Getting in the Green

I finally dove in to my green wool purchased from Janice Lee at The Rug Hooking Store, and I have to say that I've been pleasantly surprised.  When I walked into Janice's shop to talk about background wools, I thought I would be going with a darker background.  The original Grannies Flower Garden photo has a dark background:

So I had this in my head. After I started talking to Janice, she took me down a lighter path, with the idea that my flowers are dark enough that they would be lost in a background that dark.  Janice pulled a lot of wool off of the shelves, but eventually I settled on my variety of greens.

As always, it was fun cutting.

I favor the #7 cassette in the Bee Line Art Tools Cutter.  This much wool got a TON of lint in my cassette, on my cutter, on my tote table, and all over my desk.

I sometimes wonder if I should be wearing a surgical mask to cut wool, since I'm sure my sinuses are packed with lint by the time I'm done!  As always, I cleaned out my cassettes with some canned air.  I know there are some people who are very against this, because they feel that canned air gets moisture on the cassettes, but as long as it isn't the bottom of the can when actual liquid spits out, I think it's fine.  I'd rather get my cassettes very clean, because having them packed with wool will make them stop working faster than a little moisture!

I started hooking in the background, and I was a little dubious, but the more of the wool I hooked in, the more I loved it.

Janice suggested that with my lighter flowers, I do an outline in a smaller cut wool. I did the green flower outline in a #4 cut, and I think it worked out nicely.

Now? I'm eager to get the rug finished and see how it looks!  Maybe by Sauder Village....

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

Rug Hooking Exhibit at the Airport

For the past month, I've been working with regional rug hookers and the Quad City Arts to put together an exhibit of rug hooking and wood turning.  We're fortunate in the Quad Cities to have a public space, at the Quad City Airport, that is managed by an art organization, Quad City Arts. A few months ago, I started collaborating with Dawn from QC Arts to discuss having a fiber arts show in the airport space. Dawn had also been in contact with the local organization of wood turners, and a partnership was born.

I was able to get some amazing rugs from regional rug hookers, including Sharon Townsend, Nola Heidbreder, Jan Pierce, Annette Boland, Lori Rokusek, Julia Bohl, Beth Anne Smiley, Ella Davison, and the lovely Katie Lane. 

Wool Kaleidoscope from Nola Heidbreder, hooked by Nola and designed by Cactus Needle.

Angel, hooked by Lori Rokusek, designed by DiFranza. Note the halo on the angel is repeated in the wood vessels.

Side view inside the glass enclosure, includes Beth Anne Smiley's "1885 Horses" at the top left, Julia Bohl's "Woodland Deer" in the middle, and Julia's "Ligonier Duo" on the floor.  All three of these rugs were designed by Barbara Carroll of the Woolley Fox.

Here is Jan Pierce's "Frog" pillow, designed by Cathy Morton Mulvaine - this photo doesn't do it any justice at all. The frog is bumpy, and multi-colored and multi-dimensional.  The wool in the dragonfly wings is metallic and gives the impression of iridescence. 

Sharon Townsend's "Joy: A Puzzle in 15 Pieces" - too much window glare from the glass again, but this is truly a rug hooked in 15 pieces, and jigsawed together.  The colors are fantastic.

Ella Davison's "Birds and Berries", designed by Bea Brock, along with a piece I received as a gift from a customer in Canada.

"Santa Fe Crossing", hooked by Beth Anne Smiley of Wheaten Woolens, designed by Barb Carroll of the Woolley Fox.  This rug is HUGE, and is serving as a focal point of sorts for the show.

Here is a table by the wood turners, with a Bee Line cutter on it.  There is a tiny sheep by Lori Rokusek, designed by Diane Kelly, on the table, and my Iowa rug is on the wall (designed by Cactus Needle), and then Lori Rokusek has another piece, "Down on the Farm", designed by Sue Hamer of House of Price, on the floor. Jan Pierce kindly let us use her work-in-progess, which is a gorgeous fox, designed by Jon Ciemiewicz.  It's nice for people who are unfamiliar with hooking to see the pattern drawn on the linen, and then the actual fox popping off of the piece.  The eyes are fantastic.

Another piece by Jan Pierce, called "Starry Harvest", hooked and designed by Jan.  This piece is full of stories - my favorite is about a third of the way up on the left side, only half of Little Miss Muffet shows, with her tuffet and her curds and whey spilled and a big spider hanging out of the tree.  Such a fun rug, and this one is big too.

Katie Lane's "Trout", designed by Keith Kemmer. He looks like he's fresh from the stream!  I was at a couple of shows with Katie while she was hooking this guy, and am so thrilled her husband Ralph gave it up for a couple of months for the show.


On Wednesday, I'll post more photos from the show, including more wood turned pieces.  They dovetailed with the rugs beautifully.

Enjoy!

A Corny Experiment

I finally steamed my Iowa Vintage Postcard Rug, and was all set to start my Grannie's Flower Garden, and then....distraction.

I love how my letters in the Iowa rug look like corn kernels. They are a little uneven, with different hues, but in rows.  I thought a little bit more about that corn, and decided to try an experiment.

(Sorry for the darkness of this photo, my phone doesn't have a flash.)

