Little Stuffed Lamb

This was a fun thing to hook. It is a Lamb pattern by Mary Ellen Wolff of Sunnybrook Design. It was a little tedious to sew together, but I just love him . . or her. Mary Ellen has a few more fun 'Critters" I just might have to have!

Repairing an Antique Rug

This beautiful antique rug belongs to a friend of a fellow hooker of mine. It needed repair and I was asked if I could repair the hole and bind the sides like the top and bottom were bound. I have never done a repair before and it made me terribly nervous to even consider it. I read several articles from Rug Hooking Magazine, one of them found in September/ October 2004 and then got the courage to tackle it.

Accessing the damage front and back . . . (please click on the pictures to see larger pictures)


The rug was hooked on burlap with different fabrics, not wool. I needed to remove some of the hooking far enough to find some good burlap to attach a new piece. The fabric that I took out was difficult to remove and it fell apart as I removed it making me even more nervous.

The piece I attached was Scottish burlap, surged on one side. It goes about two inches below the removed hooked part as you will see on the back side.

One row hooked to secure the piece. You can see my basting stitches. I used #8 wool strips as close to the background colors that I could find.





After the hooking was complete, I trimmed the excess (new) burlap and I turned back the surged edge twice then secured the edge by whipping.


The top and the bottom of the rug had been bound with binding tape that showed on the top side about 1/4 to 1/2 inch. It was faded so using new binding tape would show too much. I took new binding tape and boiled out as much black as I could using a little dishwasher detergent in the water. It took about 6 times of boiling before it stopped bleeding.

The white line on the tape shows me where to sew to make the edge as even as I could. The tape was then flipped over and sewn to the back. Below are the remains of the hooking that I took out. Not much was left and very tedious to remove. The rug was worn and needed a good cleaning . . . by an expert cleaner who knows antique rugs!



Finished back repair.




Now that it is all over and done, I feel so relieved!

Uncle Sam and 'repositioning' . . .

This is "Uncle Sam". I found him in the January/February 2010 Rug Hooking Magazine (volume XXI, Number 4). It is by Sally Kallin of Pine Island Primitives. He was fabulous to hook and I enjoyed hooking him up. I will probably hang him on a wall since he is so tall and skinny (15 x 44 inches).


If you choose to hook a pattern from rug hooking magazine, the instructions are always very thorough with colors of wool used and enlargement of pattern per cents provided. The place you choose to enlarge the pattern will help you to figure out the percent of enlargement when it is not easy to understand. I enlarged my Uncle Sam by 200% (just a little larger), but had I enlarged the pattern like the directions stated, it would have been easier to hook the flag and other details since Sally designed it for a #8 cut. My flag is a little fatter in places than hers. Live and learn! However, I wanted him a little larger.

"Measure" and draw the rectangle first. The lines of the border need to be straight on the grain, so do not try to draw the straight lines from the pattern. The rest of the design can be drawn from the pattern itself. I use red dot when transferring a pattern onto linen. I do not have a light table and my space is limited, so I use my kitchen counter top, lay the pattern down, put the red dot on top of the pattern and trace it. Then I place the red dot on the linen and re-trace the pattern, checking to make sure that the permanent marker is going through to the linen. If I need to, I go back over the markings on the linen to make them show up better.

If you do not know what red dot is, here is an example. I free-handed drawing my initials and date on the linen and got the date noticeably off. Here is how I corrected it.


Now go over the orange marking with the pen to 're-draw' the date on the linen.


Happy Hooking everyone!

Hooking with leftover Snarles

I just took a class from Eric Sandburg in January on Geometrics, which by the way was a fabulous class. We could only work from our snarl bag (leftover strips from other rugs). Before class we divided our strips into light, bright, dark, and dull (or by colors) and brought them with us to class. Our pattern was an original that he drew called "Step Medallion", a 16 x 16 inch square. LOVE the pattern and it was wonderful to hook.

