I do like to hand quilt, but doing the same hand motion repeatedly can lead to pain and carpal tunnel, so I thought hooking would be a nice break. The project I talked about doing in this post turns out not to be something to do while watching the Super Bowl and the Olympics. Soooo I dug around for something else, and I came across this rug which I have started twice! The designs originally were for first time hookers and are reminiscent of sampler quilts that I have done over the years. I liked the idea of a sampler rug and if I teach beginning hooking again, I can point at the squares and ask “which one would you like to do?”. Teachers of any sort of craft end up with a lot of (useless) samples. Here you can see students working on the heart and flower pattern in the middle row on the right.
When I began the rug, we lived in Illinois and I was into dark colors. They don’t appeal to me now (in South Carolina). So I ripped out the squares I had done and started hooking some marbelized dyed fabrics, which I think are so fun.
Then I stopped because I wasn’t happy with this square – is it too busy? I’ve decided to try another square and mull this one over.
You can see in the picture of the whole rug that there are empty squares between the patterned ones. And of course, in the tradition of these sort of antique rugs, I need to decide what to hook in the alternate squares. I looked at rugs for sale online and stole these to show you and consider for myself.
This is a beauty!
Here is a real log cabin look.
Stripes would be the easiest and use lots of wool strips up. This makes me think of a runner in my grandparents’ house that I’ve wonderred about since I began hooking. I wish I knew if it was a hand made one.
And the caption on this wonderful design said it is made of vintage ladies wool bathing suits! I really like the scallop-y nature of this filler…
Lots of fun choices!
Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Peter is starting to prepare the game day food as I write this…
This looks like a fun pattern to hook Devbie – are you planning to hook all of the flower motifs in the same colors or color family or are you going to mix it up? That will help you decide which type of design you should select for those alternate squares. I love the final one with the wavy lines, but that will likely be a bit much unless you are going very monochromatic in your flower squares.
Thanks for all that good advice! I plan to have the flower blocks be random colors, though I will use predominantly marbelized wool. From the playing around I am doing, there will not be much contrast between the flower and the background… I ordered a great purple plaid that I think will work to outline the squares and work into whatever fill I decide on.Isn’t that a fabulous rug? I just had to share it.
That’s right, it was you who sent it. The mind’s a terrible thing to lose… Yep, it was disappointing. Didn’t have to happen, but Philly proved to be the better team. Superbowls are so nerve-wracking when we’re in them.
Love that last one. Saw it somewhere recently. Did you due those yummy pieces of wool? Got my Pats garb on. Going for a greedy six!
I sent it to you. I did dye the wool. It’s easy and fun to do and requires no dye. Every piece is a surprise. Sorry about last night. They came so close…I was unhappy too.
After reading this, I’m certain I have never seen rug hooking before. I must have been confusing it with latch hooking, which is all yarn. I am now enlightened–thank you!!
You probably are thinking of latch hooking – so many of us did it years ago. However, there is punch needle hooking, which uses yarn in a funny sort of egg beater tool. You can hook with anything you like as long as you can pull through the fabric. I like wool strips. My blogging buddy Laura, is using plastic bags now, and usually recycles t shirts and sheets. Wool dyes beautifully and is such a pleasure to work with, so I’m traditional in that way.
How dry interesting Deb. I hope you do another post about hooking!
How cool to have this project to turn to! I like the simplest filler blocks best–the ones in the muted rug you call a “real beauty.” And, since you asked, I do think the flower done with so much marbled fabric is a little busy but maybe if all the cream background was filled in, that would tone it down. I was very happy with the way there Super Bowl turned out! On to the Olympics!
I keep trying to like the busy square but I think I will try to tone it down a bit. There is a woman, Karen Kahle, who uses it and I love her work. http://www.primitivespiritrugs.com
There is not going to be much contrast between the designs and the background wool I’ve chosen, so it will be muted. I hope it will show enough though.
I was rooting for Brady to win one more time and then retire…ah well. It was a great game!
They look absolutely beautiful! What great patterns, all of them.
Thank you so much! Once I settle on colors, it’s going to be fun to hook. Looks like this year we’ll have to watch the Olympics “live” so lots of time to work during the commercials!
One day I am going to start rug hooking. It fascinates me. I did not know bathing suits were once made of wool. I guess that makes sense as polyester had not yet been invented
If you make bed quilts, then you can hook rugs to match them! I had a fabulous rug hooking teacher years ago and she was converting her houser to a B&B. She was making quilts to go with her amazing rugs. I am sure people loved staying with her.
Omg! A matched quilt to a rug! One day….on my bucket list!
Never say never…