Thank You, Thank You

To everyone who participated in the Cyber Sale.  I'm humbled by your patronage and friendship! Maria

CYBER MONDAY SALE at Star Rug Company

Hello all you Cyber Shoppers!  I'll be offering 20% of all my patterns for Cyber Monday. You can check out my website for patterns. Below are a few patterns that have not yet made it to the website.  This first pattern, Kelley's Snowman, was part of a challenge that I offered to an ebay group, PRHG. Kelley Belfast wonderfully tweaked my Mister Snowman pattern and this is the result.  I just love it.  It is 14 x 20 and retails for $38.00.  I'll also be offering 5 kits of this pattern for $80.  The 20% cyber sale also applies to the kits.

  

Santa and sheep is 22.5 x 22.5 and retails for $52.00.  I'll have three kits available of this pattern for $125.00

  

Snowgirl is 8 x13 and sells for $22.00. I''ll also have three kits available of this rug for $55.00. I'm going to make this rug into a pillow. It will be a new way to finish a rug for me and I am kind of excited about it.  I'll show you the results in a later post.   

ATHA Pumpkin is 11x14 and retails for $30.00

And last but not least is Halloween Quartet which retails for $58.00.  

Sale ends Monday night at midnight. In your email message to me, put Cyber sale in the subject line.  Maria

Happy Thanksgiving.....

 I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving with family and reflecting on everything for which you have to be thankful.  I'm blessed to have a wonderful family and friends and am thankful for their love and support! 

Old antique rug. Fabulous isn't it?

Katrina recently finished Mister Iggy and sent me a picture of it.  Isn't he cute?  

She has a great blog about quilting. You can check it out here.  www.sunshowerquilts.blogspot.com

Enjoy your day, Maria

Just a Polka Dotted Horse

I know that is not the technical name of this beauty so don't shoot me for being horse ignorant.  But I go weak in the knees when I see such wonderful creatures.  This guy is on my way to work and every once in a while I catch a glimpse of him in the pasture.  Today he was grazing at the fence so I could get a picture of him. Inspiration is striking...... I see a polka dotted folky horse hooked rug in my future.    Maria

Braiding.... Have you tried it?

I did at the Atha Biennial.  Kris McDermitt was my teacher and she did a fantastic job.  We had to come to class with a finished 6 inch circle hooked mat. Of course, I hooked a star in Halloween colors.  Kris taught us how to braid around the hooked mat.  I need to finish mine but I love the look of it.  It is definitely a technique that I will use for some rugs.  

 Here is a close up of my braiding.  I chose orange, black and purple for my three colors.

 TJ was in our class and she does amazing work.  She had hooked this little elf and came up with the idea to attach hands.  Her intention was to make the braiding look like a wreath and for the elf to peeking out the wreath. Very clever!  

 Here is a close up of the hands. Look how she even colored the fingernails. Darling!

She used to colors of green wool and the tan for her wool. I also met Debra from Illinois in this class and she her mats, yes mats (she was an overachiever!), turned out great as well.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of her work so Debra if you are reading this post, please send pictures of both your rugs and I'll add them to the post.  Enjoy Thanksgiving.   Maria

More pictures from the Star of Texas Camp in September

Are you getting tired of seeing these pictures yet? I'm down to my second to last post of pictures from Star of Texas. These two rugs were hooked by a mother daughter duo. Judy, mom, hooked Halloween Quartet and did such a great job with all the characters. Love the eyes on the cat. She quilled them to perfection!

Closeup of the owl.....

Every time I see this guy, I smile.

Carol, daughter, was hooking what she called the Grandmother rug. Well let me tell you, Carol jazzed this rug up 100% from the pictures she showed me. Carol's vibrant personality shined through in this rug.

To make the rug more interesting, she varied the hooking in each of the little squares. She even beaded in some of the squares. This rug is going to be a beauty when it is done.

Have a great Thanksgiving! Maria

ATHA Membership winners!

