Hooking at Hopkins Hook-In

Unfortunately, I haven't been hooking much in the last two weeks because we've been getting ready for the five, count 'em, FIVE shows we shipped this week.  If you're interested in seeing any Bee Line - Townsend equipment in the next couple of week, here is where we'll be:

1.  Nola Heidbreder's booth at the Hook In at the Kirkwood Community Center this Saturday in St. Louis
2.  Cottage House Primitive's Booth at the Cream City Hook In in Milwaukee today!
3.  Sheep Thrills booth at the Hook In in Saline, Michigan on Saturday
4.  River Gallery's booth at the Nova Scotia Spring School in early May
5.  Hopkins Hook In at Calvary Lutheran Church in Golden Valley, MN in the Going Gray booth this Saturday!

Shari and I, the two people who answer the phones and handle all orders at Bee Line, will be traveling up to the show to see Martha Reeder at Going Gray, and hanging out at the Hook In for the afternoon.  We get to make a stop at Ewe and Eye in Osage, Iowa, on the way up north, so it will be a hooking extravaganza packed into about 26 hours.

I'm bringing my Iowa Postcard Rug and one of our new 14" Orbiter Frames to hook on, and I'm hoping to find some white wool.  Everything I've found thus far is cream, but I'd really like some white for my clouds and letter outlines.  It's always fun to look around at the booths and be tempted by the wares...sometimes seeing all of the wool available, after not being able to buy any locally for months, is a little overwhelming.  I get panicky, thinking, "This is my last chance until the next show, what do I need?"

What I NEED is to make the liner for this:

The Magdelena Purse for my sister.  Unfinished projects make me crazy.  But sometimes it's more FUN to start a new project with new wool.  But oh, the guilt on that purse...

Hope to see you this Saturday!

The "I"s Have It!

I posted last week that I opened my wonderful packages of wool from Nola Heidbreder and Gene Shepherd, and even though it was so lovely I was almost loathe to cut it, I still did.  Cut it.  With my Bee Line - Townsend Cutter, of course, with a #7 cassette.

Worms!  Worms!  Worms!

I started hooking the letters to see how the colors worked together.  The reason I purchased this Roman Sun collection of wool from Gene Shepherd is because I wanted the letters in the rug to have a variation in the color without having definitive layers of color.  I wanted it to look less "candy corn" and more like an Iowa sunset.  I started at the beginning - the I in Iowa.

While I can still see some color layering, it isn't as obvious as the photo that came with the pattern.  I wanted the orange, but I wanted the colors to blend a little bit more.  The color in this wool is so vibrant and fun, it brings a lot of energy to the rug.

The other thing I like about this wool is that it looks a bit like some Iowa corn.  Obviously I don't have the straightest rows or most even loops - that's for a few years down the road, when I can look back on some of these early rugs and chuckle to myself and say, "Oh, I remember when I really struggled with uniformity!"  ...That does happen, right?... but for now I'm enjoying the actual hooking and seeing where it takes me. 

I'll be back when I have a full set of four Iowa letters!  Have a great week!

Under The Roman Sun

Buying wool online is a little bit like Christmas - you know what it looked like on the website, and you THINK it's going to work in your project.  The box arrives, and there is a moment where you get to open it and it's so exciting because you get to see the wool and touch it.  Non-hookers will think this is a creepy sentiment, but y'all know what I'm talking about.

Last week I got TWO boxes of wool!  Lucky lucky lucky.

The one on the upper left is called "Snow" and the beautiful marbled one is "Turquoise Jade Spot" and both are available from Nola Heidbreder on her website: NolaHooks.com.  The turquoise particularly is so intense and deep, it's just spectacular.  I don't know what I'm using it in, but I'm saving it for something special.

The next box I opened came from Gene Shepherd.  I'm still hooking my vintage Iowa Postcard pattern, also purchased from Nola, and I've been looking for a multi-hued orange wool to do the Iowa letters.  On Gene's website, I found the perfect wool - his set called "Roman Sun".  It was pretty on his website, so I went ahead and took the plunge since I'm an impatient person by nature, and the nearest shop where I can buy wool is nearly two hours away.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I opened this box and it was like opening a box of sunshine.  Really beautiful wool, the colors were just spectacular.  It just makes me happy to look at it.  As an added bonus, it's incredibly luscious wool, and ran so beautifully through my cutter. 

This piece looked like flames were literally jumping off of the wool.  It was just lovely.  I almost didn't want to cut it....ALMOST.

I tend to use a #7 cassette.  I can't really explain why.  I started with the #7 on my first rug because our top sellers are the #6 and #8 cassettes, and I always cheer for the underdog.  I really like the #7, so I've stuck with it.

And now I have THIS on my desk!  Do you know how hard it is to work with these piles of beautiful worms staring at you, saying, "Julie....you should be hooking...."  I've been working on my letters for about a 15-30 minutes in the morning and 15-30 minutes at the end of the day.  I'm almost done with the "I", and I'm liking the effect of the varying shades of orange in it so far.

Shari, my cohort at Bee Line Townsend, and I will be going to the Hopkins hook-in up in Minnesota in a few weeks to join Martha Reeder from GoingGray.  I'm hoping to be done with my letters so I can buy an accent wool to hook around the shaded parts of the letters.  Of course, I will need to buy too much wool.  It's part of my job description, right?