All About (Animal) Faces; with Donna Hrkman

Donna showed us many of her beautifully designed and hooked rugs. I loved this one,which she made while working with a friend who was getting a teacher’s certificate. All the wools are dip dyed or what the fashion world calls ombre. To shade and highlight the flowers and leaves, you manoeuvre the strip of wool to get the lights-to-darks where you want them. It gives the rug a very soft feel, I think. In the front of the picture, you can see three hooking frames lined up. We were there to get lots of work done!

Barbara was hooking her dog, Leo. She spent almost a whole day working on getting his tongue, which is so key to the design, to look right. Isn’t it great? And Donna helped the animal lovers get that dot in the eye to make them look realistic. Can you see those tiny pieces of white wool hanging from his ear? They are a 2 cut, which is the teeniest tiniest piece of wool you can cut. I can’t wait to see her progress on Leo.

Pat was hooking her dog Karen. What a sweet face! The design was from a great close up photograph of Karen begging. I think this is the second piece of rug hooking that Pat has done – wow!

Donna is holding up Susan’s design of her dear departed cat Daisy.

And here is Daisy at the end of three days! The drawing of Daisy’s face is so sweet, but then adding the garland of the flowers underneath is such a great touch. Hooking since she was in her teens (;-D) Susan is very accomplished.

Here is a room full of The Foxy Ladies, hooking away! It was pretty tight fit, so when anyone needed to audition colors, they went into the other room. In the other room, Donna set up a “store”. She had a lot of beautifully dyed wools, including many pinks and beiges for skin tones.

I suppose that my Eliza rug fits into the animal category, though I was hooking easy eyes and just fretting over color, not realism. Here’s my first try… There will be more on all my trials later, of course!

And again, I am missing the photographs I took of Diane hooking her darling dog pulling a wicker basket! Send me a photo and I will add it.

All About (Human) Faces; with Donna Hrkman

The past two weeks have been so busy; readying the house for the painters to come, getting wool and supplies collected for the Foxy Ladies’ workshop with Donna Hrkman and then starting to get the house re-organized and cleaned….. I know some Foxy Ladies have probably been waiting for this post!

We had Donna working with us for three days! I’ve never done a rug hooking class for that long and you get a lot done and learn so much. If you look at her website, Donna’s speciality is faces, both human and wild ones. This rug was designed and hooked by Donna for the annual Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week challenge. The rules were that the pieces had to show an athlete and include all the colors in the Olympic rings in the piece. Isn’t this a fabulous design ???

As I mentioned in another post, with all that’s going on now, I just couldn’t do anything that required much thought or originality. There are several family photos which I would like to hook some day, but this isn’t the time.Though I wasn’t hooking facial features, I did enjoy listening and watching as people’s “subjects” appeared. Some of the patterns were drawn by Donna from photos that were sent to her, but several of our group drew their own designs. They are all going to be such fun and special pieces.

Karen was working on her own design of her son swimming in Lake Michigan. We all loved his towhead and also the great sand and water texture that Karen was busy hooking on the third day. The background is going to be all about texture and color and movement. {I bet she has it done by our next meeting!}

Carol was working on these four bathing beauties drawn by a friend. She is using a wide cut of wool and eye-popping colors in this stylized design. If you look closely, you can see that Donna drew some cute patterns on the bathing suits. It will be fun for Carol to hook.

Lynette was hooking her kindergarten school picture. In this shot you can see how everyone was working from a photograph, or several. Donna called this the source material and used it to help each hooker decide where to put what value. Many people had the photos posterized, which lessens the colors and makes the image more graphic so it is easier to see, draw and hook the values.

Linda had a challenging design with three faces! You can see that she has a great start on them.

Pam was working on a self-portrait of herself hiking some years ago which Donna drew for her. Pam’s face was one of the smaller ones being hooked and required less detail but bolder values for her face to emerge.

