I'll measure the inside section and the border width of the rug tomorrow!!!  And maybe try to work on a couple of the elephants in the border!!  : )

Happy Hooking!!  Sunnie  : )

So there I was, standing on my back porch, with fabric, vinegar, and ... (she looks about desperately for some rusty metal) nothing. Crudders! What to use. Everyone else online seems to have old hinges and nails just laying around -- ready for art. But not me. Iron. Rust. Hmmm.

I look about the yard, and finally, I find some old political signs that my husband has stashed under the porch. (Our primaries were in May, and all political signs need to be removed within two weeks of an election. My husband hadn't figured out how to recycle the metal stakes, so they wound up sitting in the dirt and damp for the past two months.)

OK. Now all I have to do is take a bolt cutter to break the stake into manageable pieces, scatter them in my tub, lay the vinegar-soaked fabric on top and then lay plastic and some weight on top of the mess and wait.

****

I hate to wait.

****

I check the next morning. Hmmmm... Not enough. I rinse, salt, and try again. THIS time I use apple cider vinegar.

OK. More waiting.

But the next day, I unveil the results. Wonderful! It's not easy on the fabric, which feels delicate -- even after the salt soak and wash. But the rust color is lacy and bold and unexpected. I do love it. And will be cutting up and re-shaping the remaining metal posts in my husband's cache to see what more I can do.

A sample of rust dyeing (not mine--click on image to see site.)

I have a lot of elephants to do...there are four more in the border!!!

Happy Hooking!!!  Sunnie  : )

Also filled in a little more black background and filled in a few holidays!!!  : )

Maybe I'll have more time tomorrow to work on "Helen's"!!!  But, of course, there are a few other things in life besides hooking!!!!  LOL  : )

Happy Hooking!!  Sunnie : )

Did you notice that I took out the light blue line hooked over the lion's head?  I thought that showed up too much and took away from his sleeping face!!!  : )  I need to change the stem of the upper right red flower because it gets lost in the background...and I'll decide if I need to add more flowers or foliage to the upper left after I fill in the black background.  I didn't want to take away the focus on the elephant!  : )

(Not too much time to hook today but I did want my elephant to have good manners!!! ) LOL

Tomorrow I'll fiddle more with the upper pond... I didn't want the elephant gray to blend with the pond water blue, but I think I'll take out a little of the lighter blue at the water line!  : )  I will be doing a couple more rugs now at the same time I'm doing this one...so that should be a hoot!!!  Gotta get ready for my November show!  (And the Gallery too)  : )

Happy Hooking,  Sunnie  : )

I must say that I get to giggling to myself over how some of the motifs look.  For instance, I didn't put the tuft of "grass" behind the drinking deer in the lower pond because it gave the impression of deer droppings!  When we are doing animals or people, it is a wise thing to look at the rug carefully before it is displayed at a large rug show and everyone is noticing the unfortunate image!!!  : )

It's a beautiful day today so I'm going to do a few more things before sitting at the hooking frame again!!

Have a lovely day!!  Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

At present, the museum also has the Churchill Weavers Collection. This exhibit is in process. The company was recently sold to a company in Indiana, and the Berea location has closed. However, records, equipment, samples, and more were purchased and are being processed at the museum. The exhibit will be open until September 6, 2008.

The exhibit includes a quick view of archivists and curators processing the collection (very cool!) If you guys have a chance to see the exhibit, it's great. It's already got me daydreaming about weaving my own cloth ...

Have a great evening...and let me know what you are working on!!  Anyone doing the Bradley Primitive rug or something similar to this rug? 

Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

I am using a green and a brown background on the upper right side...the same green and brown used behind the tiger and behind the bird and orange leaves below right. Above that and around the elephant I will do the antique black background except for the part under the elephant's feet which is a dark green...just for a bit of "difference".

