A LITTLE PROGRESS ON MARY AND JESUS RUG

 I haven't hooked every day as I needed to dye some more wool or over-dye as needed. I also had to pause and think about how I was going to proceed to dye the color for the veil covering her head. I had some leftover Cushing dye recipes in jars in my dye cupboard and decided to use what I had instead of casserole dyeing. 

 I used some of the flesh color wool I had plenty of and painted it with a brush. At first, I was going to bundle some wool and tie it with string and let the color seep through but then decided not to go that route as the results might not be satisfactory for what I wanted. I'm all about using what is available if possible. 

The technique I used is painting the wool, which I never tried before, and I wasn't sure how to proceed. I decided on using the microwave for this technique. Again, this is a first for me. After painting the wool, I sprinkled the citric acid lightly to set the colors as opposed to the simmer in the pot method.  I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I wet the wool as required and layed it in a glass pan and painted the diluted barnyard red, then the diluted dark brown, then diluted yellow. I found it wasn't dark enough and repeated the process until I was satisfied. I dyed several darker pieces for the shadows. 

It's not exactly as in the picture and I don't think I could achieve the same look anyway.  My drawing is not even exact. I'm not sure whether I'll change Jesus's hair but it's a possibility as he looks kind of funny. For his hair, I used some worms from striped plaid wool I had left from my Julia Hen rug. Time will tell if I change it. I need to come up with a recipe for a blue dye for her mantel as I don't think I have any ready mixed. Not having the right colored wool can really put the brakes on a project.

I hope to have more to show next time or I may just do a wee tutorial on how I transferred the image on paper.

This is how some of my painted wool looked like once dried. Maybe there is a simpler method but I really enjoyed trying this type of dyeing. 

Another method I tried for the first time is cutting the wool and using matte scotch tape to attach all the worms as they come off the cutting wheel and marking it with an arrow and numbering each cut batches until the whole piece of wool was cut so when I hook, it has more of a pattern on the rug. I'm really enjoying hooking this rug even on Monk's cloth.

I celebrated a birthday this weekend and don't even feel any older. 

Thanks for visiting and leaving comments. I really appreciate your friendship.

Julia