My "LuLu" rug

This is my rug "LuLu". It was made for my daughter's in-laws for a Christmas gift last year. LuLu was a Jack Russel Terrier and the family pet for 13 years. She loved the beach and the mountains and was a wonderful family pet. LuLu passed away today. It is so difficult for my daughter, husband and his family, and I mourn their loss with them.

20 years in the making . . .

My first blog . . . my first post. I'll start by telling the story of a rug I have finished.

This rug was started 20 years ago by my sister Beverly. She was always the first to try out new crafts, and I always 'caught on' about 5 or more years later.

My sister tried so hard to get me interested in rug hooking, but I just didn't 'get it' at the time! Then about five years ago (a few years after Bev lost interest), I started hooking and absolutely fell in love with it! I was sick to learn that she was no longer hooking and had given away all her wools, dyes, and dye pots. All she had left was a half finished rug, thumb tacked to a huge frame which sat in her closet for years. She gave it to me in hopes that I would finish it, but it only sat in my closet for a few more years. I finally got mad at having to move it out of my way every time I went into my closet to find something, so I decided to see what I could do with it to get it out of the way.

It was a Lib Callaway design called "Tree of Life" drawn on a very inexpensive burlap. Bev had all of the tree and some of the border and background hooked. All that needed to be hooked was the rest of the background and finishing the border. But, she and I had a very different hooking style . . . so to keep the rug somewhat consistent I ripped out the background, washed the wool strips and hooked the rest of the rug. Her background was the yellow that she dyed from onion skins. (I wasn't motivated to dye from onion skins, so I just used some gold wools that I had on hand and used her yellow strips around the tree.)

I was really pleased with the way it turned out . . . and I fell in love with the "Tree of Life" pattern. I gave the rug to Bev for Christmas last year. She was so surprised to see it finished and very happy to have a hooked rug of her own.