Gimme An "A"!

I'm getting close on finishing the A, and in what is exciting news for me, I finally got an outline color for the letters!  Yay!  No more indecision!  This means I finally have all of the wool I'm using for this rug.  Oh wait...except the bird.  Dang.

Here is the rug so far - I'm loving how it's turning out:

Just a bit more of that Gene Shepherd Roman Sun and I'm done with the letters!  There is a small shadow outside of the letters and on the inside of the O and the A.  The picture that came with the pattern from Nola Heidbreder shows a light brown or burgundy outline for the letters, but I wasn't a big fan of that color.  I thought about taking the ruby red color from the side of the barn and bringing that in, but alas - not only do I not have enough wool to do it, but as much as I love that ruby it seems like it would be a little harsh against the letters and the sky.  Someone suggested the green, but I love the trees and don't want to detract from them.  What do you do when you can't make a decision?  Make someone else do it!

There aren't many rug hookers in the Quad Cities - if there are, I have yet to meet more than four.  So imagine my delight in discovering a new studio opening in Davenport - Wheaton Woolens, by Beth Anne Smiley!

This is a picture of Beth Anne from her website, www.wheatonwoolens.com - here she is actually at The Wooley Fox, enjoying a camp.  Beth is opening her studio in this adorable 1860 stone barn on her property.  The other hooker I know in town, Julie Bohl, was at the studio as well, and she and Beth Anne took a look at my rug and made a number of suggestions as to what color would go well with the rest of the rug.  We finally settled on a beautiful navy blue - I'm hooking it in now, and it is really giving the letters the "pop" they need without overpowering the whole thing.

Beth Anne is holding rug hooking classes in her barn, so be sure to check out her website for more information.  The more the merrier!  I'm going to the Omaha area to see my mom for her birthday, and fortunately I'll be within 10 minutes of Janice Lee's shop, The Rug Hooking Store and Black Horse Antiques, so I think I'm going to finally get some "closure" on that Magdelena Eby purse I hooked last fall.

Only two weeks until Sauder!  Be sure to go to their page on Facebook, "Rug Hooking Week at Sauder Village" to stay up-to-date on what's going on!

The Trouble With W

I've been working on my Iowa Postcard rug in hopes that I can get most of it done by Sauder Village, but let me tell you, hooking these letters has been a challenge.  Here is the rug so far:

So maybe....MAYBE...I'm getting toward being 50% done, but these letters?  They just might kill me.  Things that I can hook in a swirl, or a line, or an outline - no problem.  But hooking in a diagonal line on a somewhat horizontal stripe???  Yikes.

It may not look SO bad from this picture.  In pictures of my face from a distance you can't see the wrinkles either! :)  So let's zoom in a bit:

Here is the W a little bit closer.  NOW you can start to see the caddywhompus rows and loops.  I notice the right side looks a little better than the left side.  I think that's because on the right side, I hooked in straight rows, and then filled in later.  On the left side, I just tried to hook row next to row, moving loops over as needed to fill the space.  Overall, I like the look of the right side better, and may end up unhooking some of the left side of the W.  I'll need to get away from the letters for a bit and then re-visit it.  Now for the REALLY honest picture:

Oy.  Here is that left side of the W, warts and moles and all.  I'm using Gene Shepherd's Roman Sun wool, so there are four different shades of this lovely yellow-orange color. 

I'm hooking them in stripes on the letters.  The color is fantastic, but my rows can certainly use some help.

If anyone has any great tips or methods for hooking on a diagonal, I'd love to hear about it!  In the interim, the next section is waiting to be hooked on my Bee Line 14" Orbiting Frame (which I love, and will have at Sauder Village).  I hope I get an "A" on it!

In The Clouds

June is flying by here at Bee Line - Townsend!  We finished our 14" Orbiting Floor Frame, now available on our website at http://www.beeline-townsend.com/, or from one of our fantastic distributors.  I've been so busy getting that on the market that I haven't had time to actually hook on it lately!  My poor Iowa rug has been sitting in my cubicle, lonely, waiting for me to pick up my hook.  This week, that all changed.