(I did put the second part of the handle on the bucket/basket that the woman is carrying...although sometimes it looks more like a Gucci handbag than a bucket OR basket!!!  LOL  Maybe she's really into fashion accessories and it is a tapestry bag!!!!! ) : )

I am getting excited to work on the elephants as I ordered three gray mottled wools from Winterberry Cabin for elephants.   I hope I can do them justice so they really look like elephants and not just big gray blobs!!!!!  LOL  Remember...Elephants never forget, so I've got to present them well or they'll never forgive me!!!!!  : ) 

I will have to do some serious redesigning on the bottom and top borders as the images are very small and really close together!  I think it would be hard to do this pattern even in embroidery or petit point/needlepoint, let alone rug strips!!!!  LOL

Happy Hooking...and have a lovely evening!  Sunnie  : )

I decided that I needed to add a bit more of the "rusty-orangy" of the bush in the brown background...but I didn't want to use the same rust or orange.  I found a 6 value swatch of Apricot in the studio and decided to try that as I wanted to add another colour into the mix.  Also, I needed to have a darker colour against the water and a lighter colour against the green land background...so I decided to make the head wrap a purple as I thought my rug needed a bit more purple and it would look good against the green background!!  : )

I like the clothing colours I've chosen  (Hooray!!!) and I am trying to get another part of the wooden pail handle put in so it looks more like a handle.  But the handle is so small that even with a strip the width of a strand of embroidery floss, it is difficult to get in!!!!  I may have to rework the bucket and handle altogether...but I'll keep trying!

(Thank goodness the lion is sleeping peacefully and doesn't notice the woman!!!) : )

I'm happy with everything so far...and I'm really learning how to adjust things and fiddle with the widths of wool so I can put in a tiny strip for some accents.  But it is not an easy process and I can see how someone might get very frustrated doing this!!!!  However, since I am such a glutton for punishment...I am learning that if I put  #4 or #5 cut strips into a motif first...and then try to cut a strip of wool about the width of a strip of dental floss, I can attempt to put an eye in the same holes that the other loops are in.  But it is tricky...and sometimes it doesn't work!!!!  LOL  : )

Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

 I might have to fiddle with the water on this new pond...but I'll hook some more and then see if I need to change the direction of the water or????

Now I need to decide on the colours for the woman's clothing...and decide what I'm going to do with the water around the elephant's feet!!!  LOL

I adjusted the colours on the lion and made him sleeping peacefully so the other animals wouldn't worry!!!!  : )

It's zipping right along!!!  : )   However, I might decide to go back and start the borders from the bottom up now that I have some of the center section hooked and have made decisions about what my colour palette is.  Then I can go back to the center section and that great elephant!  : )

 (If I were doing it in the #3 cut, I'd still be doing the deer at the bottom of the rug!!! ) LOL 

Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

Speaking of "de-tail"...LOL...I have added a tail to the Lion although I need to take out the blue where I put it down into the tree branch!!!  Didn't intend for blue to be there!!!

I am keeping the leaping bunny now that I have the black hooked around him!

About the Lion...As you can see, it is a good idea to put a few colours into a motif just to get it hooked...and then look at it to see what you can change to make it look better or more "believeable"!!!  This is especially important when you are dealing with a small image that becomes lumpy when you try to hook it!!!  LOL

Note ~ Note ~ Note ~

Oh Yes!!!  Don't Forget to ZigZag around your pattern before you get a lot hooked on a large rug!!!!  You can wait to do it on a chairpad or small mat but on a large rug like this it would be tough to do it after the rug is hooked and heavy!!!!!

Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

The path is a tweed in black and white and I wanted to see if I could get away with putting it in.  It would add another area of "white", make a difference between background and "path" and I thought it would show off the woman with her water pail better than just keeping to the same black background.  I might be getting a little "addled" here...but I can always replace it with black if I think it is not working!!!  : )  I want to try it with the finished bush on the left side and a good part of the large tree on the left where the Lion is resting!!!  (I'm not looking forward to attempting the Lion face (!!!Agggh!!!) as it is sooo small, but I'll give it a try!  : )

I might have to dull down the white bird if I can't get some other white areas into the rug...but that should be pretty easy to redo him if needed.   I haven't chosen the woman's costume colours yet, but they will need to be rather dark to show up on the blue water.  I don't colour plan first because I like to be able to choose colours as I go along that will show off the other parts of the rug as well as the image I'm working on!!  : )   Sometimes you don't know (until you get the rug partly hooked) what colour will look best!

I have lightened the picture below to show you that I've added a dark blue into the black mix...just for a little "difference".  It just blends in with the black area in the picture above but, if you are up close to the rug, you can see a bit of difference.  I had first hooked more of the lighter water blue behind some of the tree limbs ...but standing back and looking at it, I knew that that wasn't going to work!!!  LOL  It made the tree look "insipid" and goofy!!!  I wish I had taken a picture of that so you could see why I took it out, but take my word for it...it didn't work!!!  LOL

I decided to wrap the black/dk blue mix around the end of the water and when I stood back and looked at that, I was pleased with the result.  Then I hooked the water blue only behind a few leaves at the top.

As you can see from the pictures, it is easy to introduce another colour into your rug by finding one with a similar value that will blend into the first area...and then putting the new colour in later in a more prominant position if you wish to do so. : )

Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

I don't want motifs to be too "matched"...and yet I want to carry some of the same colours throughout the rug as I work.  I do try to use a colour in a different way sometimes or put it with another colour that changes it a bit...so it is not so "predictable"!  LOL

You can see that I changed the "leaves" or "bush" by the tiger's head...(go back and check the original pattern!)   I feel that if I had put the original pattern's "ferns clump" there, it would have taken away from the tiger!  Do you see how subdued that redesigned leaf motif is?   If it were bolder, I think it also would compete with the tiger face.

 Also, try to envision three of the shaded green leaf motifs on the right side, instead of the two shown.   I don't think it would look good with three clumps of the same colours!  : )  I am going to try some of those shaded greens on the left side under the tree to see if that will add a nice touch to the total picture.

I am using different shades of green in the leaves, bushes and trees so we don't see the same green everywhere!!!  I do love "odds and ends"!!!  LOL

I'm really happy with my colour choices for the most part!  As I've said, if I find that I've used a colour that looks funny or detracts from the whole picture of the rug when I have more done, I can always change or remove it!   For instance, I've added two red "flowers" under the bunny because that area of the rug has the dark colours without any "spark"!!  Maybe it'll work well, maybe after I get more of the rug hooked I'll try something else there...but at least I'm trying!!  : ) I hope you won't be afraid to try something that your heart says "Try!"  : )  You can always take it out if it doesn't please you...and without experimenting, we tend to just play it safe!  : )  I'd rather take a chance that I've found something really delightful...even if it is a wild experimental choice!!!  LOL

Happy Hooking!  Sunnie  : )

I also tried hooking the leaping rabbit...but it is really difficult to get any detail with him!  After I have a chance to sit and look at it for awhile, I'll see if he looks alright.  (I'd really like him to stay...but if he just looks like a "blob", he's better off gone!!!!!!!!!)  : )

Sometimes we just have to try something and look at it awhile!!!  There are times when a motif looks out of place or doesn't seem right until we get the surrounding area hooked!  So we'll see about the rabbit after I get the parts around it hooked!!!

Happy Monday!  : )

Workshops range from bookmaking, to shibori dyeing, to ceramics and glass blowing. Click here for class descriptions.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go register for that shibori class.

It's actually fun to choose which motifs to keep, which to eliminate and which to change!!!  It's quite a challenge...because I want to keep the "feeling" of the original Helen's tapestry rug!  Of course, I have no idea what it looked like!!!  LOL

I thought you might like to know why I chose to use some of this bright, wild orange (photo below) on my  "padula" leaves on the left of the rug!  : )  Because the backgrounds are dark, I stand back and look at the rug to see where I can add brights and lights to keep the rug from being boring!!!  I chose to use some loops of this bright orange because I knew that the duller orange that I used on part of these leaves, and the brown background here would tone down the brights.  (The orange would appear more intense on a black background)  But the brights add a little spark to the leaves and that is why I did it!  If I don't like the effect after I have hooked more on the rug and I think these early decisions detract from the total rug, I can always change them!  : )

When you look at the photo above, where you can see all that I've hooked so far, you can see that the "weight" of the motifs is heavier on the right side...the cat, the larger green leaves, the larger mass of water, the big old rose flower, etc.  I felt there needed to be more weight on the left side to balance the rug.

Also, you can see that I am adding the natural, creamy white colour of the bird to some of the leaves, flowers and animals to highlight them and to add some spark to the designs.  I can always remove these highlights later if I find that I've overdone it...but, again, balance is what I am looking for.

By the way, the pattern was sent to me without this "leaf motif" being drawn on completely.  The leaves (when I looked up the pattern in the pattern book) looked more like holly leaves and I decided to change them!!!  : )

You will note that I am not worrying about the "light source" in my shading...that is making sure that I decide where the light is coming from and then putting the light colours where they would naturally be.  Because I have decided to do this rug in a naive, primitive, folk art style...I do not need to worry about that.  However, If you do this rug in the more realistic fine cuts and are hooking the motifs and shading them as they naturally would appear in a photo, you will want to shade the motifs correctly!  : )

I hope that my explaination of why I am doing what I do is helpful!   : )   I know that others would do things differently, choose different colours or handle this pattern in a different way...and they would have good reasons for doing what they do!!  : )  As you know, many wonderful and experienced rug hookers would certainly have colour-planned this rug before pulling up the first loop!  : ) 

I have been told by many of my rug hooking friends that my  way of hooking, starting out,  colour-planning as I go and using odds and ends of wools would absolutely drive them crazy!!!!  LOL  (I always say that with me, I'm already there so it doesn't matter!!!!)  I realize that my methods can be somewhat unorthodox...but they are what please me!!  : ) 

The best thing is to do what you think is correct for you...and, if you are trying for a specific technique, an experienced teacher is a must for success.  Thank you for coming along on this adventure with me...and I appreciate the encouragement!!!!

We were looking again at the whole pattern today and thinking that it might be an oasis, or a Biblical theme, or an African scene!!!  Anybody know anything about this pattern?  : )

This is a good lesson for all of us in simplifying a design so that we can do it in a wider cut of wool.  If you find a great design but it is too intricate or "fussy", you can simplify it and hook it in #6 or #8 cuts and it can still look great!!

Enjoy!!  Sunnie : )

finish tapestry portrait

62 group piece for august

More violet and blue scarves - using the taffetas on the cashmere should be devine.

finish off the knitting and post to byemmajo.etsy.com

acounts up to date

textiles brief before august

cup cake teapots start

cupcake hats start

beret knitting pattern

i'm sure there is more!

My work went well , I was meeting other members of 62 group to look at 1st stage applications for membership. Took quite a long time but we all felt we'd done a great job and have chosen quite a wide selection for 2nd stage.

Also mangaed it to the handweavers studio on haroldstone rd -got some amazing singles hand dyed linen for my portraits - only had about 20 mins spare to get yarn but could have spent ages in there looking.......

Then after all met up with tim and dawn who'd gallantly been looking after the wean and we went to wagamammas on the south bank which was fantastic...had a really graet dinner and tootsie managec most of her dinner. Really brilliant to see polly who is looking really well....Then got taxi home!

today I think we are going to do the tates!

Going to shower and get ready to go which takes ages!

I've been back in my studio a bit this week. Mostly catching up on projects with due dates!! One of those projects is for another art group I am in - it is called Four Pieces.  We each took a photograph and blew it up to 16 x 24 inch then cut it into 4 pieces. Each member of the group got one piece from each person's photograph. Our goal is to interpret the piece of photo in fabric. The four pieces will be reunited so the original owner can make a quilt version of the photograph.  The first one was due 2 months ago and it was amazing how well the pieces went together!  Monday, I'm to receive my pieces - I am excited to see what the ladies have done with their slices of my photo.  Here is a picture of my piece in progress:

I have it finished, but want to wait until after Monday to post the finished piece. I promise to post next week with mine as well as the other pieces and I will post again when all the pieces are united.

DeLane

One of the projects is a Pandoras project. We each brought a photograph we took and cut it into 4 pieces and shared the pieces amongst ourselves.  We're supposed to reproduce the piece of the photo in whatever way we see fit and then give it back to the original owner.  My picture is of a ceramic pig in my garden.  Here is my 4th of the picture -- after a morning's work.  I still have the thread painting and quilting to do, but thought you'd like to see that I am actually accomplishing something in my studio!