Topaz Award, Merit program, McGown Pattern

One of the requirements of the Topaz award for the Merit program is to hook an early McGown pattern. To learn more about McGown patterns, I found (on the internet) an old copy of Pearl McGown's book "YOU . . . can HOOK RUGS". It was reprinted in 1953 and smelled like it had been in someone's basement since 1954, but I read it anyway to learn more about the woman and her patterns.


Pearl was definitely my kind of woman! In 1930 she hooked her first rug and took off running from there. Although she loved hooking, her interest was more into creating patterns (she had well over 1,000) and her business had gotten so big that she enlisted help from her son, two sisters, and her father-in-law. She bought the larger house across the street (she named it the 'Rose Cottage') just so that she could hold her patterns and swatches, and have a place for hookers to get together and share their rugs and discuss the aspects of technique, color, and teaching others. She and her helpers would hand draw on burlap the patterns that she designed.

Pearl McGown was very much into an artistic effect when hooking a rug. She realized that the only way to achieve this effect was to use a graduation of hues to hook flowers, leaves, or to accentuate a scroll, all with using fine cuts of wool. Her book is a wealth of information! She covers all aspects of rug hooking, my most favorite is the drawings which illustrate where to put each value in different leaves and flowers to help you 'see' that particular item in a realistic way. It is such a shame that the majority of the beautiful rugs in the book were not in color. However, the ones that are were beautiful.

For my project, I chose one of her chair pads that I squared off for a pillow. Recently, our rug hooking group offered a workshop with Nola Heidbreder, a certified McGown teacher, so she helped me with my pillow. Nola is a fabulous teacher! She is so into the 'fun' aspects of hooking and embellishing. So I wouldn't miss out on the fun, I would hook on my pillow for a few minutes then go and do some of her fun things she taught us in hooking. If you EVER get the chance to have a class with Nola, I HIGHLY recommend her. Anyway, I got the jest of hooking the McGown way. There is a lot to learn and my attempt is puny at best in comparrison to rugs in Pearl's book. I used a #4 cut with some of the Palette Dyed swatches I dyed from April DeConick's virtual class "Palette Dyeing' on RUG HOOKING DAILY.
I may also get credit in the Garnet Award for using a fine cut. I'll check on that.

Finished Color Rug!

Just finished the binding last night on the Color Rug for the Merit Program. This rug has 6 of the projects required for the Peridot Award, each project is either 10x10 inches or 5x20 inches (total area each project 100 square inches for a sampler rug). I chose the following projects to hook in my rug: a color wheel, all primary colors, complimentary colors, tertiary colors, cool/warm colors, and an obvious balance color plan.
To begin, I measured off blocks on my linen and then drew a design for each category as I finished the previous one. All colors co-ordinated in some form or fashion because I dyed the wool with one color palette using April DeConick's "Palette Dyeing" method. It is amazing how the colors flow and blend together using this dyeing method. I was worried about how it would look to hook primary colors next to the other projects, but it doesn't seem to matter since all the colors are from the same family of dyes.
On the border are words that I learned about color, and when possible I hooked with the appropriate wool to demonstrate that word.

Value,
Tint,
Shade,
and Tone
are examples. The words for the 6 projects that I chose to complete the Peridot Award are next to the project. I also had room for my

secondary colors
and my neutrals.
Because I chose to do lettering in the border and binding my rug by whipping with yarn, I will get credit for two projects in the Ruby Award. And, by dyeing all the wool in this project using chemical dyes, I get credit for one project in the Amethyst Award.
I will now submit my rug and descriptions to the Merit program for review.

Neutrals, Tones, and Shades (Palette Dyeing)

In the past week I have been dyeing more wool to finish up my Palette Dyeing. I am learning Neutrals (equal amounts of complimentary colors), Tones (color plus grey), and Shades (color plus black). It is so exciting to see the colors that are created using the color palette that I chose. This is a picture of my Neutrals; two values of red and green, two of blue and orange, and two of yellow and violet. Each is so unique.

Next are my Tones. I used a yellow-green in value #2 with 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 tsp. of my grey dye mixture (grey dye used was Pro Chem Mouse Grey). The top swatch is the original color.

Here is what it looks like on my Color Rug.

Last are my swatches of Shade. I used value #2 of red-orange with 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and 1 tsp. of my black dye mixture (Pro Chem Black). The first swatch is my original color.

Here is what it looks like in my rug.

I really thought that dyeing Neutrals, Tones, and Shades would be boring but I was quite surprised at the results. I really like the Shades and can see where it would add a lot of depth to hooking a rug.

Palette Dyeing

I am having so much fun doing the Palette Dyeing, I just wish I had more time in the day. I figure it takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours start to finish (dragging out all the dye paraphernalia, dyeing the wool, and putting it all away again) to dye one set. If I didn't have to cook I would try to do two sets. I am working on finding my favorite blue, red, and yellow so I can start my color wheel. Here is a yellow I tried . . . I'm not using it because it is too brown for me, but it made a beautiful palette. It would be great for Sunflowers!