Fun in Nebraska

Hello all!

I haven't done much hooking lately, as my hooking space is in my basement at home, which currently looks like this:

We are finishing the basement , and there is now an egress window where that dryer vent hose goes through the plywood window, and all the walls and ceiling are down and the mess relatively cleaned up, so there is progress, but my little studio room tucked in the corner that used to look like this:

Is now covered in a layer of dust because the egress window guy came and I didn't shut my door.  All of my lovely wool, which is now filling those cube shelves, is covered in dust as well.  *sigh* 

One of the best things about my job as Marketing Specialist for the Bee Line-Townsend cutters is my chance to travel to hook-ins and shows.  Two weeks ago I was supposed to go to the Autumn Valley Hook-In in Stillwater, Minnesota, but my lovely teen was asked to Homecoming for the first time, so I had to fulfill my role as Annoying Picture Mom.  I certainly did miss seeing everyone in Stillwater, though!

Last weekend I drove to Valley, Nebraska to attend Janice Lee's Eastern Nebraska Hook-In.  It was fun and really informative, as there were terrific presentations throughout the day.  Great talks by Janice about sheared mats, Kathleen Salak's hooked dolls, and Carol Oslage's baskets, all great, but I was really taken by Jan Goos' Halloween pattern:

(Used with permission from www.goosnest.com)

She did this as both a hooked rug and as a wool wall hanging.  It was interesting to see it in both incarnations, and it is so fun and festive!

A rug I stared at a LOT and wish I would've taken a photo of was being hooked by a young woman at the table in front of my booth.  I believe the pattern was called "My Pal" and it was a dog in the middle, which she was hooking in a primitive style and beige and tan wool.  The background was originally drawn with primitive, irregular rectangle shapes in it, but the hooker was hooking the background in large spirals in varying shades of blue, which to me was reminiscient of Van Gogh's "Starry Night".

Picture this without the yellow and white.

The hook-in was a great deal of fun.  Here is the event just as it was opening and people started their rounds around the vendors:



Here is the crowd when Jan Goos started speaking:

Here is a nifty idea for carrying cassettes without damage - this is an old Crystal Light container:

The good times kept rolling when I visited Janice Lee's shop the next day.  It is a really cool place:

It's even better on the inside...

Here's a close-up of that fantastic horse rug on the table - I love the four-leaf clover in the horseshoe in the middle:

And here is the lovely Janice Lee herself, in the middle of her Queendom:

What oh what should I purchase from Janice's candy shop?  When I was at Sauder, I saw all of the amazing Magdelena Briner Eby rugs and Evelyn Lawrence's interpretations of them.  I also bought the book on Magdelena's rugs by Evelyn and Kathy Wright.  So it only made sense that this was the pattern that was to come home with me:

It's called Magdelena's Animal Purse, from Woolley Fox via Janice Lee. 

I can't wait to start it!

This week I'll be traveling to the ATHA Biennial in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  If you're at the show, be sure to come over to the Bee Line - Townsend booth and say hi!

Sauder Pictures, Part 2

Yesterday I posted a bunch of pictures from Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week, but I didn't want to do too many for fear they wouldn't load on the site, so in the words of Walter Cronkite, here is The Rest of The Story:

I am a HUGE fan of dogs, and I plan to someday hook my Standard Poodle, George.  Whenever I see hooked dogs, I always stop and take note. 

This Bassett Hound was so full of joy!  The photo doesn't even come close to capturing the essence of this great dog.  The subtle variations in the sky in the background were terrific.

Right below the Bassett was this spunky Airdale.  The colors in this rug were amazingly vibrant, and I love how the red background was hooked.

Right around the corner was this fun pup, I'm assuming a Maltese maybe?  This one attracted me because my George is an apricot poodle, so he is very creamy, and I'm a fan of the Warhol prints with the great color silkscreen.  This rug captures what I picture doing with George.

"What cute dog is going to be a rug someday?  Huh?  Is it you George? Yes it is!"

This rug is really big - I can't even get my head around how much work goes into these pieces!  I'm still learning the rudimentary steps in rug hooking, but I told my husband it's like 3D chess - you make one move and it affects things on three other layers.  Your color choice, your cut choice, your loop height, your hooking direction...it seems to be equally freeing and restricting to think about all of these choices!

These rugs were hooked by Patty Yoder, and they are all very large rugs.  Again, the time and effort into these beautiful pieces is staggering.  The sheep in the middle is another inspiration for my George rug, because he rather looks like a sheep.  I love the guy standing next to the cow in the barn.

The center part of the exhibit was a large collection of rugs hooked by Magdalena Briner Eby, and the interpretation rugs designed and hooked by the talented Evelyn Lawrence.  There were books for sale about this collection, written by Evelyn Lawrence and Kathy Wright, which I purchased.  It's a fascinating history lesson on the time and on a rug hooking pioneer.  You can get a copy by contacting Kathy Wright at Traditions by Wright & Co, at 859-745-5740.  It's worth every penny.