I have a wool that is a maize color with a light charcoal gray box print in it, so it's a nearly perfect corn color, and the gray gives it that little bit of texture. My plan is to hook a rectangle of this in a Bee Line #4 or #5 width strip, and then turn it into an ear of corn to make an ornament for all of my Iowa friends.  I bought a nice dark green piece of velvet and some pipe cleaners, and I'm going to try to make some corn husks peeling back from the ear, and put a loop in the top from some small gold cord.

This is my first hooking experiment without using a pattern, so I'm freestyling here.  I figure if it doesn't end well, at least I haven't used much wool or linen. We'll see how it goes!

New Rug: Grannie's Flower Garden

What a busy crazy month it's been at Bee Line - Townsend!  We've shipped out EIGHT Trunk Shows in the past three weeks, chock full of wool cutters, cassettes, tote tables, and our new frames, so things are really hopping out there in the hooking world!  That said, it has left me no time to hook. Boo!

Since my Iowa Vintage Postcard rug is done (yay!) and is awaiting steaming, I bought a new pattern from Nola Heidbreder at Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week to start.  It's called Grannie's Flower Garden, a Cactus Needle pattern, and is 19 1/2 x 27.  It's just a charming little pattern, full of bright colors and happy shapes, that is do-able in a shortish period of time so I can feel an enormous sense of accomplishment. 

Once again,  I wish I had a color planner in the office!  The background in the picture seems to be some variations on a dark brown/tobacco color.  I used a beautiful chocolate wool on my Magdelena purse, which I would love to use again, but ran out and I can't remember where I bought it.

Having a blank, unhooked pattern is a bit like having a new crayon box at the beginning of the school year - it's a blank sheet of paper, full of possibilities. 

I looked at the colors on the photo above, and then looked in my wool basket, and started pulling a few things out to see what works.  I'm trying to mime what I see....a punchy color in the  middle to center the piece.  Like colors somewhat equidistant from each other, or anchoring either side.  The same wool in the center of every flower for some consistency.

Hmm.  I like how this has started, but I think I want it to be a little more fun.  Maybe a bright red pomegranate background? I think I'll start hooking the middles in that lovely Dorr green plaid, and the non-red flowers, and see where it takes me.

Sauder Village Recap

I'm finally caught up with the paperwork from Sauder Village, so now it's time to post pictures of the rugs.  And Oh, were there a lot of terrific rugs!  Let's get to it!

First, let me say that the amazing Katie Lane from Townsend was unable to make it to Sauder this year, there were some family commitments she had to meet.  I missed you Katie!  Ruth, our Purchasing Manager at Bee Line, came with me instead.  Of course, she left as a hooker.  Ruth bought a kit from Tomorrow's Heirlooms and started hooking.  I warned her it would happen.

Hi Ruth!

I always love being able to meet customers at Sauder - it's great to be able to put a face with a name, and I have a LOT of names.  Shari and I talk to all kinds of people during the year, so when I meet people at the show it's usually a hug-fest.

Aww!  It's Linda Keller from Grant Street Woolworks!  One of our terrific distributors.

And then, there were rugs.  Lots and lots of rugs.

Sometimes I just love the cards with the stories behind the rug on them, like the one for this fox:

Here's another favorite, hooked by Susan Feller of Ruckman Mill Farm - another one of our distributors.

This dog. "Buddy" was hooked by Leslie Cuthbertson and designed by Jon Ciemiwicz from a picture Leslie gave him.

I loved the colors of this beautiful sampler-style piece. called "Heartland Samper".  It was designed by Cactus Needle and hooked by Susan Rand.

This whimsical fortune teller, called "Future Not in the Stars", was designed and hooked by Kathleen R. Helland-Carini.

A whole series of Hippos throughout the year, here is the information:

And of course, the amazing "Eye See You 2", The Big 'Un.  This is from the original rug designed and hooked by Judy Carter, and drawn by the amazing artist, Lenny Feenan (www.theburningartist.com), but then each square was individually hooked by different instructors to make it four times the size of the original.  Love the whole thing, from the concept to the hooking.  What an accomplishment for everyone involved!

My photo feature won't let me download any more pictures, so I'll put the rest of them up this week.

Happy Hooking!
Julie

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?

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

Hello all! 

It has been over a month since I blogged, and I am quite remiss in that this rookie hooker has learned a TON in the last month!

I have finished my pumpkin top, but need to sew the back on.  I know another hooker, one of our Bee Line-Townsend cutter customers, who has made a virtual pumpkin patch from the Wicked Wool kit.  Jo Wick is the creater of the fabuloso pumpkins here:

And these:

And my favorite:

Seeing Jo's adorable pumpkins all done is a GREAT motivator for me to get my rear in gear and get hooking!  I have a few episodes of Project Runway to catch up on, so maybe it's time to start the DVR and get some pumpkins on the vine.

I love how Jo personalized these pumpkins with using the sticks as stems.  The pattern from Wicked Wool comes like this:

And your canvas is truly blank, so you can hook it however you like.  I'm going to finish off the backs of my pumpkins (I AM, really!), and try to do a few more, and then I am going to try to put ears on it and make a black cat head.  Beth Kovich at Wicked Wool has a bunch of variations on the pumpkins on her website - http://www.wickedwool.com/ - where you can also purchase the pumpkin kit.

So I'm off to make The Great Pumpkin.  I went to Sauder Village last month and LOVED IT, and I learned so much.  I'll be posting about Sauder and some of the amazing rugs I saw on Wednesday.

Have a great week, hookers!

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.