Fun Little Projects

One thing I love to do is to make fun little projects with rug hooking. I haven't tried 3-D hooking yet, such as dolls or stuffed animals, but I have done a few smaller objects such as this 4" x 4" heart pincushion. It has one hooked heart and three cutout wool hearts down the left side secured by vintage buttons. The wool is all hand dyed, and the cushion is stuffed with fiberfill. The back is wool also. You all know how rewarding it is to make something that you love, and as a bonus--it's useful!!

Pets We Love!

Graybee was born on April 23, 2006. When Graybee was a tiny gray fuzz explosion of a kitten, we started calling him "gray baby" because we couldn't think of a name for him. We tried out dignified names like Grayson, Maximillian, and Grendel. Somehow they just didn't stick and the result was a shortened version of gray baby.

Graybee is an outdoor/indoor cat. He prefers indoors in inclement weather and much prefers outdoors at night and on nice warm days. He is really kind of like a dog in some respects...he meows at the door when he wants to go out, and if he does something naughty, a simple "no, no!" will usually stop the offensive behavior. He is a big cat, weighing about 16 pounds. Most days in winter, you will find him asleep on the living room loveseat listening to "New Age" music. He really does love that music!

A Rug and It's History

This hooked rug is one of the first rugs I started, but its progress was interrupted by several years of frustration with color, size and life events! The background color started off much lighter, an uninteresting beige color. It just didn't "speak to me", so I set the rug aside for at least two years. When I finally did pick it up to try again, I used the mottled brown that you see in the picture. The tree suddenly came alive for me and just seemed to be satisfied with the color I'd chosen. Since this rug is 28" x36", it took a while to complete but was worth all the effort. This hangs in my kitchen above our snack bar, the table where we sit for most of our meals. I truly enjoy seeing this every day and am so happy that I didn't give up on it years ago. Its story started with my first ever flying experience...

About 12 years ago, my sister Pat and I took a girls' trip to upstate New York to visit our sister Janice. It was in March, and it involved my first flight. I was a little apprehensive, having never flown and not knowing exactly what to expect. I live near Peoria, IL, and we took a shuttle flight from Peoria to Chicago for the flight to Albany, NY. The shuttle plane seemed so small as I looked out the airport window, and I had serious second thoughts about the trip! My brother-in-law, who had driven us to the airport, peered out the same window and said, "Oh good, you're taking the big one! Big one???
We boarded the plane and took off (take-off was great fun!!). The flight only took about 40 min., but the airplane smelled like burning electrical wires all the way to Chicago. I had a raging headache after about 15 minutes of that smell. Fortunately, the flight from Chicago to Albany was much less "smelly" and I thoroughly enjoyed flying-which surprised me. Anyway, at a small shop in Connecticut while visiting my sister, I saw this rug kit. I fell in love with hooked rugs and really wanted to buy the kit, but it was nearly $200! Too much for my budget! I remembered that pattern, though, and two years later bought the burlap pattern online and supplied the wool myself. The design is by Lib Calloway. That trip involved several firsts for me; my first flight, my first exposure to hooked rugs, and my first time to see the ocean. It was a thoroughly enjoyable trip. We decided a few weeks ago that we need to take another "girls' trip" soon--maybe to Savannah! Perhaps I will start a rug when we do, and it will be intertwined with memories of the trip...just as is the Shaker Tree of Life.

Antique Sheep Rug

This is one of my own designs from about two years ago, and is possibly my favorite rug because the colors turned out to be so close to what I was hoping for. Choosing wool colors is probably the most challenging part of rug hooking for me, and the thing I spend the most time doing for each rug. Some of the wool is hand dyed and some is as found. The rug measures 13" x 17".

Antique Sheep hangs in my living room above an antique bucket bench filled with crocks, sugar buckets, and old baskets.

I'm a "NEWBIE"

This is my very first post, and to be honest, I don't know what I'm doing! I'm fairly new to blogging (even reading them), but hopefully, I will be a quick study. I live in the Heart of America- the Land of Lincoln- where it is cold today (low 20's), but the sun is shining so I can accept any temperature when "gentled" by sunshine!

This blog will focus much of the time on my rugs, but life seems to interrupt my rug hooking regularly, so, undoubtedly that will be shared, too. This first post is pretty much an experiment, so we will find out together how it turns out. I hope this blog will be interesting, challenging, entertaining, informative, fun, and never boring. Yikes, sounds like a lot of pressure!!

As soon as I discover how to accomplish it, I will post pictures of rugs I have made and projects in progress. Talk to you soon!