Working from just a snarl bag was so very challenging and I never realized how many strips it took to hook up a 16 x 16 area. If you run out of a color, you have to improvise and decide what to do next. It really stretches you and the tendency to cheat was always on my mind. BUT, I persevered and I am so very proud of myself.

It is not the prettiest thing I ever hooked, but it is . . . interesting and really shows the pattern. Click on the picture and you can better see where I had to re group and throw in another color, or go into a different direction. Every one in the class is hooking the pattern differently. It is amazing how different the results. If I can snap a picture of the some of the other hooker's geometric, I will post the pictures.

Wonderful class!

Angel Fraktur plus Avocado pits dye

Finally, a new post! Here is my Angel Fraktur. It is hanging above my front door in my foyer. It is a copy of the fraktur that our sweet Nancy Thompson had hooked and hanging above her kitchen door. I always loved it and my rug will always remind me of Nancy. She had her own way of hooking the sweetest faces in all of her rugs, something that I cannot capture, it was her own unique style.

The rug measures 7.5 inches by 46 inches. Here are some close-ups.


Notice the nice rosey cheeks. I used blusher on a Q-Tip for that effect. Nancy would have hooked it in with a soft rose color wool.


Now for a great tip on dyeing flesh tone wools that I got from Rug Hooking Daily.
AVOCADO PITS! Yes, indeed! I am VERY impressed with the color it produced. I only had three pits, but I got a great 6 by 15 inch sample. With more pits I could have gotten more wool with graduated tones. I put the pits in a old pot used ONLY for dyeing and filled it with water. Simmered for a while, threw in the wool and let it soak up the dye. Then I put in about 1/2 cup of vinegar until the dye was gone.
A good thing to do is to strain the dye first, then put in the wool. I had little bits of avocado pit on the wool I had to deal with.

Here is a picture of the pot with Avocado pits. See the beautiful dye? Have a try at this easy dyeing technique!
Happy Hooking!

"Pumpkin Vine" and "Eat Ham"

I just finished these two hooking patterns recently . . . both were quick and fun to do. The Pumpkin Vine was placed in a frame made for it and 3 other seasons from Anita White.


I loved the Turkey pattern, I could go through all my tidbits of wool and use them up.

German Santa Claus

Well! I have not posted in quite some time, I see. However, I have been hooking away. I have hooked this charming little rug "German Santa Claus" by Sandra Hershey that I found in an older Rug Hooking Magazine. The beard was hooked first and then I added the wool roving.
I am also working on some more "Snow Folks" . . . I love making those. I found the free pattern for them in Jennifer Manuell's blog "Fish Eye Rugs". One was finished and given as a door prize at the Atlanta Dogwood Guild's Hook-In a few weeks ago. It was a fabulous hook-in, by the way!

I am also working on some patterns I bought at the hook-in from Kathie Meyers, owner of the Woolen Rooster in Sharpsburg, Ga. One is called "Eat Ham" by Kathie and the other is "Pumpkin Vine" by Anita White. Both are adorable! Hope to finish them really soon.

The Forest Secrets Challenge

I hooked this mat for the "Forest Secrets" Challenge on RHD. The challenge presented by Sunnie was to think of secrets that a forest might have and add a rock, a ring, and something royal purple. It could be any size and we had two months to complete the project. We were to S-T-R-E-T-C-H our imaginations and think creatively. I wanted to do this challenge to learn just how to do that.

The rugs and mats were just so wonderfully creative and clever. Actually, I learned more from seeing the finished rugs than from working on my own. I could see things differently after seeing them all.

One rug was a castle in the woods with a sword in a rock and a ring on the handle. There was another of an owl in a birch tree and and little bird holding a ring in its beak. I loved the one of a tree showing the roots growing, and a cross section of the tree with it's rings behind the tree and a few scattered purple flowers (hard to imagine that one, isn't it?). There was one of a hand with a purple ring gathering mushrooms by a rock. A sweet little frog and a purple salamander surrounded by a ring of moths was another. A cute one was of a little girl by a tire swing. There was a bag made of a mat hooked with a little purple fairy. Sunnie did the "Spirit of the Forest" . . . so creative, and one of a walk in the forest with the pet dogs. It was all so much fun to see how hookers think.

