Archives for June 2012

I always find that the rug I am hooking has a mind of its own. Not long after I pull the first few loops, the rug starts telling me what to do, in fact bossing me around. Put that colour here, rip out that section there! So rug progress is a bit of a freighted phrase. The rhythm of rug growth is uneven and unsure for me. Right now I am thinking about the ground beneath the house and the sky. I want them to be wonky circles of colour–at the bottom green moving into blue–at the top mid-blue moving to dark–and then a border of a flock of flying birds. So that is where my mind is as I move around sections of colour. I can draw all the designs I like, it’s not until those strips are pulled through to hunker down beside each other that I know what is working and what isn’t. And sometimes, all seems fine until I put a new section in–and then the whole thing changes.

At any rate, here is where I am now.  One step forward and three back.

I’ve been talking about the wedding rug for ages. Well…I finally began it last week at rug school. Since I was away in Italy until a very few days before leaving for Vermont, I did not have much of a chance to think or preplan. The rug has been dancing in my head for ages, but elusively.  So I cut and serged a piece of linen 4.5′ x 2’5′, tucked a few pieces of wool in my bag and a couple of books for inspiration and we set off for the hills of Vermont.

I have been hoping to do a rug inspired by Ton Schulten for quite some time. His paintings are built of bright geometric shapes which I am drawn to. I have played with geometric shapes in the background of many of my rugs. This time I thought it would be fun to put the geometry in the foreground and the background. I also knew I wanted a border of flying birds–after all this rug is for two very exuberant Birds! I decided to do a geometric version of their house as the main motif, flanked by huge colourful flowers. As I have told you, my teacher was Jule-Marie Smith and you couldn’t have anyone better to inspire big colourful flowers. Here is one from one of her rugs: 

And here is some of the wool stacked on my hooking table and the start of the wedding rug.  

I am home after a week in the Green Mountains in Vermont–the most perfect week of weather we have ever had there. I hope this photo conveys the beauty of this lovely campus tucked inside the mountains, the shades of blue and green set off by the reds and whites of the historic buildings. We have been coming each June to this school for six years and what a great pleasure it is to reconnect with the same rug hooking friends, to sit on the porch with hooking and a glass of wine, to rise early for walk in the mist, and of course to see the wonderful pieces of hooking which each participant has completed over the winter AND the new ones just begun in class.

And there are other essentials too. The Dorr Mill store is just 1.5 hours away–and we make our annual trek there mid-week. Montpelier has the New England Culinary Institute (where we enjoyed a fabulous lunch on Sunday) and Bear Pond Books, one of my very favourite books stores–I always buy my book for the week there, from their table of staff picks. This year I bought The Tiger’s Wife — will write more of it later.

Here are a few of the rugs from the rug show:

Pat Levin’s church and Doris Manker’s street scene: 

Mary Lee O’Connor’s view from her cottage: 

You may have seen Mariah Krauss’ Aires Woman in Rug Hooking Magazine–but, even though I had seen its photo,  I was not prepared for its incendiary power. The woman standing next to me had tears in her eyes looking at it. Mariah is the daughter of Stephanie Krauss, the director of the rug school, and she clearly has inherited the family hooking passion and talent. She dyed 12 values to get the depth and detail and it is hooked in various widths, including a #3. 
Here is a closer view: