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.

Saturday, March 24, 2018

SPRING RITUAL FOR AN OLD GARDNER & RUG HOOKING

Every year for as long as I can remember, I bought seeds and started to plant them to get an early start on those that needed a longer season to grow. We have a large plant nursery only a few minutes from where I live but being on a tight budget when I first started gardening made me conscious of spending my money wisely. I must confess that I enjoyed seeing the seeds sprouting and seeing the miracle of growing plants blooming with a little care.

I get more satisfaction from doing it myself and I can read about how every variety behaves and I make my choice accordingly. Seeds used to be very cheap but not anymore.


There is over $133. worth of seeds on the table. Hard to believe how expensive seeds are but if I was to buy the plants, it would be so much more.

In January, I look through the seed catalogs and I make my selection then in March I take my selection to our local Feed and Need store and gave them my order and in a few days, I got my seed order shipped from Vesey's Seeds for free. I got a call that my order is ready and I just went to pick them up at Feed and Needs and paid for them. I love this arrangement. My favorite seed catalog is Vesey's Seeds from PEI.

Many years ago, my husband George made me a grow light stand. I have it in my basement and I also have a grow mat that I use to keep some seedlings that need heat to sprout. I have to turn my lights on in the morning before I go to the barn and I turn them off at night before going to bed. I can put a timer on but I like to go check up on how they are doing.



So far I only have Geraniums growing but I planted my begonia seeds yesterday... My geranium are getting their second sets of leaves but I didn't take photos, but I have 11 seedlings growing.


My new scrappy rug using leftover small pieces of wool from other projects.

I've been hooking a chairpad as a challenge from our hooking group on Rug Hooking Daily, an online forum for fibre artists and I'm using little pieces of leftover wool from other hooking projects. Our group is called GREAT STASH DEWORMING MARATHON and we're always having so much fun. The worms I refer to are thin strips of wool that we use to hook with as seen on my new worm holder. 

As you can see I took out several rows of hoops to make his neck slimmer.  This is George the Rooster, by the way...  I'm debating on changing some too bright colors or over dying them. I'm just having fun with this. I can do that later if I decide to do it. As you can tell, not too much effort and thoughts went into designing the feathers.



The turquoise color you see on the breast feathers come from a piece of wool I marbelized not long ago. You can see it drying on the left. It's always fun to find a use for a strange piece of marbelized wool. I had no idea what I would use it for as I was experimenting  marbelizing for the first time

Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment. Have a great weekend and stay safe.
Julia