Happy New Year!

A very belated Happy New Year to everyone out there!

It's been a while since I posted on The Rookie Hooker, mainly because I haven't had much time for hooking!  We installed the rug hooking exhibit in the Quad Cities Airport in December, which was wonderful:

We filled many holiday orders for the Bee Line Townsend Cutting Machine and/or cassettes:

We shipped a number of our 14" Orbiting Floor Frames:

We announced our new prices for 2013, which brought a whole lot of orders in at the end of 2012, and we started implementing a name change.  Why are we changing our name, you might ask?  When we bought the rug hooking equipment line from Townsend Industries, we understood that rug hookers everywhere knew the product as "the Townsend Cutter".  Part of our long-term plan is to make the rug hooking part of the business fully integrated with the Bee Line Company, and to become a Bee Line product.

You'll start seeing us making the change to Bee Line Art Tools. It's the same product, different name, but it gives us the opportunity to perhaps start thinking about how we can serve other artists in the future.  Here is the new logo you'll see on our products and materials:

Now that the business stuff is getting caught up, it's time to hook! I have a date with my latest rug, "Grandma's Flower Garden", for the Oscars.  Hopefully that night will give me lots of hooking time, and I can kick start my new rug to keep the ball rolling.

Hope you are all finding time to work on your winter projects, and Happy New Year and Happy Hooking to you!

Julie

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!

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!