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.

Continuing on with the Color Rug . . .

I am continuing to hook on my 'rug of color' for the Peridot Award. The border is almost finished, I do want to make some changes, however. I worked my initials in the neutral colors from my "Palette Dying", but it looks out of place so I will re-hook them using a color with the blue-green border background. That will be more consistant. (If you want a laugh, look closely at my initials. I hooked them upside down and got the 'J' backwards. Think before you hook!) Also, I haven't dyed the wools for the "TONE" and the "SHADE", so the lettering will be pulled out and re-hooked using wools dyed for those words.
It took me forever to decide what to hook for the 'balanced' part of the rug. It is so darn narrow nothing seemed to work. My husband suggested hooking a neck tie . . . it is long, I could make it colorful . . . but it didn't go with the rest of the rug. I'm going with a kind of patch work quilt thing and have a "Georgia Peach' in the center squares.
I'm sure hoping to have this thing completed in the next few weeks!

Tertiary Colors (Merit Program) Peridot Award

I just finished hooking my tertiary colors for the Peridot Award on the Merit Program. I decided to do proddy for my flowers mainly because I had just bought the book "Prodded Hooking for a Three-Dimensional Effect" by Gene Shepherd. It is a fabulous book AND it comes with a wonderful DVD. I enjoyed prodding so much that I prodded some flowers on a hooked purse I have been working on. (Hopefully the purse will be sewn together very soon).

For my tertiary project, I used at least one value of all of the six tertiary colors.

Hydrangeas used values 1, 2, and 3 of blue-violet (110).
The marigold is value 3 of yellow-orange (104).
The flower top left uses value 1 of red-orange (102) for the center and value 4 of red-violet (112) for the petals.
The flower bottom right is value 5 of red-violet (112) and the petals are value 5 of yellow-orange (104).
Leaves are a mixture of the first 6 values of yellow-green (106).
The background is value 1 of blue green (108).

I used a different method on my hydrangeas than in Gene's book on his delphinium. Gene knots each flower separately using a fine cut of wool, trims off the tail, and then places a drop of Fray Check on each knot. I took yarn and attached each flower with a french knot, just like one would in embroidery. My thought is that it would be faster (love that!) and perhaps a bit sturdier. I would like to put my rug on the floor occasionally and I think the flowers would be less likely to fall off using the french knots.

Warm and Cool Colors (Peridot Award) Merit Program

On the Peridot Award, one of the choices is to hook a mat or 10x10 inch square in a rug of warm or cool colors. I asked permission to combine the warm and cool in one area of my rug as I thought it would be interesting to see the contrast between the two. I think it was very effective in my hooked butterfly. It was a challenge to choose the wool from my dyed palette of colors, but I came up with a combination that I liked. This is a picture of how the rug is progressing.



It will be a rug of the six chosen projects of the Peridot Award. As a plus, I will be using lettering in my border and finishing the rug which will count as two projects from the Ruby Award. Dying all the wool for this rug counts as one project for the Amethyst Award.

When I need more of a certain color for the rug from the color palette, I can determine which value I want and I am able to dye just that one value in the amount of wool that I need. Such will be the case when I hook the border of my rug. I will need about 3/4 of a yard of Blue-Green value #7. April DeConick has given a chart for us to determine how much of our formula to dye 1/2 and 1 yard increments of the values we need in her Palette Dyeing class.

For the next project, I will be trying some prodding.

Complimentary Colors (Peridot Award) Merit Program

This is my example that I hooked of Complimentary Colors (colors opposite the color wheel) for the Peridot Award. I have used all 8 values of Yellow-Orange for the pumpkin and leaves and values 7 to 3 of Blue-Violet for the background. I am wanting a smoother transition on the background between values 5 to 4 and values 4 to 3, so I think I will dye a strip of wool in between those particular values and hook only one row using those new values (let's call them value 4 1/2 and 3 1/2). It will be interesting to see how much smother the transition will be.
Click on any photo to see pictures close-up.

Merit Program (Peridot Award) Primary Colors

My second project for the Peridot Award is to hook a 10x10 inch area using only primary colors. I have drawn three stars along with some stripes and have hooked red and blue stripes with yellow stars. I began with the darkest values and progressed to the lighter values on the stripes. With the stars, I used the 4 darkest values for the first star, the 4 middle values for the middle, and the 4 lightest for the last. So, I have hooked an area using only primary colors but using most or all of the values that I have dyed with my formulas.

I used ProChem dyes for my primary formulas.

My primary red formula is:
1 tsp. #307 Chinese Red
1/4 tsp. #304 Cape Cod Cranberry
1/16 tsp. #233 Bright Orange



Primary Blue:
1/2 + 1/16 tsp. #440 Blue
1/2 tsp. #495 Teal


Primary Yellow:
1 tsp. #119 Sun Yellow
1/2 tsp. #120 Golden Pear
1/32 tsp. #233 Bright Orange



All other colors in the color wheel were dyed from mixing these three formulas.

The Merit Program

I have been learning the Palette Dyeing process from April Deconick (Red Jack Rugs) on Rug Hooking Daily. I have now dyed eight values each of all 12 colors in the color wheel. So, having done that, I have decided to work on the the Peridot award for the Merit program. To do this I have chosen six of the eight projects and will be hooking them into one rug instead of doing individual mats. My first project was to hook the color wheel using the palette of colors. I have re-drawn my color wheel several times making a mess on the canvas before deciding to hook just plain 'ole squares. Not real creative on my part, but it got the job done. I wanted to show how subtle the color changes were from one color to the next, so I placed them next to each other without a dividing line or space. Above is my color wheel, below is my palette of colors . . . six dyed yards of values.