And I do like the way that Pam works. She fills these baskets with all the wools she is using. They are so appealing and make it easy to choose the next color. I am afraid that the cats would find them appealing as well…

Donna did several demonstrations and here she is hooking a human eye. Trained as an artist, she had so many great tips about how to paint with wool. Here she is talking about adding the white dot to make the eye look real.

{Sorry ladies – I missed a few human projects – I know I photographed them but I think my camera was not working, and if you want to send me a picture, I will post it.} In another post, I’ll share photographs of the animal portraits being done.

Beth, who was sitting opposite me, was hooking a portrait that she drew of her grandson Will and she kindly sent me his photo to add to this post! This is his school picture and I think she’s doing a great job with him. Can you see the white dots in his eye that make him look so animated?

 

“Eliza” Hooked Rug Pattern & a Finish!

This hooked rug pattern, called “Eliza”, was designed by Joan Moshimer, one of the doyens of the rug hooking world. It’s folk art/Fraktur quality is what still attracts me to the design. I bought it in the late 1980′s at her studio/store in Kennebunkport, Maine and it’s been tucked away in my rug hooking bin. I periodically get it out and look at it. I love the design but am not sure quite how I want to hook it. The flowers and hearts are so sweet and will almost hook themselves, but it’s the birds. There’s a little too much detail for my taste and I keep wondering, do I hook them realistically with plaids and earth tomes or should they be fanciful as the birds are in a Fraktur piece?

I am about to get help with that! Foxy Ladies Rug Hooking Guild is having a national teacher, Donna Hrkman, come for three days to work with us. We will all have different projects going and she will work with each of us several times a day, I would think. There will be some general teaching as well on topics we’ll all be interested in knowing more about. I am really looking forward to finally working on this project, as well as eavesdropping on what the other ladies are doing. ;-D Back in January, when I was trying to get messy things done, I dyed up a color family I want to use. They are primaries with a bit of black to tone them down. My first big question will be what color background I might use. There are two background areas, one in the middle and one on the border, so I am thinking light in the middle and dark all around. Another burning question is how many kinds of wool can one hook in a rug and not make it too busy. You know me – more is better! Lots more on this topic coming soon.

Any rug hooker will tell you that one issue we all deal with is how to store all the wool for a project. This is my latest idea – here you see a divided container that is meant for Christmas ornaments. I think this will be great, but we’ll see how it works once I start cutting the strips and hooking madly… (Now I’m wondering if I should have two of them.)

And here’s a finish! I debated how I wanted to use the piece I made in Susan Quicksall’s workshop. I do not need anything more to hang on the walls, so I wanted to make it into a pillow. I am one of many hookers who finds finishing wool mats as pillows very difficult, so I bit the bullet and took it to an uphoslery store. They of course charged me more than I really wanted to pay, but the man agreed that it was no easy thing to do. Here is the completed pillow, looking wonderful in the livingroom! Yippee for me!

Dyeing & More Dyeing

I have decided that this is the year that I will complete the Vermont Shells hooked rug! In order to finish the rug, I needed to decide on the color for the corner shells as well as the border, plus I’d run out of greens. When reorganizing some rug hooking files and papers and notebooks recently, I came across my planning page for the rug. I began it in 1995 when we lived in Shanghai China, which I remembered, but the page also had my ideas for colors and the purple dye recipe. My plan was to take 2 or 3 days… but it took over a week… In the next house I would really like a sink and a stove that I can dedicate to dyeing rather than taking over the kitchen. Peter has been traveling during the week and luckily (I guess!) he had a cold last weekend and spent a lot of time in bed or watching football and wasn’t feeling like being in the kitchen. I finally resorted to buying a grocery store roasted chicken and frozen veggies so as not to disturb my work. Anyway.

In Shanghai, I guess, I hooked the cobalt blue shells in the right hand corner and I still think they are a good color choice. There is a thin border between the shells and the big border and I am using the different pinks that are the flowers in the green shells. My rug hooking teacher was always talking about relating colors in a rug, so I felt like the best choice for the border would be a dark purple, from the center.