I finally got some hooking done!  I wanted to finish the letters first, but in yet another rookie error, I let my worms get mixed up.  You can see on the right side of the "O", the wool looks a little lighter.  I think I accidentally hooked the lighter wool for the bottom in that layer, so I'll probably need to pull it out.  I got frustrated about it, so I thought I would hook a nice, calming cloud before I moved on.

I used Nola Heidbreder's "Snow" wool for the cloud, and I like the bits of blue/gray in it that brings just a tiny bit of dimension into the cloud.  I was trying to hook in a way that brought a little bit of "cloud-like motion" into it, not sure about my level of success on that front! 

Once again, I'm going to rely on steaming to save the day!

Now that my head is out of the clouds, I'm going to go reverse hook that poor "O".  I'd like to have this rug done by Sauder Village, because then?  I can buy new stuff!  Yay!

Dreaming of Cambria...

The good news around Bee Line - Townsend is that we've been really busy in the past month.  The bad news is that it leaves me absolutely no time to hook, so my Vintage Iowa Postcard rug is at a standstill.  I look at it every day, next to my desk, and think "Maybe today...." and then the phone rings or something comes up that needs attention.  It's a good problem to have, but I'm missing the hooking.  I like progress!

Something else I try to do every day is check Gene Shepherd's blog.  I'm subscribed to his Internet Rug Camp, which I love, and get the extended version of the blog.  There is always something interesting going on there.  Maybe not every project is something I'm going to tackle, but I'm interested in the process.  Dyeing, proddy, punch needle....I need to get the basics down first, but I like seeing what the possibilities are down the road, and sometimes looking at these things can give one an idea about how to do a current project a bit differently.

So this week is Gene's Cambria Pines Rug Hooking Camp, and I'm sooooo jealous I can't be there!  First, it's in sunny California, so really, how bad can it be?  The resort looks beautiful, and Gene had pictures on the blog of the wools and patterns he has available at camp.  Pris Butler was there with her Klimdt rugs, which look amazing.  Doesn't it seem like this should be a work trip for me?  Isn't it imperative that I get out to Cambria Pines Camp as a public relations tool for my company, to hook all day and into the night?

It's a sacrifice I would be willing to make.  Maybe after ATHA Biennial next year I can get Cambria on my schedule...

Bee Line 14" Orbiting Floor Frame Setup

Visitors at The Bee Hive

Things have really been buzzing at the Bee Line - Townsend Bee Hive!  We've been shipping to shows and visiting shows, and have hosted visitors!  One of the visitors at the Bee Hive was none other than Jan Pierce, one of our BLT Fairy Godmothers and the person who originally connected the dots between the Townsend products and Bee Line Company.

Jan not only visited to pick up her brand new Bee Line 14" Orbiting Stand Frame (available at distributors and on our website this week), but to show me some of her work as well.  Lucky me!

Jan's new frame - happy hooking!

I'm hosting a Rug Hooking Exhibit at the Quad Cities International Airport this fall, and asked Jan if she would be so kind as to lend us a few pieces of her work.  The biggest problem is that there is so much from which to choose!

Me and Jan with her first piece, a frog pillow which won an award.  Her husband Bud was obviously so distracted by his lovely wife that he didn't get the whole pillow in the picture, so here is the whole piece:

Pretty, no?  Here are the other terrific rugs I had the pleasure of viewing:

Viking Ship

The turkey in this rug is made entirely from recycled and repurposed wool -

amazing work with the color scale on this one.

Santa Rug

This beautiful Storybook Rug - this picture does NOT do it justice.

A paisley rug, which is a work in progress.

A close up of the paisley - love the colors here!

This beautiful woman, who had just been framed.

A little closer on the woman -

I believe this was hooked in #3's, #4's and #5's.  Lovely.

Since I'm a bona fide newbie, this was a great day for me.  It's so fun to see the work of others, and to hear the stories behind each rug.  We're lucky to have Jan's input and influence, and love to have hookers stop by the shop.  If you're ever in the Quad Cities, call me!  I'd love to see your work and show you around!

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!