Rug Show photos

From the Angela Pumphrey workshop held in San Antonio in August 2013.   Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the names of the hookers just pictures of the rugs. I'll post the rest of the pictures tomorrow.  Enjoy the show!  Maria

Three more...

Finishes to share with you today. Pam hooked these three patterns and they turned out terrific. The colors are perfect for the fall weather soon to be upon us.

 

Thanks to Pam for sharing her rugs!  Maria

Playing around with a patterned background

I have this little painting of a bird that I love and used it as inspiration for this rug.  The bird was very simple and all one color (orange) but the interesting thing about the painting is the background. It has a circular pattern in it and the more I looked at it the more I thought about using patterns in backgrounds for my rugs. Adding interest to the background with a pattern is a good way to make a "ho hum" rug special.

I chose the owl from my Sauder class to use as my main motif. The next step was to choose the background pattern. I'm fond of the chevron pattern so I used that as my background pattern. Now  let  me just say this was not the easiest of patterns I could have chosen.  It was a little tedious trying to get the points lined up but it was a small pattern so I plodded away.  I definitely am pleased with the way it turned out and will be using this idea in future rugs.

On a side note, see the breast of the owl? I used some wonderful yarn for it and I just love the texture it adds to the owl. 

As always, thanks for stopping by,  Maria 

San Antonio class part 2

Here is part 2 of my pictures from my San Antonio class....enjoy. 

Anne asked me to designed a Halloween rug with the characters depicted in the picture below. She had hooked Halloween Hooligan for one of her adult children and wanted a similar rug for another child. 
Her characters turned out darling! Don't you just love the stripes on the little pumpkin guy's shirt? I can't wait to see this rug finished. 

She too played with the Sari ribbon on the witches cape and it turned out perfectly. Check out the nose of the witch....we needle felted it to give it more height and texture.

      

Darlene had the most wonderful pieces of Sari ribbon that she was using in her Tumbling Down rug. The eyes on the second pumpkin seem to be glowing from the buttons she chose. 

Isn't this rug wonderful and almost done! From the hooking, coloring and dimensional elements, this rug is perfection!  

Jane added sculpted amd french knotted berries to the pattern and they add so much. Click on the picture to see it up close.

The next two rugs are of my logo rug, Magdalena's crows.  Although the colors Jerry and Robin chose were similar in color, the values were very different and it really made them look different.  I love both of them! 
Jerry's rug........

Robin's Rug......

Rayna also was working on my Primitive Flower basket rug like Jane and having fun making the dimensional flowers.  The stripes in her flower pot are a fun way to add interest to a motif.  Isn't it interesting how two rugs can look so different? 

Cathy was working on my Freida the Friendly witch pattern and she was fancying up Ms. Freida. From the orange wool and mohair yarn for hair, quilled eyes, to the awesome border she was adding to the pattern, this rug is going to be wonderful when completed! 

Sue was working on a pattern she had in her stash. We had a lot fun working on this rug didn't we Sue? Lol!  This is the perfect size rug to turn into a pillow by adding proddy to the edges in white, blue and red. 

Karen was working on my ATHA pumpkin runner and was having a great time playing with color. She too was using the glitter wool in her background. (I just received some of they wool if anyone is interested in it) The colors she chose for rug scream fun, fun, fun to me.

Paula's dimensional flowers were also turning out terrific. Although the dimensional flowers look like they are proddied, they are not. There were made using my "cheater method"! 

And here is a picture of all the lovely ladies in the class!   Stay tuned for more pictures from this camp. There was a rug show and I'll show you them in another post. Til next time, Maria 

San Antonio Workshop - first half of pictures

San Antonio in August is a little crazy as it is hot, hot, hot but spending time with the lovely gals in my class was worth a little heat.  Wait till you view the fabulous rugs these gals were hooking.  I was like a proud little peacock as I snapped all these photos.

