RUG HOOKING BLOG

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I'm a mother of four grandmother of seven and great grandmother of three. I live with my husband in the house that we built with the help of my brothers and will have been married for 57 years this February.

Friday, March 13, 2015

MY ENCOUNTER WITH A UFO...

For those  of you who are skeptic, not to worry, I haven't gone totally  wacky yet... We call unfinished objects UFO. As most rug hookers knows, a lot of us like to hook but finishing the edges is not as exciting so we often finish hooking a rug and roll it up and put it away. Out of sight, out of mind until we find it again just to gingerly put it back in it's hiding place because we want to start a new rug...

This is exactly what happened to me this week when I was looking for a piece of wool. I found my little prim kitty rug that I had won as a give away from Lauren of Rugs and Pugs blog.



Here is the cute prim kitten  rug kit I received  on March 24, 2011. It was hooked up and  I had several ideas but couldn't decide what I wanted to do with it so it was rolled up and put away with the other UFOs.

This week, I was hooking and needed a place to rest my sharp snipper scissors  without scratching my table and then a light bulb went on... I'll use my kitten rug as a protective mat for my table.  I love to look at it because it reminds me of Lauren, a special generous blogger friend.



I cut a piece of charcoal wool about half an inch wider than the rug and sewed it on the back.
It's purrfect to protect my table from scratches and all my tools are where I can find them. Thanks again Lauren. I love it even more now that I have a good use for it.




To show you how I did it. I basted the zigzag edge of the backing  about half of an inch with white thread so I could pull it out easily after I was done.
Then I basted the back to hold it together and carefully sewed small stitches around close to the loops to hide all the white. The color came out blue but it is actually charcoal.  Since it was a small project, it was rather fun. I don't know why I didn't think of a use for it until now. It was meant to be...





Here is the back finished.




An update on my grandfather rug. I think I'll have to dye some more wool as I find the dark outline too dark. I had dyed some dark grey wool but apparently it was too dark to begin with.  I'll leave it for now until finished.

 The maple leaves on the collar were too bright so I married some wool to tone the color down and I used it on the buttons.  It's more of a burnished gold. Now I want to pull the maple leaves and re-hook them.  It won't take long to do that but I hate to rip...

I still haven't fixed that right eye in the inner corner. I need to bring the corner down a notch. Easier said than done and that's why it's still there. I need to be in the right mood to re-hook that...


My sign of Spring. Daffodils growing next to about three feet of snow on the South side on the lower cement deck in the back of the yard. It was too cold to get in the snow in my slippers so I took the shot at a distance.  The photo is too dark but you can see the shoot coming out.



The snow has gone down a lot when we had a few warm days but it's been cold again but sunny.
Thanks for your visit. I never take you for granted. I always appreciate your comments. They make me feel like you stopped to say Hi.

Only 6 days and 23 hours and some minutes to SPRING. Yeah.....

JB





Tuesday, March 3, 2015

BACK TO RUG HOOKING WITH KHAKI GREEN

WELCOME MARCH... I'm so happy that March is finally here and as usual, I'm late at welcoming it.


My thoughts has turned to rug hooking has the sun is warming up my hooking room.
I dyed some wool a Khaki green in different batches and even though I stirred the wool while it simmered in the dye bath and I stirred also after the vinegar was added before I put back the wool in the pot and I stir some more several times, it still comes out a bit blotchy.  I'll be working from what I have and we'll see how it turns out.  Usually I want a blotchy wool but this time I was trying for a more uniform color. I'll show you my progress when I have enough to show

I needed to do some more shovelling on the big deck a few days ago for obvious reasons...


This is a view from the sunroom in the back.  It was difficult to open the screen door as the snow was packed against it.

I managed to shovel to the Bar B Q and the snow was higher than the rail. No trees budding yet in our area...

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I ponder a lot as I work and today I thought that I would share my reflexion with you.

This morning as I was  caring for my calves, it dawned on me that we have seasons in our own personal lives just like we have seasons in nature.

Spring is when we are young and everything is new and beautiful and we have no worries and depend on our parents for all our needs. We can't wait to be old enough to do what we can't do because we are too young...

We are in our Summer when we start to be on our own. We have arrived. We are sure footed and go about our lives without worry of ever getting old and feeble.... We are more interested in living life without worrying about the future.

 Then as we start to get older and notice we are not as spry as we used to be, wrinkles are showing up everywhere, hair gets thinner, we are in our Autumn. We realize that we didn't get everything done that we could or should have done....

 When we really slow down and are aware that we won't live for ever and are full of aches and pain, our senses are diminished and we can't go back, we get slower and slower and the end is in sight, we become aware that we are in our Winter.

I'm sure you can add to this but this was my reflexion this morning.

We all have to go through our seasons one at a time just like mother Nature.  Enjoy today the best you can.
Thanks for visiting and leaving your lovely comments. I really appreciate them.
JB