Sunday, June 14, 2009

Happy Flag Day

So there has been talk lately about unfinished projects. Do you have any? My guess is that I have somewhere around 30 rugs that need to be finished. Well, make that 29 rugs. I started this rug about a year and half ago and just wasn't happy with it. The Uncle Sam was too squatty so I enlarged the pattern and made him a little taller. This design is my patriotic version of my Antique Santa & Reindeer rug. I am offering for sale as a pattern. It is 24 by 27 and retails for $55 plus shipping. And in between planting some flowers today, I found some time to dye some more wool. I'll have no problem using these warm primitve colors in my rugs.
Happy Rug Hooking. Maria

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

As promised.....

First, Here's a picture of a rug that I just finished hooking. I just grabbed wools from my scrap pile and just starting hooking. Do you accumulate alot of strips of wool? No matter what I try, I just can't seem to make a dent in those piles. But I won't give up trying! Check out the birds. Do you notice anything? I forgot to change the wool on the curly ques on the heads. I'm definitely using the darker wool. The next couple of pictures are from my dyeing session over the weekend. The first picture is from Wendy Miller's Dye book. I bought a bunch of the milled wool and it is perfect for dyeing. This wool now is perfectly primitive for hooking. I've already started using it as my background in another Lazy Sheep pattern that I am hooking. This picture shows two different wools dyed using the same AlJO dye recipe. The more muted red is so wonderful. I just love it and am using it in an Uncle Sam rug that I am currently hooking. Speaking of hooking, I'm off to pull a few loops.
Maria

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Just Hooking and Dyeing

Well, I have been hooking up a storm in the last few weeks and can't wait to share some of my new designs with you. It was so dreary here today so I played in the dye pots and used one of Wendy Miller's dye recipes and just love the color. I bought some wool off the bolt and the color just did not speak to me. So I dyed it using Wendy's canning jar blue recipe and I love it now! Can't wait to use it in a rug. As for the new designs, I still need to steam them and hope to have that done in the next couple of days. But I do have a few pictures of past rugs to show. This was my attempt to hook a rug and make it look like a braided rug. One of these days, I'm going to hook this rug using different colors. See the white spot in the rug....candle wax.
This rug was inspired from a scherrenschnitte-paper cutting from long ago. It's a nice litte chair mat. Have a great week. Maria