I usually enjoy dyeing, but getting the correct values can be tricky. The first job was the green values, and they always give me fits! I think it’s the yellow dye, which seems to vary wildly every time I make a new stock solution. And, as I mentioned, dyeing always takes much longer than I think it will. Here’s the process in a nutshell: soak the wool, dye it in pots or a roasting pan on the stove top, let it cool, wash it, dry it and then you can audition it. Dye is like paint; you can’t tell the finished color until it is dry. And I also hooked small areas so I could really see how it fit in with the other colors. Below you can see my final choice for the border color, and it was not easy to get, nor quite the color I wanted. I had the formula but remember, I dyed that in Shanghai in 1995! I was getting very frustrated because no formula I tried looked like that purple…. and then I realized - the water was very different. We did not drink the tap water in Shanghai; Lord knows what was in it! I do know that there was lots of chlorine. Every few days we’d turn on the tap and our eyes would water from the overdose. Certainly the Chinese were making an effort to make the water safe to drink, but there seemed to be no one using a formula or any consistency. Any dyer will tell you that whatever is in the water affects the dyes and so that would make this an impossible color to duplicate! {sigh} The colors in this photograph aren’t really correct, but I do think the purple border will be okay. It has to be okay.

It’s critical that the sun be shining; it’s very hard to see values when it’s overcast or dark. Here are the finished samples, which looked pretty good. The next step was to figure out how much to dye of each color and value. It was a lot of wool – hooking eats it up even if you are doing fine hooking.

To amuse myself while waiting for less exciting dyeing to finish, I marbelized some wool. I did two bundles that I really like. The “bleeder” was a maroon-y red (nothing I would use as is) white and an orange I wasn’t in love with either.

The second pan had the red, the orange and a yellow. Yummy! One of the really fun things about this sort of dyeing is that the front and back of the fabrics are so different, depending on how they are wrapped. I really need to hook these to see what they will look like; some sort of yummy flower.

I also did some dyeing for another project, but that’s a story for another day.

And now I must finish scrubbing the kitchen and put everything away.

Foxy Ladies 1/12/13

It’s been several months since I was able to attend Foxy Lady Rug Hooking Guild’s meeting. It’s always fun to see what the ladies are working on. Hooking rugs is slow, so one of the nice things about going to a meeting is getting encouragement and being inspired. Here is some of what was going on.

I had a finish to show! In December, I worked hard on the mat I started in a class with Susan Quicksall. I love the design, and her colors, though I did tweak it a bit. It still needs some trimming and perhaps some more steaming and then I’d like to make it into a pillow.

Here is Pam’s progress on her geometric rug. It looks great, doesn’t it? She has several containers of cut strips and is coloring each section as she goes.I really like it!

Beth went to a rug camp in the Fall and this is the rug that she started there. They really do look like individual tiles, don’t they?

Barbara is working on this rug, which I was most interested to see because I also bought this pattern. It’s called Sebring Circles and it is from Searsport Rug Hooking. They have two versions of this rug on the front page of their website and they are quite different. Barbara is wondering about the background she chose, which is on the left between the two circles. From this shot it looks like it’s linen colored but it’s a bit warmer. Backgrounds are tricky and can make the pattern sing or dull it down; whatever you want. Finding the color you want is not easy.

A new member, Carol, finished her rug during the meeting! It is so exciting to complete a project and we all celebrated with her. The roses and the border are really yummy red plaids.

Another new member, Vicky, was sitting next to me. She was starting her first original design! The paper at the top of her hoop is what she is working from. She is using bits of wool from previous projects to create each square. It will be a fun exercise to see how colors work with each other.

