MY GRANDMOTHER'S TRUNK CREATIVE CHALLENGE AT LAST

Finally, I just got done wrapping a side of beef and thank goodness my husband helped me or I would still be wrapping until midnight.   As promised here are some photos of my new rug done in haste and still needs tweaking, I even forgot to put an accent on the word Grandmere.  Grandmere Cherie translates to Darling Grandmother.  You can click on the picture and hopefully you can see it closer. I need to fix a few little  details as usual.

This rug is designed  and hooked by moi, Julia Bourque, on jute burlap, is 24"x18" 100% wool except a tiny bit of very dark green between the yellow flowers.  All hand dyed wool except the hair and the blue sleeves and darkest green. I used a sheer gold ribbon given to me by my daughter as I couldn't find a narrow ribbon at the mall or at the fabric store.

This  challenge was to get us to do something that we remembered from our grandmother and we had to use two different brown and some wording. Although it was called Grandmother's Trunk Creative Challenge we were free to interpret this in our own way.  Everyone's rugs are totally different.

Thanks for your patience...

This is the picture that I used to draw the face and because my grandmother said that it was a windy day that day I changed her hair just because she would approve.  She always like to look her best even though she was poor like a lot of the folks at that time.

 Here is a rough drawing. I had even forgot to add the words on the design.   I used some pastels and wiped the dust off so it looks kind of washed off.

This was taken at night with the light on so it looks darker.  Notice the eyes are not even as per the photo. 

This is a close up of the necklace hooked with a ribbon that I had to sew folded and because of the color nuances in the ribbon it also shows nuances in the necklace. In this close up, the colors are more as they are on the rug.

Here is a close up of the face

I dyed most of the colors except the hair and the blue on the sleeves and the tiny bit of dark green.
I really enjoyed doing this piece but I think that if I would have more time to think and prepare, my rug would probably would have been of a different design.  I thought that since I painted faces on ceramics, I should be able to do the same on my rug.   I choose flowers because my grandma had those flowers growing in front of her house. It's where I got my love of flowers.

Today I also started another first, I started my first primitive rug.  This is the one I won from Rugs and Pugs a while back.  It didn't fit my frame so I sewed a piece of wool to make it fit.

This is what I managed to get done this afternoon. I took this picture in the dark a few minutes ago.

I hope that you will understand a bit how I went about to do my Grandmother's trunk Creative Challenge.   Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.  JB