with them over their lack of ambition job wise.

I worked at home with little kids, multiple little kids most of my life from the time I was 17 with my oldest, and can't figure out why these two very talented artists can't do the same with one small baby. I painted, crafted, went to school, worked outside jobs, and was involved in all my kid's school stuff, I even did sci-fi conventions as an artist and dealer across the country on my own. Even when I lived with my older daughter when her oldest was baby I was still doing art and crafts and was able to watch her at the same time. If I didn't do artwork, we didn't eat, or have a place to live while my kids were growing up. Maybe, I can train these two once I get moved in, but something has to break, so they are contributing money wise, and them do something besides baby watching all day, or am I off the mark here? Sorry to rant. I just get very frustrated with them and the situation, and don't want to kick my daughter and granddaughter out.

The Dragon Is Done!!!

2009-02-18T15:37:00.005-05:00

I got my edges all whipped and everything sewn down finally today. It even lays flat which is an improvement over my 2 previous rugs. I'm sending a picture over to Gene's blog so he can see the finished piece for the hook in. I feel excited to get another rug done. Actual finished size is 21 x 28 3/4. I used Lamp's Pride bulky in a heathered brown gray for the edging which matches the grays on the outer border. Since this will end up as a wall rug rather than a floor one I didn't get too ambitous with fancy finishing as it will end up on one of the kid's walls. All of my kids have stated they will not put one of my rugs on the floor because it's art. But I made a rug kids!! Rugs go on the floor--grrr. They're just dense sometimes.

Maybe if I do a rug that is in really dark, ugly colors they'll use it as a rug. I keep getting a idea to do one I call the Creepy Basement where it looks like you are about to step down a flight of steps into this dark, and dank looking basement complete with cobwebs, spiders and a faint pair of glowing eyes at the bottom and a flash of teeth. Or do a High Anxiety one with the swirling spirals or rectangles. Kind of like the Op-Art blanket I did for the youngest granddaughter in purples and whited for xmas. I can also see a rug that it looks like the top of grill over a dungeon cell with hands and fingers reaching out. Not necessarily human fingers. My gamer kids would appreciate something like that. All my kids game in various forms I have 4 that play World of Warcraft everyday living at home and bring their friends over to play too. I don't game. I have enough to keep me busy and can take out my frustration with life in my crafts. Lot safer and I have something to show for my time spent.

Dye jobs from yesterday. My camera does not do justice to the colors and patterns in these. Next dyes batches will be greens and reds and more darker blues.

Voogee Progress. Not very far along but will work on it tonight. Some of the new hot pinks are going in it.

Rug almost finished

2009-02-17T18:36:00.003-05:00

Only have three more sides to whip and finish and I will be done with the dragon. I may try doing this again on either the burlap or the rug linen. I don't have any of my 16 count linen pieces that are big enough to do same size. The widest is only 18 x 52. Though I might try doing this just a tad smaller so it could be a table mat instead. I'll think on it.

Yesterday I went out and ended up hitting my 2 cheap thrift stores and came back with 18 assorted garments that I'll have to take apart. Got some nice purple, maroon, teal, pinks, grays, browns and a nice black watch. No creams this time or camels. But did find a nice pale gray set of slacks.

Today I am dyeing up a batch of fabrics- mainly pinks, hot pink, flesh tones, lavender, sky blue and deepening some of the teal I got yesterday. I think I did some yellows, golds, and rusts. The golden rusts in herringbone and plaids are going in for the H&D basket. I managed to get a few pieces dyed in graduated tones. I'm still experimenting with doing them. I'll be glad when I can afford to buy a yard of so of white to really play with. The dyeing I did today was over some of the cream colored pieces. No as light as I wanted but close enough for now. This was in between cooking a big batch of corned beef and cabbage with added veggies. Had pots going on both sides of the room.

I'll postpictures tommorrow of my dye jobs and the dragon.

Sidetracked

2009-02-15T13:49:00.005-05:00

I'm bad--I got distracted by my new cutter--works wonderfully by the way, and my new designs. So instead of finishing dragon I cut strips for the Hopes and Dreams mat and then kept staring at the snake headed doll. I think her name is going to be Voogee. She's sort of voodoo doll looking. I was going to do her in yarn and/or fleece but I cut up these wonderful shades of greens and kept seeing them for the face so I am doing this in #6 cut. It's a little tight on the 16 count Betsy Ross linen but not too bad. I'm using fine and medium hooks to hook with and my Q-Snap rectangular frame. This is going to be very bright and colorful and may end up as a present for one of the grandkids. I have a bunch of birthdays coming up for them.

I really need a decent digital camera for my pics of the projects. I have to color correct and adjust ever shot to come close to what colors I am actually using--very frustrating since I am all about color and my photos aren't showing how pretty these pieces really are.