My favorite part of the show?  When Samuel Dorr, son of Terry, with Dorr Mill Store, took the microphone to sing the closing song he wrote, "Somewhere Over the Selvage", to the tune of "Over the Rainbow".  It was a real show-stopper, literally.  He ended to a standing ovation.  What a fun week.  We are just a temporary booth at Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week, so we haven't been invited yet to next year's show, but I will be there either way.  It is a show that is not to be missed.

Sauder Village Recap

Just today, I turned in my expense report for Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week, which is a little bit shameful because I left for Archbold, Ohio on Tuesday, August 16.  I gave it to the Bee Line Accounts Payable person, Celeste, and said "But I got it in under a month, right?"  I don't think she was impressed.  SO, it is only fitting that I am posting my recap of Sauder Village Rug Hooking Week a month later as well.  I am nothing if not consistent.

I'm going to post a whole slew of pictures, and I was so overwhelmed by the whole thing that I didn't think to write down the names of the designers and hookers, a definite rookie mistake!  Please accept my apologies for not crediting the artists, and know that I took a picture because I love your work.

The Bee Line - Townsend Booth. 

We were lucky enough to have the picture of Erie Sauder,

which is good luck!  (Or at least that is my story from now on.)

The t-shirts we had for sale.  I need to get these on our website!

With Ruth Weber, of Sheep Thrills, one of our fabulous distributors!

Looking in the front door of the exhibition hall

at these beautiful rugs!

I believe these people were in Jenny Rupp's exhibit.

One of my favorite pieces.  This is definitely one of Jenny Rupp's.

These rugs were in the theme challenge.



This guy was amazing.  His cheeks were so apple-like,

 and the variation in color and pile were terrific.

This clock was so quirky and cute.

More sheep in a pastoral scene.

Love this piece from Nola Heidbreder - she dyed the linen

and hooked in the fish and lilies, so pretty.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow so I don't crash your computer with all of these photos downloading!

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!

Pumpkin Progress

I've made some progress on my pumpkin I bought as a kit from Wicked Wool - it's amazing how much hooking I can get done on a road trip!  I love to read, and sometimes I get carsick when I'm reading, but apparently I can hook without too much trouble, so that's a plus.  My husband and three kids, ages 14, 12 and 8, made a 13-hour drive to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and in between cleaning up a car sickness issue with my youngest daughter (yes, it really happened) and determining how much time was left in the van before we arrived in Atlanta, I hooked.

I found that I like hooked pumpkins better than real ones.  They are easily managed and far less messy.

I started out with a couple of rows around the outline of my pumpkin, but I made a rookie mistake and used the brownish wool to do it.  After I had those first two rows, I started filling in ridges with some of the orange wool, and I realized that if indeed I was going to make this an orange pumpkin, I would need to put some orange around the outside.  I wish I would've followed Beth's example with the green pumpkin and hooked my ridges from the top to the bottom, but instead I did the outline first.  Then I added that extra row of orange, so it was starting to resemble a sweet potato more than a pumpkin.  I did the orange, but it took me a good row outside of my pattern.

I then filled in the areas between the ridges with the other wool in the kit.  There were some fun colors in there, and I was really happy with my finished pumpkin:

This is a little far away, but you can see the ridges in it.

This is a little closer to see the colors.  The kit had a neat burgundy plaid in it, and also some strips that are green.  I might not have selected those colors myself, but I like the effect in the finished pumpkin.  This has been a fun discovery in my hooking - taking strips of dyed wool and seeing the finished look when hooked.  I'm always amazed at how different a hooked strip looks from the original piece, and the different dimension the colors and patterns bring to the project.

I've discovered this is the truth-teller - the back of the project.  You can see the areas where I skipped or twisted the wool, and you can see how close I got to the sewn outline.  It's nice to have smaller projects like this so I can experiment with my hooking and get some practice in before I hit a bigger project.  I want to make a number of pumpkins in different colors and styles, but I don't know of a seller of linen or monk's cloth in my area.  There is a terrific store in Williamsburg, The Woolen Needle, also a distributor of Bee Line-Townsend products, but they are about an hour and a half away from me, and it's hard to get out that way often, so I need to find a supplier in the Quad Cities, or stock up at Sauder Village!!

My next step on my pumpkin is to cut around the edge, and sew the fabric on the back of it.  Then I fill it with rice or popcorn kernels, get the stem in and finish it off!  I also like this project because I won't be doing any binding.  Yay!  I have to admit, binding is my least favorite part.

I'm off to make this pumpkin 3-D.  I hope that's as easy as hooking it was!  I'm interested in other 3-D hooking projects - I have a sculpture of a pomegranate that I purchased from an artist friend of mine. 

It's about a foot tall, and now I'm dying to hook it.  It would be a fun one to do because of the variation in color in the reds, and I'm interested in dyeing.  Looks like I need to pop some popcorn and watch Gene Shepherd's dye videos at Internet Rug Camp!