We also had to write a story that went with our rug and I was NOT prepared for that! So here is my 'short' story . . .

My 'Secrets of the Forest' is 28"x10". I used mostly #8 cuts of my leftover strips and I only had to cut wool for some of the sky.
When I first read of the challenge, all I could think of was trees. I guess you could say, I couldn't see the 'forest' for the 'trees'.
The trees were so much fun to do, especially since blues and greens are my favorite colors.
I love a crescent moon on a clear night because if you look hard enough, you can see all around it with a tiny bit of light on
the shadow side of the moon. The ring around it reveals the secret that the moon isn't a crescent after all.
My rug is more about . . . not what you see, but what you hear when you look at it. I hear serenity, interrupted only by the noise of the cicadas and the trickling of the nearby brook. . . with shadowy purple rocks. A quiet noise that is soothing and peaceful.

Our next challenge will be in January.

Max Rug . . . continued

With every rug I hook, I learn a little more. I have always liked the look of the primitive antique rugs that I see in books and magazines. They have an innocent charming appeal, some are whimsical and fun, others have intricate designs with wonderful colors, there are those that tell a story, and some are very utilitarian and plain. I love the whimsical and fun and so I chose to make our cat Max with a folk art look.

From what I have gathered from my hooking books, rugs were hooked for necessity and the fact that commercial rugs were not affordable to everyone. Hooked rugs were used, worn out, thrown out, and another was made to take it's place. Because of this, not very many hooked rugs survived. It is so wonderful to see the ones that did survive, and it makes me curious about the creative person who hooked them.

We can tell a lot from the antique rugs that have survived. What backings were used, if they used wool or cotton fabrics (or other things for that matter), the colors that were used, and how the rugs were bound. It is a look back into an era of what was available to the hooker at that time.

Most think that hookers of the past used dull and washed out colors of fabric, however the back side of antique rugs reveal that much brighter colors were hooked into the rugs. The color had faded from sunlight and wear, so a truer picture of the rug is seen from the back.

I liked the worn and faded look of the antique rug and I tried to make my project resemble that look. My first attempt at the Hit and Miss boarder was a little too bright, so I pulled out strips and re-hooked other colors. Here is a side by side before and after picture of the left side.


I continued around the rug with lambs tongues, squares and fans. The background is various white and cream wools, then I added an old date that I pick out of the blue.


The rug and Max . . . .


And now the true test, does the rug wear well . . .





I'm guessing this is what the rug would look like prodded.

My Max Rug

I am back to working on the Merit Program. Looking over the list of projects, I have decided to hook a Primitive rug with a Hit and Miss border. The Primitive rug is on the list of projects from the Garnet Award list and the Hit and Miss border is a project from the Ruby Award.

There are so many terrific rug hooking books that I have used to help with this project. I've just about worn each of them out looking at all the fabulous old rugs, reading about the back ground of each one, and learning how to hook and choose colors to make mine look as old and authentic. Here is a list of the books that I used (no particular order). They are all so wonderful and a great addition to any rug hooking library.









I chose Max as my subject for my rug. Max was our barn cat. I say 'was' because he once lived in our barn at our old house. He spooked a horse late one night and was kicked by it, breaking his hip. We brought him to the house and nursed him back to health. Max decided he liked our 'barn' better than his and became our house cat. He is still with us, ruling over us like a king.

Max is a tuxedo cat with markings on his face which makes him look like he is frowning. He isn't really, but it gives him the appearance of a disgruntled superior feline. I wanted to try to capture that in my folk art rug.

I will show more pictures as I progress.

Nancy Butts Thompson

My very dear friend and hooking leader has passed away to be with the Lord our Savior Jesus Christ. She was loved by so many and has left us with her legacy of her love of hooking. The Crescent Lane Rug Hookers all morn her loss, but the angels in heaven are getting a really good lesson in rug hooking about now. I will miss her so much. Here are only a very, very few of the wonderful rugs she hooked.