PRODDY RUGS AND OTHER THINGS ~ ~ ~

Friend Pam came last week and brought her proddy sheep rug 'to see it's mama', as she put it!  He's such a fluffy guy and I love the swirlies in her background ~ kind of looks like fireworks when I look at the photo! Both this rug and the next one, were hooked in a proddy class here last year.

Deb sent me this picture of her  Lexington   Proddy Sheep ~ same pattern as Pam's (my design, by the by) but done with a flag background and proddy edge!  The paper is laying on it because it was on display at her guild's rug show ~ I love the bell and the deep rich colors! 

I hooked this Santa pillow years ago, under the tutelage of my friend, Carol Rahall.  She drew this on what she called 'hookable linen' (wish I could find some more) and gave me these narrow cut strip and roving and  loop-by-loop instruction!  I do love this pillow but know that I don't like hooking with those little 'threads' of a 4 cut.  I actually did some of these to sell way back when I started hooking ~ maybe I should draw some patterns for those who want to hook their own.  It could definitely be hooked into wool so that there is no background to fill in!  I'll work on that for my upcoming shows!!!

The same Carol Rahall, also hooked this snowman ~ I bought him at a shop near Medina several years ago because I knew Carol hooked for them ~ I also knew I would never do one for myself!  He sits in an old child's rocker all year long ~ I like him ~ and I like Carol very much!  She has hooked for probably 40 years and really helped get me on the right track so that hooking was fun and not a chore!  The advice to not hook in every opening was invaluable ~ you can hook a 'mountain' if you hook in every hole ~ take my word for it! 

A very sweet blog reader, Cyndi Lott, sent this wool pincushion to me just before Christmas!  That was such a nice gesture of friendship ~ very touching to me!  Cyndi said she was cleaning out her 'stash' and I see that she has shared some things with other bloggers as well!  Very generous ~ thank you, friend ~ I love it!

Another surprise present!  Hooker friend, Jackie, knitted this neckwarmer/ shoulder wrap and sent it to me in December! It's very cozy and just my color!  I had Sonny take three pictures ~ this was the best of the lot ~ I take dorky pictures but wanted you to see this great gift!!  Thank you, Jackie and Cyndi ~ you guys made my day!

P.S.  I joined Deanne Fitzpatrick's online class that will begin February  ~ I'm looking forward to that since I can't go to Nova Scotia right now!  If any of you are doing that class, I do have a few of her patterns on my website ~ it would save you the exhorbitant postage from N. S.  Let me know if there is one you would like!

Also, I joined Pinterest yesterday!  Not sure that I quite get the gist of it but I see so many posting pictures they've pinned from Pinterest that I decided to get in on the action!!  I have 3 followers already ~ I'll let you know how it works out!  I do read that it is definitely a time grabber or stealer or whatever!  Like I need something else to use up my time!!  Are many of you on Pinterest?

Have a great day ~ Alice

PRODDY CLASS ~ ~ ~

 A good time was had by all!!  At least, that's what they conveyed to me at the time! MJ, who just flew in from wintering in Florida,  is looking over Dawn's shoulder and Pam ~ my wonderful lunch helper ~ is looking on!  They all worked on my Lexington Proddy Sheep pattern that is at the top left of the sidebar.

Linda, MJ, Pam and Jackie show off their progress at the end of the day!  We really had a lots of laughs ~ Linda was especially glad to get here after being lost on these twisty, turning country roads with no markings!  We were sure glad she found her way here! 

Lauren and Dawn thought they were so cute hiding behind their work ~ Deb was very proud to show her face!!  Lauren really got a lot of her proddy done ~ she picked  beautiful background and border wools.

Here's Lauren's face ~ she's taking a picture of me

taking a picture of her.  Deb is very serious about her work ~ she was doing a great job on her sheep and flag background.  Linda is also doing a flag background on hers ~ love that!

I wanted you to see a close up of Deb and Jackie's

sheep faces ~ they're doing them in Leicester sheep fleece that I had in my stash!  So cute ~ they're going to be very fuzzy faces ~ one with hooked ears and one with proddy ears!  Jackie and MJ really stepped out of the color box and chose purples and teals for their sheep ~ I hope they like them as well when they're done as they did that day!  Of course, you know I was crazy about the vibrant colors!

Jackie is modeling her Funky Flower purse that she made in our fall class ~ I was so glad she brought it along to show everybody!  She and Deb came from Pittsburgh bright and early that day and Dawn from Indiana ~ bless their hearts for travelling so far ~ Linda and Lauren travelled a distance, too ~ they want to plan a class for summer ~ I have to get my thinking cap on!! 

