and auctioned rug hooking classes including pattern, wool, hook and instruction for 4 people. The auction was a success and 5 people are going to take the class. The 5 gals paid between $30 to $35 a piece to take the class and it generated close to $200. Collectively, the building raised over $2000.00 for this gal and her family in just three hours. Isn't that just the coolest thing!We can all make a difference in small ways. If asked to donate a rug to a charity and I’m given notice, I’ll try to tailor a rug to the audience. People love to bid on rugs because they are a little different than what is normally in a charitable auction. I know that many of you do the same as I have read about it in rug hooking boards, blogs and magazines. But remember in addition to the rug, you can also donate your knowledge and talent to teach others to hook rugs as well.
Because it is still cold and wintry here in Northern Michigan, I'll post another spring rug to remind me that warmer days are just around the corner. This is a rug that I hooked last year which I sold on Ebay. Maria
I just had to share it with you. Shelly Auen, a member of Blestb designed this banner for Blestb. I'm busily hooking up some new items just so I can use this banner. What is Blestb? Blestb is a group of artisans who strive to produce items that have an early time worn look. By typing in BlestB into the search engine of Ebay, you can find stitcherys, quilts, hooked rugs, paper cuttings, needle punch, candles and handmade wood items from this talented group of artisans.
I've also been working on another unfinished project from my studio. If all goes well, I'll have it done by the end of the weekend and share it with you. The pattern is from a free insert in the rug hooking magazine from a couple of years ago. It is Sally Kallin's pattern of an eagle. The finished rug will go in my office at work as the name my co-workers call me is Eagle. 
It is another one of my spring rugs. This morning when I was digging through my basement looking for some gently used items for a silent auction, I found the first rug I ever hooked. Boy, have I improved. Do you have the first rug you ever hooked? I’m so glad that I didn’t sell it or give it away. It is priceless as it reminds me of where I started and how I’ve evolved. I’m going to hang it in my studio. Do I dare show you a picture of it? No laughing! 
I can't remember whose design this is but I do love that funky rooster!
and is one of my whimsical primitive designs which is fun to hook. It is 15 x 20 and sells for $40.00. Since I'm in the spring mood, for all of you who order one of these patterns by Tuesday, February 26, 2008, I'll give you $5.00 off of each pattern. Have a great weekend. Maria
Click on this link to see some more of these hooked rugs in different colors. 
I do love how it makes the trees look but am not fond of what it does to driving conditions and what it does to the POWER. Luckily, we still have power, at least for now. Here's a picture of my driveway. It looks like an ice rink. 
I probably hooked this rug 7 or 8 years ago. The yellow wool is some of Wendy Miller's butter mustard. Oh how I wish I still had a bunch of this wool. I have bits and pieces of it left and I covet it as it is the neatest color. She has the recipe in her new Dye Book which you can order on ebay 
You can see from this partial line drawing all the eraser and smudge marks this design has gone through while tweaking it. I am still trying to decide what Mr. Rabbit will be pushing in his wheel barrel. Maybe a chick or a pot of tulips. 
In November of 2007, I challenged hookers from the Primitive Rug Hooking Group, PRHG, on Ebay to a challenge. The challenge was simple....send me 5 worms of similar color for each participant that joined the challenge. Over 40 women signed up, so each participant had to send me a total of 200 worms. Thankfully, most of the women had separated their bundles the 200 worms into bundles of 5 worms. This is a picture of what the worms looked like preshipping. 
They covered a queen size bed! Next, I separated all the worms into groups of 40 and each participant received the same set of 40 bundles (200 worms). The challenge was to use each of the 200 worms in the pattern I sent them. The participants could choose from either a snowman or sheep pattern. They did not get to see the pattern until they received it via email. It was up to each participant to enlarge the pattern to whatever size they desired and were able to change the pattern as well. To motivate the participants to finish, they would receive the second pattern if they finished by the deadline (January 6, 2008).
I love it not only because of the colors in the rug but because of how much I learned from hooking this rug. From the beginning, I knew that I wanted my sheep to be dark and also my background. While at my local fair this summer, I fell in love with a sheep and wanted to hook a rug of her. 
Isn’t she wonderful? So the struggle for me in this rug was to use the white, lavender, blue and taupe colored wools. I planned on using them in the curly Q’s in the sheep coat but they looked terrible against the dark wools. They also didn’t look good next to the primitive hues in the border. Finally, after much struggle, I decided that I would use them in the faces of the sheep. I love the faces..If you look at them closely, you can see that I used light blue, light lavender, taupe, grey, and cream colored wool in the face.
Mixing the colors in this way, gives the faces of the sheep much more depth. 
Had I not be challenged to use those wools, I would have never hooked the faces with these colors. In my opinion, the colors make the faces special.
For the red half-circle, I just hooked all the red wool that was left from the challenge along with some of my own reds and incorporated a few worms of purple from the challenge. Using the wools in this manner, made me realize that using many different wools of similar value, create interest and depth in a rug. 
In this picture, you can see I used purple, green and many different colors of blue for the background.