The background is actually a lemon yellow/buttercup linen. The dark green a medium moss, and main green a lighter moss with tan spots. The checks are hot pink, rose, into lavender and purple. The eye outline is a tan herringbone, bright sunny yellow crosses and a dark bright blue into teal and purple background for the eye. Teal nose. And the mouth in the cheek colors though I might add a tooth in the mouth.

I'm playing around a lot with my plaids this days. I might use some of the red plaids I was going to use in H&D on the stripes of Voogee's outfit just to see how they hook up before I do try using them in H&D. This will be a 15 high x 11 1/2 wide doll. The challenge will be in the assembling as I plan to have the snake hair as individual parts and sewn together with the back piece then stuffed. Hopefully this is all workable.

Going to make myself finish the dragon today so it's not nagging at me.

New Doodles and new Cutter

2009-02-14T16:04:00.008-05:00

I've still got a few more rows of golds and creams to go--maybe tonight the dragon will be done I hope.

Yesterday, I went over to my daughter's to use her backyard to hook since it was in the 70's and I wanted out of the shop. I had been looking at Create and Decorate Dec '08 issue at the hooked sheep and decided I really want to try doing some dimensional designs. So I ended up taking a bunch of different fabrics over for making hooking canvases. I took some of my Betsy Ross 16ct linens, Heatherfields, some 14 and 18 count aidas, and some burlap. I am still experimenting with using things other than monk's and rug hooking linen to do designs on. I'm especially interested in how strip and yarn sizes make or break designs.

I'm still trying to work out how I want to do a greenman purse that combines felting and hooking and is 3D. It will have glass eyes, a dimensional nose, the leaf eyebrows and parts of the outer leaves will come out of the picture along with the bread part. I'll be glad when I get space again to do handmade wet felting again and can make up some purse blanks. So that project is on hold until then. Though I did do an oval shaped greenman that may or may not become part of a purse. I drew it out on burlap and am going to attempt to do it in # 6wide cuts.

One of my on line friends Vicky Tandler of Pawling, NY sent me her old Frazier cutter with a #6 cut head when she got a brand new Bovliar cutter as a present from her husband. I just got it today and I am throughly overwhelmed by Vicky's generousity on this. Thank you so much. This cutter is going to be well loved and used and I will now have uniform strips--yeah!

Meanwhile back to my doodling--still in thinking about purses mode I came up with a phoenix design with flames on the strap on burlap. It's also going to be in the wide cuts. Then I got to thinking about dolls, and started designing weird ones for my grandkids. My kids had the strangest toys in the neighborhood when they were growing up as I loved making unusual stuffed toys and dolls. Dragons, a large Capicorn, demented crabs, serpents, bats, Muppet rejects and monsters. I've lost all the pics from that time period show I can't show you and the toys themselves have gotten lost. I always embarrassed my kids as our house was never like anyone else's. I was the coolest mom in the neighborhood to all but my kids. So I came up with sort of voodo or simple rag doll shaped dolls drawn out on the 16 count linen. I'm going to try doing these in fleece and yarns with more detailed work and shading. I'm going to try one of the dolls on monk's to see how the larger strips work for it. I've got some sketches for some more dolls and critters in my notebook that I'm going to do up later after I think about them some more. If I wasn't committed to doing the Hopes and Dreams I'd jump into the dolls. I really want to do one. Maybe I'll work it in somehow.

Here's the Hope and Dreams canvas ready to go. And these are 2 of the plaids I am thinking of using in the hearts section. Wish the camera was better as it's not really showing the colors as they are. The one of the left has a beautiful teal running through it and the other is a sort of light sea blue green or greenside aqua.

Dragon Day 11

2009-02-13T13:35:00.003-05:00

Getting there slowly... Still have 1 full side of 5 rows each to do 2 green, 1 gold, 1 cream, and 1 gold, and two sides with gold, cream and gold rows to go. I am determined to get this completely done including edges by Sunday. Though whenever I plan on something something else happens to throw my time tables off.

I did not make my meeting with the local rug hookers--again. This time it was hubby's cat attacking the blinds at 5 AM to get at cats outside that are in heat or fighting. Anyway my son tried to get him out of the blinds and got his arm and hand mangled and bitten by idiot cat. This necessitated a trip to the emergency room for tetanus shot and get the deep puncture wounds from his teeth seen to. Luckily cat had been to the vet last week and had gotten his shots. By the time we got home I was too exhausted to drive anywhere, especially 30 miles across town since they moved the meeting to some one's house instead of the 10 minute drive near me at a church. Maybe next month. But cat is on my sh-t list for hurting my son, age 26, and having to pay out lots of cash for medical stuff as we don't have insurance.

I used to like cats but after having my art and needlework shit, pissed on, and torn up by cats over the years even when put on high shelves and closets in plastic containers I have very little use for them. The worst was an entire order of 15 hand painted needlepoint canvases I had just finished for a shop and had gone out to get packing materials for to ship them. We became cat-less for a time. This one and I have reached an understand he stays away from me and off my stuff and we don't have problems. I'm a dog person and dearly love my dog, Spike.