I do try to give the gals a great experience while they're here ~ they get a nice lunch ~ a house tour ~ great wool to work with ~ and I try to teach them something new so they leave here feeling their time was well spent!  Thanks to each one of you for a day of fun and sharing!

My next post will be about the International Quilt Festival that Heidi and I went to ~ what a great time that was!!  We're already planning on it for next year!! 

I'm getting ready for a show this Saturday at the fairgrounds in Mansfield ~ Gathered Treasures ~ a great primitive show ~ come see us!  The info and link to their website is on my sidebar!  Then on Sunday, we leave for the Woolley Fox for three days of my favorite pastime ~ hooking!!!  What a week I've got going!  Ta ta for now!
Alice

LAST MONDAY ~ ~ ~

A week ago last Monday, that is ~ these girls came for a class on different ways to finish a rug! Penny, Joan, Susan and Lauren brought these finished pieces to work on and by the time they left, we had worked on five different ways to finish off their rugs! We had a great time ~ I served them homemade soup and pie for lunch ~ and I think we all learned some new things! I learned that I need a BIG needle if I'm going to whip with wool strips! Thank you so much, girls, for coming to spend the day and allowing me to share what I know with you and also the opportunity to learn from you, as well!!


Susan brought her proddy sheep rug for me to photograph ~ this was done in a class here a couple of years ago and I think she did a wonderful job! I love it all ~ her background, her border, and of course that woolly sheep!!
And Joan did a fabulous job on her proddy sheep and the flag background! Before she left that day, we talked about braiding the border, figured the wool in my odd way, and sent her on her way!! She did a great job and I was so happy to see her finished product! Thanks to both of them from letting me put their rugs out there for the world to see!!!

Here's the newest progress picture of the sheep rug ~ I'm doing the border in a hit-and-miss style! That's a really hard one for me ~ I am tempted to say that I'm way too controlling to be that random about using what's in front of me ~ but that sounds kind of negative!! Wish I could think of another word ~ I was going to say 'too anal' ~ we don't like that word either!! But you get my drift!!

And this, dear friends, is how I go about hit-and-miss!! I dumped the strip basket onto the floor !~ sorted the strips ~ and then choose from there!! Since there are lots of these little blocks running around the rug ~ these strips aren't going to do it ~ I have another basket that contains pieces of wool a couple of inches wide or so, that were left from other rugs ~ so I will soon delve into that pile! It should be interesting ~ and of course, I'll keep you posted!!

This has been quite a week, weatherwise, here in Ohio ~ like so many other places in this country! Snow ~ rain ~ COLD temps ~ you gotta be tough to live here, me thinks!! The daffodils are trying to hold up their big yellow heads under all this ~ kind of like many of us in this country right now!! That was profound, wasn't it?? Okay, I'm off to get the gray hairs colored ~ bless my daughter-in-law for taking care of that for me!!!!! Have a good day, friends!
Alice

ANOTHER PRODDY SHEEP ~ ~ ~

As you can see, I like doing proddy ~ proddy sheep in particular! This is one that I did at Barb Carroll's in one of her mini's , a couple of years ago. It is her Flag Day Sheep pattern but when I decided to do the sheep in proddy, the design took on a life of it's own. Barb added the flag background and then I added the braided border and voila! ~ this is the end result! I really like this guy, too!

I tear my proddy strips 1" wide and then cut them 3-4" long on an angle, so that I get this really shaggy look. There are 4 or 5 different wool textures in the body of the sheep. For me, a spring-loaded prodder works best and it's all done from the front of the pattern, which I hold in my lap or maybe work off a table.

My braiding is pretty rustic ~ I tore strips maybe 2" wide, sewed the strips together by hand, and then folded the edges in and braided at the same time. This whole rug was done in 3 days, including the braiding ~ when I returned home, I attached the braiding to the rug (the tricky part was blending the ends of the strips into each other at the end) and then bound the rug with wool strips. I have to say, one more time, that I just love this rug ~ but I really love most every rug I've done. The rugs that are displayed around our house are rugs that I've done at class or camp ~ there are others that I do for shows and with that in mind, I don't have a hard time parting with them. I do give a class on proddy in my home studio and sell the spring-loader prodders ~ anyone interested can contact me at gfraizer@neo.rr.com!

Just a note ~ right after I started this post, my darling Mr. Kitty jumped on the surge protector and shut the electric off to the computer!! I have to call him 'darling' so I don't say the bad thing that was running through my brain!!!!

