Pumpkin Season is Coming...

Time for a little change of pace....
Lately, I've been working on a new line of hand dyed woolens that have more vibrant and saturated colors. Instead of my usual bundles of textured wools, these are dyed using a mottling technique over a wonderfully soft natural wool. I think they are incredibly beautiful (but, I'm biased!)
You can see what I've added to my website, so far, here:
Island Brights

I'll have a lot more to add as soon as I can squeeze in some good photography time (sometimes I wish I could clone myself :-).

One of my friends suggested that these new woolens would be perfect for appliqued pieces so I've hunted up some great applique patterns to stock as well.

This little work-in-progress pumpkin piece is proving to be a perfect project to try out some of these wools. It's so easy to do & bunches of fun!
The background is Kona Coffee, the pumpkin is Orange Hibiscus and the leaves are Rain Forest and Palm Leaves. I don't remember what the three colors on the right side are at the moment....I just stuck them on the design board because I'm trying to decide on colors for the smaller details on the piece.

A purist would probably use a nice wool crewel thread for the blanket stitch but, I have a bunch of beautiful hand dyed variegated embroidery floss from Gentle Arts that's just been laying around doing nothing so I put some of it to work!

Rug Hooking Diary...Wonderland

The hooking is finally completed on Wonderland. Many subtle changes have been made since I last blogged about it and I'm very happy with the result.
I have one major detail to finish but (tease, tease) you won't see that until next winter!

Rug Hooking Diary...Wonderland is Close!

I just returned from the Wine Country Rug Hooker’s annual retreat at Irish Beach….what fun we had. I wish you all could have been there. We took walks to the beach, did a lot of hooking, ate too much good food, laughed a bunch and had some tasty Margaritas!
I managed to get quite a bit of work done on Wonderland and it feels like it's getting close to completion.
I've decided to make one small change to the pattern as drawn. It has little crosses drawn in for the stars and, after hooking a couple of them, it's just not working for me. They look wonderful in Martina's original piece but I've pulled them out and plan to hook in a few stars at the end.

The biggest challenge, so far, has been bringing the trees into the foreground. A little story about this..... I meet once a month with a group of textile friends at a little tea shop on the island of Alameda; we sit outside in the patio/garden and hook, knit, embroider, and have good talks. At the end of one of our recent meetings, I held this piece up and mentioned that I was finding the trees to be a challenge. My lovely friend, Andrine, spoke up and said, "What trees? I didn't realize there were any trees!" Humbled, I went back to the studio & spent two hours tweaking the trees and roof lines.....a little strip here and a little strip there.
It's good to have friends who are honest with you and let you know when you can't see the forest for the snow!

Rug Hooking Diary... Value Study

I just wrote about this in response to a topic on Rug Hooking Daily & decided it was a good comment to add here.

Tools for evaluating light and color.....I keep a color wheel and a value finder with my rug hooking tools and find them to be invaluable. I have another color wheel that I keep tacked up next to my dye cabinet. It gets used constantly!

Sometimes I use the "squint" method for evaluating value but my favorite tool for evaluating values is my camera. I take a photograph of the area in question & convert it to black & white. It's easy to see at a glance when a value needs changing.

In this value study, I can see immediately in the B & W photo that I might want to change the value of the gold in the window pane of the blue door. The values of the gold & blue are almost the same & the pane disappears. In this particular case I probably won't change it because I like the overall quiet and cozy feel of the little cabin so far.

As you can see, it's a little slow-going on Wonderland right now.....I've worked very hard at getting the trees to stand out and I've mades several small changes to the rooflines to (hopefully!) give them some dimension.

Rug Hooking Diary...Wonderland Begins to Take Form

I'm sure enjoying working on this little piece! It's stretching my abilities & I see many small changes I'll want to make before it's done but I love the design.

I'm using a #7 cut for most of the hooking, a #6 cut for some of the detail and have hand cut a few narrow strips.

Susan asked about my directional hooking of the snow....I'm trying to make it look as if there are large drifts of new snow on the roof and trees. We'll see how successful the attempt is as more hooking is done.

Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging my dirty laundry out here for you all to see......the more I look at this photo, the more wierd things I see that need changing!

Rug Hooking Diary... Just a Beginning

Just a brief note today....I'm thinking that if I don't write so much maybe I'll add to this blog more often. We'll see!

I like the start I've made on Wonderland. I've marked up the pattern more than I usually do but, with the snow, it's really all about the values.

Doesn't it look nice & cool here? (As I sit sweating in the studio with the fan switched on high.)

Rug Hooking Diary... Starting a New Rug

Starting a new rug hooking project is often an ambivalent time for me...isn't that odd? It's a time filled with the excitement of new possibilities and the insecurities of the outcome. I love working out a starting point for a piece, thinking about the colors, maybe dyeing up something new...and where I begin with color is often different from where I end (which is so much of the fun in rug hooking). But, I also have those moments of thinking, "Can I do this? Will it turn out well? Will I mess it up?"

My next project is Wonderland, designed by Canadian rug hooking artist, Martina Lesar. It's a magical piece that I'm anxious to start! The big challenge.....hooking all that snow while giving definition to the landscape.

I've admired Martina's designs for some time. She has a wonderful sense of color and a beautiful, broad selection of rug hooking designs. She hand draws her patterns, leaves a good amount of border beyond the designs and is very careful about starting her patterns on-grain. I like her designs enough that I'm importing them to carry on my website (you can find them here: Martina Lesar Designs) and have three or four on my list of rugs I want to hook.

Quick update on my new studio....I'm behind on my photography but here are a couple of recent shots.

One of the best changes I made with the move was to invest in some nice shelving for the mill dyed bolts of wool....no more bolts of wool sitting on the floor.

The rolling cubby shelving for the hand dyed wool is making my life much easier. Looks nice too!