 

This is Julie's rug and isn't it great? The colors in her rug are primtastic!  How's that for a new word?  On a side note, Julie sells the most wonderful stone-like sheep heads that you hang on the wall.  Julie, if you are reading this, please bring me one to Holland next summer!

 

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Beth was hooking my Tumblin Down pattern and boy did we have fun playing with embellishments on this pattern.  Check out the buttons on the top two pumpkins.  Those flame buttons are antique and are terrific.

I had to snap a closeup of the the zipper mouth because it was so fabulous.  Don't you agree?

 

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Denice was my chauffer for the weekend and was the best host.  She wanted to be bold and bright and achieved that with her version of my Halloween Stroll pattern. Although bright, it is very nicely done.   She used the perfect colors to balance against the brighter wools. I love the Sari ribbon she used for the dress bow and ruffles.

You just have to see what she did with the sari ribbon.  She tied it into a bow and let it hang down.  Brilliant! And every pumpkin gal needs high heels right? She adapted the pattern to give the pumpkin gal pumps as you can see in the above photo.

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Christa was hooking my tree skirt and was making good progress as this a big rug, 46 inches round.

I love her santa!  Look closely at his beard. She gave it texture by twisting the wool in different directions and hooked in a higgley piggly fashion.

Aren't the colors in her snow people perfect? The background wool is a blue that Katie Hartner  dyed and it has glitter in it. You  can contact her at her shop here. Alice Frazier also has glitter wool in a similar color.  You can find it here .  It is going to make the perfect night sky.

 

Oh and I love the log cabin.  The cabin was hooked with one piece of wool.  It is just the perfect wool for log Cabins!

 

Crista also had me design 4 stockings to go with the tree skirt. Hook Crista Hook!

 

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Anne was making great progress with the Halloween Hooligan pattern.  Check out the closeup below of the witches nose. 

   She needle felted it to give it more dimension.  Rather than hook around on the circles on her dress, she first hooked the dress in the purple wool and added the circles in red by needle felting them.  It is a great way to embellish the rug.

Anne is also a fabulous needle puncher and has punched some terrific pieces.  I wish I would have snapped some pictures for you all to see. Very talented!

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The next two rugs were hooked by Linda. You can always pick Linda's rugs out in a crowd because her hooking is so high, perfect and soft looking.  All her rugs are just the best.  Oh the other thing about Miss Linda, is that she is a very quick hooker!  This is her second rug. 

                                  She first hooked the flower basket rug. Isn't it grand?

I'll have the remaining pictures from the rest of the class in the next couple of days. As always, I appreciate you stopping by, Maria 

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Meet Ms. Beulah Bones

Queen of Halloween!

Ain't she great? Kathleen was in my class at Sauder. Remember she hooked the great pumpkin?

Well she designed and hooked this gal. Don't you just love the earrings and crown? She attached Ms. Beulah Bones to the black candlestick I provided as part of the kit.

I bought candlesticks at the dollar store, spray painted them with primer and with black spray paint. After they were dry, I covered them in silver glitter glue. A little time consuming but worth the effort as they candlesticks make good bases for makedos! Til next time, Maria

 

 

Tooling Around the Lake

As we were tooling around the lake last week, I saw these big red boulders in the lake. It caught my attention as I had never noticed them before. At the same time I was trying to figure out why I had been so totally clueless the last time on the lake, my husband chimed in "hey look at those cows over there in the water!" I couldn't help but laugh at myself, red boulders - cows, they kind of look alike...at a distance anyways.

We tried to get closer to snap a picture of them but this was a close as we could get without driving them back on land. Hmmm cows in the water or on land, the more I thought about it, I was ok if they ambled back onto land.

Despite the cows, We enjoyed the day swimming, snorkeling and hooking. 

Pretty good spot to sit and hook wouldn't you say!

 

While on vacation, I was able to color plan several rugs and even finished a little mat that I'll share with you in the next couple of days. Thanks for stopping by, Maria