But first, I have a pumpkin to finish.



And The Project Is....PUMPKINS!

Even though I already have the pattern for a new rug, circles within squares, I've been distracted by something a little more fun...

Pumpkins!!

Aren't they cute!?  I bought my pattern from Wicked Wool online, and just started hooking it today.  Beth, the owner of Wicked Wool in the Seattle area, showed me a darling green one that she hooked, and I'm starting the orange one.  Mine will not have the adorable face, I will be lucky to have a nice solid orange pumpkin and save the face for the next one, but the kit I bought has the different shades of orange and a cinnamon stick for the stem.  I'm loving the white Cinderella pumpkin, and the spider is very cool.  Beth has a fun and funky website, I love visiting Wicked Wool!

I met a local hooker, the lovely Julie Bohl, for coffee and some hooking.  It's funny, we drank coffee and talked about rug camps and this is how much hooking I did:

At this rate, I'll be done by Halloween 2012.

 

So the lesson here is that I need to teach myself how to drink coffee, hook, and talk at the same time.  I know it's possible, I see you all do it at Hook-Ins, but I don't see a video on Gene Shepherd's Internet Rug Camp about this topic, so I might be on my own here.  Gene?  It's time to get the camera out.

 

Here is the kit that arrived from Wicked Wool with my darling pumpkin in it:

 

 

It has a veriety of orange wool strips, the pattern, the instructions, some nice pictures, and a cinnamon stick for the stem.  It's looks very easy, and the pictures are really cute.  Here is what Beth's pumpkin looks like when hooked:

 

 

So cute!

I'm hoping for the same effect in orange.  I will be so thrilled if mine turns out anything like hers, but I might be in luck because I am a Bona Fide Packer, and this project loves packers!

Now I need the video of Beth making this pumpkin while talking to people, drinking coffee, and maybe refereeing fights over which kid gets the remote.  Actually, if there is a video about refereeing which kid gets the remote, I might need that one too.  Now I need TWO videos.  Or two remotes.  It depends on how much trouble I want.

I'll post my pumpkin when I'm ready to move on to the next stage.  Not sure how much more hooking I'll get done this week, my family leaves on Friday for a week in Atlanta and Nashville.  If anyone can recommend a video on how to have a calm, happy 13-hour ride in a minivan across the country in the heat of July with three kids and a cranky husband, I'm all ears. 

 

Admitting You Have a Problem is the First Step...

First things first, Bucky Bee is finally finished!

(insert applause here!)

I followed Gene Shepherd's video on how to whip the edges of the rug with the binding, and while I am no Gene Shepherd, it turned out pretty well for my first try.

First Rug is complete!

Now that I know I can do this rug hooking thing, and it is actually FUN, I am on to the next project.  I did buy some lovely wool at the Cream City Hook-In, thinking I knew what I wanted to do next:

Isn't it pretty?  Lots of fantastic greens,

and this amazing pumpkin/gold plaid.

And then...I froze!

I thought I wanted to do a simple 2'x3' rug for my family room in a pattern of squares within squares, because I've seen some really cool designs with that theme.  But then, I saw Sharon Townsend's circles that we use on the Bee Line - Townsend website, and then I saw a blog the other day (whose name I can't remember and am completely wracking my brain over) where the background was this fun collection of circles with brightly colored centers, and I thought THAT'S the rug I want to do next!  So I'm stuck on circles in my head for a week and then I find these at Wicked Wool:

Oy.  I am powerless.  I used to own a gift shop, and every Halloween I dyed yards of vintage chenille and made pumpkins to sell.  But hooked pumpkins?  When I have all of this beautiful pumpkin/gold colored wool?  What is a hooker to do?  So I ordered a kit.  Now I'm thinking, "Maybe I'll just wait on the rug for the family room and do the pumpkin first!" 

It's official - I have RADD. 

Rug Attention Deficiency Disorder.

I'm starting to try to talk myself down off the ledge.  There is plenty of time to do all the rugs I want to do.  But while it's hard to just look at that wool and not run it through my cutter with my favorite #7 cassette, when I pick up the wool and move it toward the cutter, I think, "WAIT!  What if I change my mind and want to use a #6?  Or a #8.5, which I also love?" and then "What if I decide to do something else, like a picture of my amazing Standard Poodle George the Superpet?"

And who wouldn't want a rug with this hunk of a dog on it? 

Who, I ask!?!  Maybe my mother, who is being

accosted by said dog in this picture.

Of course, now that I see this picture of George, I still want to do an Andy Warhol-style rug of his head, but I think that is a little beyond my capabilities at the moment.  Best to stick with my simple squares and circles.  So here I am, back at Square One.  Literally.  The possibilities of what you can hook are endless!  How do all of you experienced hookers out there ever decide what to do?  

I guess I need to cut my wool and Just Hook It.