Hooking with Yarn continued . . . (Jet Award)

I have completed hooking my project with yarn. For the border, I used a chunky yarn 100% wool in a charcoal grey. The chunky wool yarn hooked much easier with very little splitting unlike the 4 ply acrylic. Then on a scrap backing, I tried using a 3 ply 100% wool with a single strand and then with a double strand. It too hooked up easier than the acrylic yarn. If you choose to hook with yarn, my suggestion is to go for wool instead of acrylic. The wool texture is better and does not have a tendency to pull out or split. The acrylic was really not bad to hook with, but it does have a tendency to split (which is aggravating) and has a softer finish (which could cause it to pull out of the backing). However, I did love the look of hooking with yarn. It was interesting and different . . . a definite change of pace.

Here are some pictures to show the comparison of the size difference of yarns I used.

The darker spots on the hooking are from the ends of the yarn that were brought to the top and cut even (not as noticeable when looking right at it) . I'm making the hooked piece into a pillow to finish it.

Hooking with yarn for the Jet Award

Last night I started working on the Jet Award for the Merit Program. The projects for earning the Jet Award requires working with alternative materials. For my first project, I chose to hook with yarn. I have an abundance of left over yarn from knitting mittens for Christmas a few years back. The yarn is mostly 3 and 4 ply acrylic so the mittens would be easy to wash and I had a wide variety of colors.

To start my project, I drew a 12x12 inch square on some inexpensive burlap that I had and divided that into triangles. On my first two triangles, I used a single strand of yarn. The weave on the burlap wasn't quite tight enough and I had to go back occasionally and pull up a lost loop or two which made it time consuming. On the third and remaining triangles, I decided to double up on the yarn. It made the hooking so much easier and covered the area to be hooked much faster. I still had an occasional lost loop and sometimes the yarn would split which was a little aggravating, but I really liked the look. Here is a view of the back. It could be neater, but I was concentrating on the front more than the back.
There is a warning here to be VERY careful putting the hooked part on your frame. The gripping strips wanted to pull out the hooking when I tried to reposition my mat.

The project is going fairly quickly (this is what I have done since last night). I could see me making a small rug using yarn but with a tighter weave backing.
Here are a few pictures showing how I hook with it. I cut off a long length of yarn and folded it in half. I began hooking by pulling up the loop end, then I continued hooking pulling up two strands at a time. To finish, I pulled up the tails and cut them even with the hooking.