IT'S A GREAT DAY ~ ~ ~

It's a great day because, finally, my 'Christmas Hands' rug is finished!!!! I drew the ten grandchildren's hands at Christmas 2005 and started it right after the holidays were over! And then, it ceased to be fun ~ hooking with basically two colors wasn't very challenging, I guess. Or maybe it was too much of a challenge ~ but not until someone on the Wool Snippets forum started a challenge for unfinished rugs (UFO Challenge), did I get interested in finishing this project!!

Last year on the Minick and Simpson blog, Polly Minick had a little contest to which I had the correct answer ~ and the prize was all this wonderful red, white and blue binding!! Since my colors were based on her blue and white star rug, I thought using her binding for this rug was perfect!! This close up shows lots of hooking 'holidays' ~ I guess they don't concern me a lot as I look at the how the rug lays from the front ~ if there isn't a low place in the way the rug lays, it works for me! How do you handle 'holidays'??

And this is the room that I hooked this rug for ~ a guest room predominately blue and white ~ perfect! The quilts are all antique except for the two on the foot of the bed on the right ~ they are Amish pieces that I purchased quite a few years ago. The washstand was from my mother's things and the bowl and pitcher were from my former mother-in-law. There are also an authentic Amish child's cape & bonnet hanging on an old shelf ~ but it didn't get in the picture!! Above the beds are pieces from my cross stitch days ~ that's the year my eyes went to pot and I had to get glasses!!

This is the room where Miss Luci and I have our tea parties ~ the small quilted pieces are Amish, too ~ as well as the painting above the table. As you can see, the Christmas Hands rug fits right in with the simple decor in this room.

I have to say that finishing a rug that was started three years ago really pointed out to me how much I've learned in those years! My hooking is higher! And I never would use now the light weight white wool that is used to separate the various blocks! As I started the rug, I left spaces unhooked in each block so that other blues could be used to fill in. A solid blue was not going to have much interest and as I picked this up again, that was very apparent to me. I even picked out other blues from my strip basket to fill in ~ in some of the blocks, I thought maybe I even got to carried away with trying to create 'interest'!! All in all, I'm happy with the result and more than happy to have it finished. I have two rugs I'm working on now ~ one is the sheep rug commissioned (I love to say that!) by my friend, Melody ~ and the other is the American Fish that I started in November ~ new things to post about!!!

And it's a GREAT DAY TODAY in our country because we have a new President!!!! I was glued to the TV most of the day watching history in the making for our country and no doubt, for the world!! President Obama is a commanding presence ~ we trust that he will guide the United States back into a place of prosperity and respect that we deserve!! Today was a very uplifting day!!! Tonite I'm going to hook and watch the inaugural parties on TV ~ sounds like fun!
Alice