Two Flowers Blooming

I FINALLY made some progress hooking this week!  Yay!  I've slowly but surely managed to get two flowers done in my Grannie's Flower Garden, purchased from Nola Heidbreder.  I hooked them at work and hardly anyone said, "Man, I wish I had YOUR job" when they walked by and saw me hooking.  My normal response to that is, "Yeah, I'm pretty lucky, aren't I?"

My last progress picture, which was taken MONTHS ago.  This poor rug just sat fodder in my cubicle, giving me sad faces and sighing. A LOT.

Yesterday I was determined to get moving on it and get this garden growing! It is springtime in Iowa, after all.  I grabbed my hook, and next thing you know, two flowers bloomed on my frame.

I'm still in love with this pomegranate wool I received from LeAnn Hodgson at Camp Wool - this is the last of that wool, which is beautiful!

Both of the flower centers are overdyed plaid wool, and I still love seeing how patterned wool looks when it's hooked.

Once again, I haven't color planned this and am flying by the seat of my pants. One of these days I'll actually sit down and plan out my rugs, because every beautiful rug I've ever laid eyes on has been color planned, hence the gorgeous results.  For now, I'm still enjoying my Rookie status and having some fun just throwing things together and seeing how it ends.

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!

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.

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!

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!