{Isn’t 1/12/13 the craziest looking date? Being in the 21st century still boggles my mind..}

The Grove Fest

The Grove Fest is an annual event held in Glenview IL. You can read about the history of this beautiful former farm on their website.  This is the second year that we have demonstrated and we Foxy Ladies again teamed up with the Loopy Ladies rug hooking guild. And, just like last year it was really cold! We have a lovely space under a roof and there is a big fireplace there, so it is a great spot to get warmed up. We had quite a good show of hooked pieces! In going through my pictures, I noticed that there are a lot of Foxy Ladies finishes. Barbara finished her amazing fox runner and Pam brought a foxy rug that she had made as well!

Pam completed her lovely Oriental rug. Isn’t it impressive-looking? I’d love to see it in her home.

And Karen finished her matrix design runner, though at least half of it is missing in this picture….. The rainy day ladies above Karen’s piece were hooked by Diane (I think!). Click on the photo to see the details – they are very fun.

Susan is working on another partially hooked piece by her mother. This is a really pretty bird design.

Here is what a Loopy Lady looks like! {;-D} This woman is working on a portrait of her mother from an old photograph – it is amazing! Ann (?) is also a quilter so we had a good day of chatting about  the may crafts we love to do.

This is always fun – to see the same pattern hooked in entirely different styles. The one on the left was hooked by Linda and I believe the one on the right is by Beth.

Here is Leslie, on the home stretch of hooking a great floral rug. Can you see how many layers she is wearing? There was a mighty cold breeze blowing…

I believe the floral rug was hooked by Diane. I don’t know who Calvin’s owner might be! Isn’t he dear?

This is a great grouping, really highlighting the variety of hooking designs and styles.

Santa belongs to Susan and was very popular with the kids. I saw one pair trying to carry him off!

This is just a sampling of the rugs on display and being hooked. The people who attended the fair really got a great overview of the craft of traditional rug hooking.

My apologies to the Loopy Ladies and anyone else I did not credit! If you would like me to add your name to your rug, please leave a comment! I am bad with names and did not actually know who hooked each piece….

More Rugs From Indiana

There were some great rugs to admire, both in the Woolkeepers Hook In show and in the process of being hooked. This was a vendor piece. I was admiring the bright lollipop-like flowers and then I saw the bunny! Can you see his whiskers?

And while we’re talking about animals, here’s a very cute flock of sheep. It’s a DiFranza design hooked by Angela Thomas. The sheep colors and textures are really good.

And more animals. There was a group of ladies discussing backgrounds, as you can see. I really like this design with a farm animal on each edge. And the size of them is quite large so the hooker can play with some fun texture.

Another animal with vegetables! This show rug was probably hooked in a 4 (smallish width) and had wonderful detail. I particularly like the border of Fall leaves and bittersweet. It’s called Harvest Blessing, designed by Kaye Miller and hooked by Jyl Clark (?).

This woman was hooking a 3 or 4 cut Oriental. It’s going to be magnificent when she’s done. I asked if she had a spot for it and she said in her entryway. But she was worried about her dogs ruining it. I do put rugs on the floor and use them but not in the entryway! I hope hers is large enough so that visitors can walk around it with dirty shoes!

This snow family rug was in the show and I bet it really is her family! It was a cutie. The design is Let It Snow by Barbara Carroll and hooked by Becky Chenault (?).

Here’s a fun way to finish a hooked piece – as a neck roll.

Oh – just one more! This piece is going to be lovely! The flowers and perhaps the leaves are being hooked using dip dyed fabrics. That sort of dyeing gives a water-colory, batikish look. It’s a bit fussy to hook, but is well worth the effort. It makes me want to get my dyepots out….

I hope you enjoyed this hooking show and tell. The result of all this is that I want to do nothing but hook!!!

A Room Full of Hookers!

;-D

This was the scene on Saturday at the Woolkeeper’s Hook-In in Camby Indiana!

The photo above is of the hooking area, but what struck me funny, was that it was pretty empty all day! There was so much to do – classes to take, the show to admire,

and most importantly, lots of vendors -

and more vendors! This was my first hook-in, but they are fairly common events. They are organized by rug hooking groups or shop owners and rug hookers from miles around attend. Groups set up at a table and spend the day talking and sharing rugs and hooking away. And shopping.

