Green Acres...Of Wool

I've been at a bit of a stopping point with my Grannie's Flower Garden rug because I didn't know what to use as my background color.  I thought I could just happily hook along with the flowers and the background would come in a flash of inspiration.  It didn't turn out that way.

So there I sat. Looking and not hooking.

In a stroke of good fortune, my parents traveled north from Texas to stay at their cabin in Nebraska, which is conveniently located just a couple of miles away from Janice Lee at Black Horse Antiques and The Rug Hooking Store.  Janice not only has a terrific store and is a Bee Line Art Tools Distributor, but she is also a fantastic color planner! Score!

Janice's shop in Valley - darling place!

I popped in to see Janice last Saturday, and she immediately started pulling bundles of wool off of her shelves.

She tried some blues and some grays and some rose colored wool. Nothing was really "selling" me.

Until she started pulling greens off of the shelf.  It made sense to me that a garden would be on a green background.  However, it was a little tricky in that I had already hooked a number of the flowers, so if the background wool is too dark, the dark flowers disappear; too light, and the light flowers go away.  I ended up going with four different light-ish colors, and I cut them all up in my trusty Bee Line cutter with a #7.

I'm now ready to go through green acres of wool to get a background in my garden.

Thanks Janice!

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?

Another Barn in Iowa

I am loving my Iowa Postcard Rug from Nola Heidbreder (http://www.nolahooks.com/).  Loving. It.

I'm so obsessed with it, in fact, that it is making it difficult to work.  I've promised myself that I can hook from 4-4:30, because, "Hey, it's my JOB, right?"  I have it set up in my cubicle, but I can SEE it all day, and it whispers to me, "Julie....Julie....put those marketing figures aside and let's play!"

This picture is taken from my chair...

that's the arm of the chair in the bottom of the photo. 

So. Hard. To. Resist.

The other day I was hooking trees with The Perfect Wool, that I happened to have in my bag.  Today, I am hooking a barn with The Perfect Wool, which I happened to have in my bag!  How lucky am I!  It must mean I'm supposed to hook more during the day!  This perfect barn red wool is a piece I was lucky enough to snag from LeAnn Hodgson at Camp Wool (http://www.campwool.com/).  I believe she used it for some pomegranates, but I loved the color so much I had to have some. 

Here is the wool:

Isn't it pretty!?  Of course, the picture doesn't do it justice,

but you can see a little variation in the lights and darks.

For an Iowa barn, you need to have the look of weathered barn boards,

and this wool does just the trick.

Love it!



It's 2:43 p.m. here.  Still one hour and 17 minutes until I can give myself permission to hook!  I don't take it home with me at night because I have it all nice and tight on the frame here, and I have the Magdelena Animal Purse to finish at home.  I've steamed it and I'm making the liner right now, so hopefully after this weekend, in between two orchestra concerts for my kids and a basketball game, I'll have it done.  Then I can REALLY go to town on this Iowa rug.  Plus?  The Oscars are coming!  Prime hooking time!

I love discovering the right colors of wool to use in my work.  I'd really love to take a color planning class at some point, there are people who just "get it" and I'd like to pick their brains.  So far I've been lucky - I'd like it to turn into "skill"!

Next Project: Vintage Iowa Postcard

Waaaay back in August, I had the opportunity to take my show on the road to Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week.  I was lucky enough to meet Nola Heidbreder, who became one of our Bee Line-Townsend distributors after Sauder Village.  I saw Nola for the first time at Marilyn Schmidt's Hook-In in Lenexa, Kansas last February, but she was pretty busy the whole time so I didn't get to officially meet her, but I fell in love with the Vintage State Postcard  patterns she was selling.  At Sauder, I couldn't resist any longer, and I bought one.

Here is the pattern, available on Nola's website, http://www.nolahooks.com/:

It's 17x30 - isn't it cute?  I happened to have some wool that will work well in this piece, so I got started.  I should mention that I have no patience whatsoever, so I probably dove in before I should.  Patience really IS a virtue, I shall probably pay for my haste later (see "Ran out of background wool" on last post!)

Now that I've started the tree line, I'm completely geeking out because the wool I have is absolutely PERFECT for the trees.  I'm finding it's so much fun to find the perfect piece of wool for a project.

Here's the green wool, freshly cut on my Bee Line - Townsend cutter (shameless plug, I know!) This wool has a few different hues of green in it, an then just a touch of brown.  Perfect for trees!

Here is what it looks like hooked into the pattern:

I'm trying to do round shapes in the tree line - I do try to pay attention to some of the fantastic rugs I see at shows!  The bit below is supposed to look a little like farmland - the green is pattern-free, with a little variation in the greens.  Someone did a lovely job dyeing this, I wish I could remember where I bought it to attribute it!

Here's a different shot of the project in its early stages:

 I know Laurie Simpson is teaching a class at Sauder Village 2012 on Vintage Postcard Pillows, and I would so love to take it, but I think I will need to be at my booth since BLT is vending at the event.  *le sigh*  Although who knows?  I may still be working on this rug in August! 

Bucky is done!

I have an announcement in Rookie Hooker Land...

I've finished my first rug!

Okay, not REALLY.  But I'm done hooking him.  I'm going to steam it tonight, and then I'll get started on the binding and such.  Here he is:

I did end up taking out the loops on the R in the circle, because it looked more like Bucky threw up than an actual letter.  The original letter was in a #7 cut, but I replaced it with a #4, and it worked much, much better.  I learned a lesson about wool - the Dorr Mill Store wool I used was fantastic, as was the wool I bought from Cabin Fever, dyed by Ginny Glover, but the black wool I used was from Hancock Fabrics, and no offense Hancock, I love you for other things, but that black wool would shred if the cut got to be too small.  Dorr Mill is one of our Bee Line Townsend distributors, and I've never gone wrong with any of their wool, and the blue wool I bought from Ginny was so beautiful and easy to work with.

Tonight, I steam.  I'm hoping it will cover up a lot of my mistakes, like all of my new hooker friends tell me it will.  That steamer has a lot of work to do!

Exciting week!

I've had such an exciting week here at Bee Line Townsend!

I finally met the amazing Katie Lane, who shared some of her homemade granola with me.  Let me tell you, that stuff is Ah-Maze-Ing.  Yum.  Anyone who shares their granola is okay by me.  Katie and Shari and I had a terrific two days, contacting storefronts who sell the Townsend Cutter and getting them the info about the new Bee Line Townsend Cutter.  It was great getting to "meet" some of you!

Here is a picture of the new Bee Line Townsend Cutter, or as I like to call it "The BLT":

Wool, meet the BLT.  BLT, cut the wool.

As you can see, the new cutter is black instead of chrome, but otherwise it is just the same.  Katie brought her cutter and a #8, and she used a new #8 in her cutter and an old #8 in the new cutter, and it was all cutting like butter.  We were really pleased.

Here is some increadibly gorgeous dyed wool Katie brought that we ran through the new cutter.  The picture does it no justice at all, that wool was beautiful.

I joked with Katie that I am the Luke Skywalker to her Yoda. 

If Yoda was really pretty and made great granola.

My time with Katie was too short - she is such a wealth of information!  She returned home yesterday after two days together, but I'm looking forward to her return, as she is going to show me some rug hooking tips to get me started on my Rookie Hooker journey!  She had a lovely rabbit design started by Sharon Townsend with her, only the head was done and I think she said the wool was cut with a #4.  Just lovely.  I can't wait to get started, but I have no illusions that my projects are going to look ANYTHING like that rabbit head for a long time.