We had a quiet weekend at the lake. Went for dinner Friday night with friends, went to an Art in the Park Saturday morning, came home and watched TV and napped ~ the entire afternoon!!! And ate ham sandwiches for supper!! We were definitely a couple of slugs that day!! Sunday, we had friends from home, up for the afternoon and went out for a fish sandwich before they left! Evidently, we needed a rest!!! And I didn't work on binding Mr. Catfish!! But that got started this morning!! So back to the hooking room to work on that ~ have a good day and thanks for reading!!
Alice

PRODDY SHEEP AND OTHER THINGS ~ ~ ~

This is the sheep rug that was our project when a group went to England two years ago. Cilla Cameron taught us the proddy portion and Heather Ritchie taught the stone wall background ~ what a challenge that was!! Heather's sample rug was a purple sheep and I latched onto one of the purple wool packets that was offered!! Then we chose 4 or 5 pieces of wool that Heather custom dyed for the stone walls. Kris Miller and I took close-up pix of Heather's stone wall hooking and it definitely helped when I was hooking this back home without her input! Heather had dyed Wensleydale fleece for sale and several packages of that came home with me ~ some purple went in the sheep body and I improvised on the pattern a bit and used the green for grass under the little sheep feet. I also made an attempt at a proddy flower at the end of the grass!! Those rock walls were the hardest thing to hook in such a fashion that it looked like stones ~ Heather lived her lifetime surrounded by all that texture and it was second nature for her but for most of us, it was a struggle! On my England Memory Rug, I prodded a smallish purple sheep into the top right of the rug to commemorate our reason for being in England in the first place.

There is an online rug hooking forum that I frequent and there are several rug hooking challenges that have been set up recently. The one that I joined is Unfinished Objects and you can check it out at http://www.uforughookers.blogspot.com/. So many rug hookers have pieces they've started and get put aside so this is a way to tackle that UFO and be held accountable through the team blog they've set up. It will be fun and productive, for sure! Mine is a rug of my grandchilren's hands that I started two years ago ~ the picture and story about it are on that blog site.

Several weeks ago, I posted about my sister, Joyce, having an embolism and heart attack. I'm happy to report that she is doing well ~ she even went out last week and did her Meals on Wheels route ~ hello !!!! She said her doctor said to do what she felt up to doing and she did!! We're a tough bunch and I know she doesn't want to let this get the best of her ~ I give her a lot of credit for that. She started hooking about the same time I did but hasn't pursued it as much ~ she mentioned that her hooking is shreddy and she doesn't hook fast, etc. I sent her the Hartman Hook this week and am waiting to hear if it's helped! I sell them now, because it made all the difference for me in regard to the ease of hooking with wide cuts! I hope she likes it and it gets her hooking again!

Another weekend is here ~ a new month has started! Does time fly for all of you like it does here? Holy crow ~ it's hard to keep up sometimes!! Take care and have a good weekend!

Alice

Maiden Voyage ~ Day Two

And what a voyage ~ I typed an entire post ~ tried to add a picture ~ saved the post into a 'draft' and have spent the last hour trying to edit the draft and publish it!! I finally printed the draft so i could re-write it and deleted it altogether and am starting new!! I'm going to master this blog thing and not let it master me!! So here we go again ~ ~ ~ ~ By the way, this would be a typical DAY IN THE LIFE experience for me!! yikes!!

Thanks to all of you who have sent comments and helped make me feel comfortable about doing this blogging thing! Today started out like a 'typical' day for me ~ I went to the hair salon for my 9:30 a.m. Wednesday every-three-week appointment and the only girl working said "what are you doing here?" Um ~ I'm here to get my gray hairs colored and cut ~ Your girl is on vacation, she replied!!!! Hm ~ ~ ~ I actually kind of knew that she was going to Florida but as it related to my hair appointment, it didn't compute. And she never said that I needed to reschedule this week because she wouldn't be there. The girl who was there kindly offered to do my hair later in the day, if I didn't mind coming back and I took her up on the offer. I guess my point in relating this dumb story is that years ago I would have reacted differently and not be very happy about being forgotten ~ but I'm learning that my reaction to a situation is what controls my feeling about it and that accepting the situation as it was, and blessing the fact that the other girl would take care of it ~ made it not a big deal at all!! I'm hoping to figure this all out before I leave this planet and I'm also hoping I've got a good long time to work on it!!!

Last night, I only got about 40 minutes hooking time in on Mr. Catfish, so I really won't post that little bit of progress. But ~ I will show you a proddy sheep rug that my friend/customer did in a proddy class that I taught! She brought it over yesterday (which by now is really two days ago since it's nearly 1 in the morning) and she really did a great job on it! It's a pattern that I drew especially for proddy but it certainly could be a hooked sheep as well!

Hopefully, I can add the picture successfully this time and instead of hooking tonite, I think I'll give in and say nighty night!!

Alice