Yes I said winners. I had my husband pick 4 numbers between 1 and 12 and he chose 3, 4,8 and 9. So the lucky winners are Linda, Laura, Gayle and Mary. Send me your mailing information to davemariab@sbcglobal.net and I'll submit it to ATHA. Thanks to all the participated!
Here are a few more pictures from the Star of Texas Camp. Debra was hooking my winterwalk pattern and did a great job with the colors in the rug.
Debra wanted to proddy the trees so rather than proddy the whole tree we did it spordically throughout the tree. We used a different technique to achieve the proddy in the trees. Since these trees are pine trees, we wanted them to have that feathery look that pines trees have. So Debra took a normal width of wool for proddy and after she proddy it into the foundation, she cut the strips fringing them to make it look like pine branches. It turned out great. Did you see the little red bird in the tree/ That is a needle felted bird. Too cool!
The next picture is of Charlotte's Guilford Runner, available through Woolley Fox. Charlotte had just had shoulder surgery and was such a trooper and hooked away on the rug. It turned out beautifully. The background wool, Heavens to Betsy, was my favorite. It instantly aged this rug. Charlotte made this rug as a wedding gift for her son who is getting married this week.
Linda Gartner hooked the next rug and did a great job. The colors she chose for this rug are Halloween colors but on the muted side. Just lovely. Check out the eyes of the pumpkin. She rolled circles for the eyes and added square buttons for more interest. Perfect!
Look for more pictures from camp in the next day or two. Maria

A Big Thank You

To Lauren of Pugs and Rugs. She was in my class at ATHA and is such a sweet gal. About a week ago a package arrived from Lauren and it contained a darling necklace made out of a spoon.
She stamped it Star Rug Company. Can you see that sweet little sheep charm attached to the necklace?
Isn't it great? I just love it! Thank you Lauren!
Lauren makes and sells these necklaces and will custom make them for you. Check out her blog for more information at Rugs and Pugs
Don't forget to sign up for my GIVEAWAY!

Time for a Giveaway

I just returned from class at Barb Carroll's house. It was so much fun! I go with a great group of gals and the instruction from Miss Barb was top notch as usual. I'll share photos from the class in another post but I wanted to show you a couple of fun "almost completed" pictures from Cathy. Cathy works at Woolley Fox and brought some rugs to show us. The first one is a new pattern called Peeps.
Aren't those purple peeps the best?
Look at all the different wools used in the bodies. Cathy explained that she had chosen all the wool for the peeps and when she met with Barb, they changed it up a bit. The wool she had chosen for the peeps' bodies now were the feet. Love all those purple peeps with their colorful feet! The background wool is wonderful too. The pictures simply do not do it justice!
And have you ever seen a turquoise chicken? Who cares????? It rocks the rug. Thanks for sharing the rug with everyone Cathy.

OK on to the giveaway.........

I had planned on sending an item for the auction at the ATHA Biennial and totally forgot. So instead what I have decided to do is give a one year membership to ATHA to a lucky someone.

Now for those of you who are not members of ATHA let me give you some reasons that you may want to join:

1. The newsletter is terrific. I just received mine today and it is full of articles, ads and wonderful color pictures. The newsletters are published bimonthly.

2. Every newsletter contains events and list all the ATHA groups throughout the country.

3. The Biennial Convention is awesome as you can see from all the pictures posted over the blog.

4. Two Regional Rug Schools and global workshops.

5. Regional Rug Shows

6. Regional Rug Challenges

7. Over 70 Local ATHA chapters

8. Largest Lending Library of Hooking Related Resources

9. The ATHA community is very talented.

Now for the details on how to register for the giveaway.........

You have several options for registering to win!

1.) Simply become a Star Rug Company blog "Follower" by clicking on the "Follow" button at the upper right column of this page....and also enter your name in the comment section to let me know you became a follower.

OR

2.) You could enter a comment for me here at the bottom of this post by clicking on the "Comment" button ( and if you don't have a Blogger Account no problems....you can simply click the "Anonymous" feature to leave the message). Keep in mind though that I'll need to identify you if you are chosen! If you are unable to leave a comment just email me, and I'll add your comment to the list below.

And Finally,

3.) If you have a Blog and help spread the word about my Giveaway on your Blog, you can leave a 2nd comment here for a second entry!

So you have three different ways to enter and if you do all three, your name can be submitted three times.

I'll be announcing the winner of the giveaway on November 8, 2011 at 8:00 pm. So sign up and check back to see if you have won the mixed media piece.

Again, thank you all who read my blog, offer support and friendship.

This post is for you Judy!
~Maria~