Rug hooking stores are few and far between. Because of the need to order on the Internet, we all get pretty excited to see wool and patterns and supplies in person. This vendor had some wonderful rug patterns. I saw the washer woman several years ago at another rug show and really admired it. The colors are lovely and it’s quite realistic for a rug done with wider cut wool strips.

Most of the booths featured dull colored primitive wools and designs, and of course lots of fun Fall pumpkins and witches, but this lady was into brights! I thought this was a fine-looking rooster.

Bev Stewart is the show organizer (on the right), pictured with her niece. She has a business called Whispering Pines Designs, but has no website. This is definitely a show to remember for next year if you’re within driving distance of Indianapolis. There were more rug hooking vendors there than I have ever seen and I got into a good bit of trouble…

More photos coming…

Whew! Back to My Quiet Life

Great Nephews #3, #4, and #5 and their parents have come and gone, leaving a sprinkling of Lake Michigan sand and lots of dirty laundry. I taught Second Grade for many years but have never been a parent, so I don’t always cope well with young visitors! Particularly those who open every door and go in rooms they’ve been asked not to! Jasmine tried to be friendly, but got scared off and Gizmo is the definition of a scaredy cat and is still hiding. I spent a lot of Sunday watching the Olympics and resting up…  ;-D

I took them to “the beach” at Lake Michigan and that turned out to be the best thing I did with them – - – everyone was happy. No tears… no pouting…

They went right into the water and had a lovely time. Every day they wanted to go back, but we had rain early each morning and there was a rip current warning, which meant no swimming. Some tears… lots of pouting…

After the marathon of cleaning I did before their visit, I’d like to take a break from that, but a lot of miscellaneous stuff ended up in my studio (where I kept asking them not to go into!!!) and I need to get it straightened up again, not to mention doing lots of laundry. That’s first on the list this week.

The day before they arrived I had another Bernina sewing lesson. It was worse that the first one, so another plan for this week is reading the manual and learning the machine myself . (And Bernina USA is going to hear about how poorly this store is handling their obligation of providing lessons!) I have been looking at my pile of quilt tops and trying to decide which one will be the first experiment on (Ber)Nina and using the BSR. The Gail Garber quilt is going to wait a bit as I want to practice before I start that one. I am thinking maybe I will play with this very old red and white house top.

During the Olympic events that I don’t have to watch closely (swimming and track for sure), I am working on the No Neck Birds rug. I have already hooked 2012 in the corner, so I do need to keep moving along so I don’t have to change the date. And I have two woven Christmas runners completed and am wondering just how much warp is left to be woven.

Like a vacation, it’s great to have visitors, but really wonderful when they leave and life returns to normal!

More About the No Neck Birds

I’ve been working on the no neck birds at night. July is another time of the year when I get a lot of evening work down, as we watch the Tour de France. (And it has been crazy this year!) I hooked a few birds and then added some more on the opposite side. I debated sprinkling the birds around but then decided to make it two-sided. The next design consideration was what to do around them. I used cut paper leaves and some string to see what each idea would actually look like and I came up with three ideas. The first one, below, was vines that go from side to side.

And the next was side to side the other direction, sort of like birds on a wire.

The last idea was flower stalks that stop in the middle area. This is the design that Peter and I liked as it added more color and fun. Using the string and paper pieces worked very well as an auditioning tool!

And here you see some of it hooked. I am playing with several green leaf colors as I don’t like the one you see here. But I think the flower works. It is impossible to see, but I am doing two color beading around the flower middles as well as on the birds’ legs. Next step was to try the background colors. I had some lovely, dark, navy, burgundy, plum plaid fabric, but as usual – - – not enough! So I am using that with two other plaids. I am also using a wider cut (width) of wool in the background so the hooking will go a bit faster. I haven’t used two different cuts before so I am being careful to make sure they are the same height.

Also notice that I am making the corners curved! It will be much easier to finish and why do non woven rugs have to have square corners???